Loaded Casino Dice

There are craps systems, betting patters, and ‘counts’, but if you want a sure thing you need to bend the rules.  In the old days, players looking to cheat the house (or each other) commonly used loaded dice.

Weighted Dice

Archeologists digging through the remains of Pompeii discovered the first known loaded die (dating back to pre-79 AD) which had several small pieces of led installed behind one face. When you make one side of a die heavier than the others the center of gravity is shifted in the direction of the wieght, and thus this heavier side is more likely to land facing down.

Non-Weighted Dice

For cheaters who don’t want to weight their ‘loaded’ dice, there are a few other options.   One popular option is using a fake pair of dice, one of which has 5 pips on each side, and the other has only 2’s and 6’s.  This means each roll will either be a 7 or an 11 but  the forgery is pretty easy to detect.

A long running scam is reshaping the dice to control how they roll.  This can be done by making some corners/edges round while leaving others sharp or even shortening whole sides leaving some sides square and some sides rectangular.

If you’ve got a lot of resources you can make a pair of magnetic dice and install a magnetic coil in the craps table.  Then based on which north/south pole is on, you can turn on the coil and the dice will respond properly.

Casino Countermeasures

The casinos stand to lose a lot of money if players manage to use loaded dice. The real dice used in a casino meet rigorous standards to protect both the player and the casino.  Even the paint used to mark the pips (the dots on the dice) is poured in drilled holes till it is flush with the rest of the dice and is exactly the same density as the dice itself.  The dice sizes vary sometimes but are usually ¾ inch and they are made with a .0005 inch tolerance.  Casinos use dice with sharp edges and corners rather than rounded ones, because slight differences in the rounding can be hard to detect.  To help guard against weights being placed inside the dice, casino dice are almost always transparent.  During play, if there is any reason to question the validity of the dice in use, it is common for casino employees to measure the dice with a micrometer.

It should be made clear that it is illegal to use loaded dice in a casino game of craps. This information is simply for your education. If you're interested in other ways players attempt to illegally cheat the casinos, read about past posting.