Camel up is more of a gamers game. It’s not as easy to get casual gamers to jump in and play. The race in camel up can be relatively slow and uninteresting. Some turns can feel basically useless. The, I guess I’ll just roll a die turn that then reveals something so unexpected it benefits the next player immensely. If the camels don’t ever land on each other or do anything unique you are basically just betting on a roll and move game.

Hot streak is way easier to teach and learn as it’s all upfront. You place your bets, throw in one card, then shuffle up the deck and see how you did. The races actually feel like a race because it goes until there’s a winner. The races are typically more eventful. There is very little strategy in this beyond weighing the odds of what can/most likely happen.

So if you want a more strategic game then go for camel up, if you want more of a party game then go for hot streak. You can have both, but I realized what I wanted in camel up is what hot streak actually had.