So unbalanced dice everywhere or not?

Quote: Keyser

Of course the face matters. The corners also matter.

When you have a rougher face, you may have more friction as the dice skip across the felt. There's also the issue of the missing mass on the engraved side of the dice. (If the side hasn't been filled back to flush).

You are correct. Of course the face matters.

But the corners matter much more than the face.

It's a simple exercise to look at slow motion footage to see how often the face makes contact with the felt as a ratio of how often a corner makes contact with the felt prior to the resolution being determined.

I believe the ratio is somewhere between 20 to 1 and 100 to 1. But that is a wild ass guess from my observations.

Are you thinking the ratio is closer to 1 to 1 than I am thinking?

I'm not disagreeing with your second statement, just saying that it really doesn't have much of an effect compared to the effect of dulled corners versus sharp corners.

SHOW ME THE DATA. I admit I only have guesses, but do you have data to combat my guesses?

I will have to pay more attention when I go to the Beau Rivage in March. I have been on the table many times when they change the dice out, and the new sharp edges are ALWAYS a tell. There have been quite a few times when I have come to the table, grabbed the dice, and correctly stated these were new dice.
What I'm not sure of is if they change the dice out every 8 hours, or every 24 hours.

And for whatever reason, new dice 'feel' like they 7 out more often. I realize this is probably not the case, but it feels that way.

As far as a casino playing with unfair dice, that would be just stupid. They already have the advantage on every bet, assuming fair dice. If they had biased dice in play, and I can figure out the bias, I can clean them out by betting on that bias. The casino would no longer have the edge. I would.

Does anyone has experience with casinos in Europe?
There are sometimes big casinos, but sometimes It's like small game centers and I can't imagine that these guys regulate it that well, I am going to check in the upcoming days..

Quote: whatever61

Does anyone has experience with casinos in Europe?
There are sometimes big casinos, but sometimes It's like small game centers and I can't imagine that these guys regulate it that well, I am going to check in the upcoming days..

When I was in Europe about 2 years ago, I visited a few casinos in Prague, Vienna, and Berlin, but did not see any craps tables. Apparently it is virtually unheard of in central/eastern Europe. I'm pretty sure the casinos in London have craps. For whatever reason when I was in London, I didn't feel like gambling so I didn't even look for the casinos.

Has this come up already? I did a search for unbalanced dice and I thought this was curious:

http://crapsadvantageplayers.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-too-many-dice-are-unbalanced.html#links

Quote: AlanMendelson

Has this come up already? I did a search for unbalanced dice and I thought this was curious:

http://crapsadvantageplayers.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-too-many-dice-are-unbalanced.html#links

I tried to read the entire thing. It was fascinating. I am still waiting to find out what all the biased dice are biased towards? If one knows which digit is more likely to come up, it would be quite easy to choose bets to take advantage. You know 5's are favored? Bet the yo and hard 10. You know 3's are favored? Bet the hard 6, or regular 6 for that matter. You know the 1's are favored? Bet any craps.

Well, if the 5s and 6s are heaviest it limits several combinations including the hard ten, hard six, and 5-3 and 3-5.

But the question is are the pips of uniform weight and do in fact make the dice faces weigh different amounts? or do the pips offset the weight of the dice "cube" material?

that part is left out of that post.

Quote: SOOPOO

You know the 1's are favored? Bet any craps.

I think I actually found dice bias this way once...we would bet heavily on aces-acedeuce, and turning 3-1, and we would hit it a LOT...of course, this was a $1 table, so we just played $1 on the bets, but we'd always come away with at least $100...

So besides this blogger's experiment with melting dice, has there ever been anything more scientific done?

Putting the dice into one of those spinning gizmos would not reveal a bias because the 6 and 5 faces are adjoining.

Although I have never met this person before, it was this "research" that led me to create the die balance and spend thousands of dollars to make the point that I made: effectively this is a bunch of crap.

It is true that dice come to casinos that won't "mic" as it is referred to not measuring the same distance along each face with a micrometer.

But any such bias resulting from the casino using bad dice is generally a way to lose money on the free odds bets for the house, and represents more risk than it is worth to the casino no matter how the bias is set up.

If the game were crapless craps (disallowing don't pass) and you only had two dice to shoot with, they could really get you, though.

When you choose two out of five dice, I'm pretty sure choosing two that are balance 180' out of phase with one another no matter which two out of 5 (or 6) is difficult to ensure for the casino.

I don't see any discussion in his online "resources" that discuss:

1) Histograms out outcomes using the unbalanced die
2) Simulations of betting strategies to demonstrate how when any two of five purposefully unbalanced dice are used, both sides have a greater edge

The irony (and humor) in the discussion is that the house already had a huge edge that it employs against the prop betters, and that's plenty enough to make money. You don't need to believe this stuff to know that the house effectively robs many players by shorting them big on pay when they bet the stupid bets.

