Arrogance is a drinking game of chance which can be played with any number of players. Play passes around a circle, with the current player adding an amount of his drink to the central glass. The amount added is up to the player, and can be thought of as a form of “bet”. Adding only a little drink, especially to a fairly empty glass, is a small bet as this will be easy to drink if necessary. On the other hand, adding a large amount of drink, while risking a challenging “downing” task, also potentially inflicts that task on someone else.

Once the drink has been added to the glass, a coin will be tossed, usually by the next player in the circle. The current player will make a call, for example “heads I drink”, and when the coin is revealed will take the appropriate action (either drinking or not). The glass and coin will be passed on to the next player, who thus may or may not inherit a partly-full glass. If so, and if he fails in his coin toss, he will have to drink his own bet plus whatever the previous player bet. If he succeeds, the glass is passed on with the original bet as well as the new one. If a series of people guess the coin toss correctly, each adding some amount of drink to the glass, the next person to guess incorrectly will be faced with a very full glass to consume.

In most variants, someone required to drink must do so “in one”, as quickly as possible, ostensibly so that the glass can be used to continue the game. If a “softer” variant is desired, a new central glass may be introduced, with the drinker only required to finish before play returns to him round the circle.

Some players allow substances other than drink (peanuts, crisps, cockles) to be added to the glass. This adds another dimension (that of unpleasantness as well as quantity) to the betting process, and perhaps because of that is frowned on by most.