The object of the game is to roll your bowls closer to the jack than your opponent. A set of lawn bowls consists of four bowls. Lawn bowls is normally played on a bowling green approx. 40m x 31m. The green is divided up into spaces called rinks with in which you play. On average there are 7 rinks on each green (i.e. 7 games can be played on one green at any one time).

First a small white ball, the jack, is rolled up the green by one of the players. Once the jack has come to rest at the other end of the green, each player consecutively takes turns in trying to roll his/her bowl as close to the jack as possible. Once all the bowls have been bowled, the player with the closest bowl to the jack wins. This is called an "end". If the bowler with the closest bowl to the jack (the winner) also has the next closest bowl, he gets 2 shots (2 points). If 3 of his bowls are closest, he gets 3 shots, and so on. If the bowler with the closest bowl doesn't have the next closest bowl then he only gets 1 shot. Once you have worked out how many shots the winner has scored, the jack is rolled up from that end, which starts a new end.

A game can consist of either 15 "ends", 21 "ends", or the first person to reach a predetermined number of shots. A 15 "end" game would consist of bowling up and down the green 15 times, the person with the highest number of shots at the end wins.

The game can be played as singles (one player against one), pairs, triples, and fours (four players against four). In each game the number of bowls used varies: in singles and pairs, each player uses four bowls; triples, each player uses three bowls; and fours, each player uses two bowls.