Quote: AlanMendelson

So besides this blogger's experiment with melting dice, has there ever been anything more scientific done?

Putting the dice into one of those spinning gizmos would not reveal a bias because the 6 and 5 faces are adjoining.

Wouldn't it? Surely if they are heavier, you could put the dice on a balance so that 4/5/1 corner was one point of contact and the 6/2/3 was the other. Then the 5/6 side would be the able to drop to bottom of the balance, if it was heavier. It doesn't, from the dice balance video I've seen (I think by AHigh).

The fact that some plastic melts faster or slower doesn't mean it's density is less or more.

Quote: Ahigh

Although I have never met this person before, it was this "research" that led me to create the die balance and spend thousands of dollars to make the point that I made: effectively this is a bunch of crap.

It is true that dice come to casinos that won't "mic" as it is referred to not measuring the same distance along each face with a micrometer.

But any such bias resulting from the casino using bad dice is generally a way to lose money on the free odds bets for the house, and represents more risk than it is worth to the casino no matter how the bias is set up.

If the game were crapless craps (disallowing don't pass) and you only had two dice to shoot with, they could really get you, though.

When you choose two out of five dice, I'm pretty sure choosing two that are balance 180' out of phase with one another no matter which two out of 5 (or 6) is difficult to ensure for the casino.

I don't see any discussion in his online "resources" that discuss:

1) Histograms out outcomes using the unbalanced die
2) Simulations of betting strategies to demonstrate how when any two of five purposefully unbalanced dice are used, both sides have a greater edge

The irony (and humor) in the discussion is that the house already had a huge edge that it employs against the prop betters, and that's plenty enough to make money. You don't need to believe this stuff to know that the house effectively robs many players by shorting them big on pay when they bet the stupid bets.

That's what I was thinking. In a negative expectation game like craps, the risk of loading the dice seems way too high for any possible benefit for the house. I can clearly see it being tried by a player, at risk of jail time. I get confused, but i think it was earlier in this thread that I posited if you would 'weight the 2 side' so more 5's would come up, you could easily and likely anonymously make a killing just making regular right side wagers.
Aaron, I agree there are many 'stupid bets' on the craps table, but I would never use the phrase 'house effectively robs many players'. As long as the rules and payouts are clear and unambiguous to the player, then no 'robbing' has occurred.

Last night a guy got hauled off at the Silverton after he was suspected for taking a die that went off the table.

This was the first time I saw a die get lost that could not be found, and somehow the player who got taken away by security was identified by a combination of the players and the dealers (and possibly surveillance) as the reason the die could not be found.

I find it INCREDIBLY entertaining that people actually believe this stuff. I run into people frequently at the casino who have read Harley's musing and report to me asking me what I think about it. Actually making that video and spending a couple thousand bucks could have already ended up being a time and money saver for me as I can just say "I have a you tube video about that if you're interested" instead of wasting my breath.

The guy who got hauled away made a $400 horn bet before getting hauled away.

I doubt he knew what he was doing, but he was winning.

That was the first $400 horn bet I have ever seen at the Silverton, though.

He lost it. I don't think the house felt threatened by him, he was really just annoying everyone else at the table.

Normally he would have lost all his money and lost, but he was getting very lucky with his last few bucks and just couldn't seem to lose no matter how stupid the bets he made were.

Quote: thecesspit

The fact that some plastic melts faster or slower doesn't mean it's density is less or more.

that is exactly what I would like to know. are the pips heavier, lighter, the same as the other material used to make the dice?

Quote: Ahigh

Last night a guy got hauled off at the Silverton after he was suspected for taking a die that went off the table.

Could you explain this?

Did they think he stole the die to cover up for it being loaded? Or did they "haul him off" because they thought he pocketed the die?

I recall a die going off the table on a crowded Saturday night at Caesars and no one made a fuss over it. Dice have code numbers that change per shift and there is little risk that the "lost die" would be reintroduced to a game later as an altered die.

It happened at the table I was on and for the next several hours we played with just four dice.

I think anybody who makes a maximum allowed horn bet is not feared in any casino.

The dealer, Salvitore, said, "he had to have taken it."

The missing die was just the straw that broke the camels back.

Even if he pocketed it, he didn't have the mental capacity and was far too drunk to even know how to take advantage of having taken the die.

A few feet away, you can buy the same (cancelled) dice for $1.00 per pair.

He probably just didn't know that and wanted a souvenir.

Anyway, it was the first time I have seen anyone taken away for being suspected of taking the die.

I'm pretty sure that was the issue that triggered security.

