You are cousins of Ali Baba. After he becomes rich, you keep pestering him until he tells you his secret - the hidden cave of the forty thieves. Now it is your turn to visit the cave and make yourselves rich too! Take as much as you can, but beware - you lose your sense of time in the cave. The thieves return at 12 midnight. If you hear them coming, drop everything and run for your lives!

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves is a game about grabbing as many treasures as you can before time runs out and everybody must scatter. Take risks to earn bigger rewards. Collude to throw someone else to the thieves. In the end there can only be one richest scoundrel.

Each round, players take turns revealing an opponent's card. As long as the total of all revealed cards do not reach 12, you claim a reward. The longer the round goes, the higher the reward. Whoever reaches or exceeds 12 gets no reward, and is penalised instead. Players know their own cards and may share this information (truthfully or otherwise), thus manipulating how their opponents play.

—description from the designer