Riddle of the Day

How the riddle of the day works

The riddle is picked from your device's date, so it changes at your midnight and is the same for anyone else on that date. Type your answer and press Check. Most answers are a single number, and the checker is forgiving: "twelve", "12" and "12 minutes" all count.

You get three tries. The hint points you at the right idea without giving the number away. If you run out of tries or press Reveal, you see the answer and a short explanation. Solving on consecutive days builds a streak, which is saved in this browser.

Some days are easy warm-ups. Others are proper brain teasers, like sequences with a hidden rule or old logic puzzles about bridges, doors and pirates. Hard days come round a couple of times a week.

More riddles with answers

Recent riddles from this page. Try each one before you open the answer.

Riddle #274, October 1

What comes next: 1, 4, 10, 22, 46, ?

Show the answer

94. Each term is twice the previous one plus 2: 46 × 2 + 2 = 94.

Riddle #273, September 30

What is 6 + 6 ÷ 6 + 6 × 6 − 6?

Show the answer

37. 6 ÷ 6 = 1 and 6 × 6 = 36, so 6 + 1 + 36 − 6 = 37.

Riddle #272, September 29

A jar holds 60 candies. You take a third of them. Then your sister takes a quarter of the original 60. How many candies are left?

Show the answer

25. A third of 60 is 20 and a quarter of 60 is 15, so 60 − 20 − 15 = 25.

Riddle #271, September 28

What is 8 + 4 × 3?

Show the answer

20. 4 × 3 = 12, then 8 + 12 = 20. Adding first gives 36.

Riddle #270, September 27

If 83 = 40, 27 = 12 and 39 = 18, then 93 = ?

Show the answer

45. Each result is the number minus 3, halved: (93 − 3) ÷ 2 = 45.

Riddle #269, September 26

If (4, 2) = 36, (3, 7) = 100 and (5, 4) = 81, what is (2, 6)?

Show the answer

64. Each result is the sum squared: (2 + 6)² = 64.

Riddle #268, September 25

Two trains 200 km apart head toward each other at 50 km/h each. A bird flies back and forth between them at 100 km/h until they meet. How many km does the bird fly?

Show the answer

200. The trains meet after 200 ÷ 100 = 2 hours. The bird flies for those 2 hours at 100 km/h, so 200 km.

Riddle #267, September 24

What is 3³ ÷ 27⁰ − 5² − 1?

Show the answer

1. 27⁰ = 1, so 27 ÷ 1 − 25 − 1 = 1.

Riddle #266, September 23

4 workers dig a hole in 6 hours. How many hours would 8 workers take to dig the same hole at the same rate?

Show the answer

3. The job takes 4 × 6 = 24 worker-hours. Split across 8 workers that is 3 hours.

Riddle #265, September 22

A two-digit number equals 4 times the sum of its digits. What is the smallest such number?

Show the answer

12. 1 + 2 = 3, and 4 × 3 = 12. The same rule also works for 24, 36 and 48.

Riddle #264, September 21

A box has red and blue marbles in the ratio 2 to 3. There are 35 marbles in total. How many are blue?

Show the answer

21. 35 ÷ 5 = 7 marbles per part, and blue has 3 parts: 21.

Riddle #263, September 20

Three volumes of a book stand in order on a shelf, spines facing you, volume 1 on the left. Each volume has 100 pages. A worm eats straight from page 1 of volume 1 to the last page of volume 3. How many pages does it eat through?

Show the answer

100. Page 1 of volume 1 is on its right side, next to volume 2, and the last page of volume 3 is on its left side. The worm only goes through volume 2, plus the covers.

Riddle #262, September 19

What is 3 + 3 × (6 + 1)?

Show the answer

24. 6 + 1 = 7, 3 × 7 = 21, and 3 + 21 = 24. Going left to right gives 42, which is wrong.

Riddle #261, September 18

Two stations are 280 km apart. A train leaves one at 60 km/h and another leaves the other at 80 km/h, heading toward each other. How many minutes until they meet?

Show the answer

120. 280 ÷ 140 = 2 hours, which is 120 minutes.

Riddle #260, September 17

Two patterns alternate. What comes next: 100, 5, 90, 10, 80, 15, ?

Show the answer

70. The first list drops by 10 each time: 100, 90, 80, 70. The second rises by 5.

Questions people ask

When does the riddle of the day change?

At midnight on your device, in your own time zone. Everyone on the same date gets the same riddle, so you can compare answers with friends without spoiling a different puzzle.

What kind of answers does the checker accept?

Most answers are a whole number. You can type 12 or twelve, and a unit such as "5 cents" or "day 4" is fine too. Case and extra spaces are ignored.

How does the streak work?

Solve the riddle on consecutive days and the streak grows by one each day. Revealing the answer, running out of tries or skipping a day resets it to zero. The streak is kept in your browser only, so clearing site data or switching devices starts it again.

Where do the riddles come from?

They come from our Android puzzle game, Math Riddles & Logic Puzzles, rewritten to work as plain text. The pool has 114 riddles, mixed so that easy, medium and hard days take turns.

Can I see older riddles?

Yesterday's riddle and its answer are shown under today's. Further down the page there is a list of recent riddles with answers you can open one at a time.