But if he were sober and not acting up, I don't know if they still would have taken him or not after the die ended up missing and they suspected him of taking it.

So was it that he was drunk or that he took the die?

I have a stick of uncancelled dice from a major Strip casino. Is that something special?

Quote: AlanMendelson

I have a stick of uncancelled dice from a major Strip casino. Is that something special?

Yes. It is very scary to casino security to have their actual gaming device in foreign hands.

Not that you would, but if your goal was to introduce difficult to detect gaffed dice into an actual game, you have the most precious piece of the puzzle in hand.

The material used to for the pips is equal in size and weight to the material it replaces on the cube. This is carefully done to ensure the cube remains fair.

Quote: Ahigh

This was the first time I saw a die get lost that could not be found, and somehow the player who got taken away by security was identified by a combination of the players and the dealers (and possibly surveillance) as the reason the die could not be found.

I've told this story before but I can't find it...the short version: One time at Bill's, a die flew off the table and couldn't be found easily. This was in the middle of the day so it wasn't super busy. The pit poss get a couple security guys to keep looking under all the tables, down all adjacent hallways, etc. while the game went on with 4 dice. They were still looking when a guy who had been at the table but had left excitedly walks back with the die in his hand, proclaiming to the pit boss that it had fallen into his pant cuff, and he didn't find it until he was leaving! No clue if that's what actually happened or if he was trying to pocket it and then decided against it and made up a story...not sure what would be the point there.

Quote: Ayecarumba

Yes. It is very scary to casino security to have their actual gaming device in foreign hands.

Really? It was a gift from a manager.

Quote: AlanMendelson

Quote: Ayecarumba

Yes. It is very scary to casino security to have their actual gaming device in foreign hands.

Really? It was a gift from a manager.

Perhaps they are a color or style that is no longer used, and easy for the pit crew to identify? Have you opened the package?

Remember that it is a felony in Nevada to possess cheating devices, so I wouldn't advise even returning them to the casino.

Not that I or anyone here would, but if you did want to load them, replacing the white material under the pips with a heavier material is the obvious way to do it. You would then have to identify a table using that series of numbers (maybe one day a year?). Then you have to swap them into and out of the game with some sleight of hand. Since you have five dice, you could try to stagger the serial numbers to allow you more opportunites than one per year... There are lots of ways to do bad with the "enriched uranium" in your possession.

Loading dice to cheat in the game of craps is the one area where they are locked, loaded, and ready to do everything they have to do to detect what you are doing and put you in jail in short order.

The main evidence this guy would have in court that he wasn't cheating was that he was drunk as a fuckin' skunk, and he was making the stupidest bets in the world.

Even if he was TRYING to cheat, there is absolutely no way this guy had a better chance to win from cheating than he had from pure dumb luck.

If he's a really good cheat, all of this was a smoke screen to help him define his character as the epitome of a pathetic drunk ass loser.

I use them at home when I want to practice my "CONTROLLED THROW" on my bed. Yes, they are the current dice. I am not going to reveal the casino now, because I don't want Casino Black Ops Helicopters to buzz my home and the casino plumbers to break in and steal em. LOL

But I doubt the code numbers on the dice are current. And I doubt they could be tampered with and not show tell tale marks.

but just in case someone would like to try.... how much for the five of 'em??? LOL

Quote: AlanMendelson

...but just in case someone would like to try.... how much for the five of 'em??? LOL

Hehe... Danny Ocean on line 1....

I wanted to congratulate some of the interesting thought provoking comments above on the biased dice issue … since we are not able to balance the dice at the table before every roll and the Nevada Gaming Commission refuses to do their job, unlike the Colorado Gaming Commission, every avenue needs to be considered.

Our website http://crapsadvantageplayers.blogspot.com/p/biased-dice.html does not disclose all of our scientific findings, but only gives a general understanding of how the casinos are using Biased dice to "legally" (in Nevada) increase their house edge in craps

If you want to learn more, I suggest reading about the Biased dice or Percentage Dice as John Scarne describes them on page 209 of his book Scarne on Dice. Scarne explains that whoever is using percentage dice

Quote:

“… doesn’t have a sure thing, but he has a percentage in his favor that pays off in cash.

… If the dice roll long enough, … The victim (player) loses because he is playing against two opponents – the cheat (casino) and that invisible but very dependable and powerful gentleman: Old Time Percentage.

Percentage dice, not on the level … “

Quote: Harley

I wanted to congratulate some of the interesting thought provoking comments above on the biased dice issue … since we are not able to balance the dice at the table before every roll and the Nevada Gaming Commission refuses to do their job, unlike the Colorado Gaming Commission, every avenue needs to be considered.

Our website http://crapsadvantageplayers.blogspot.com/p/biased-dice.html does not disclose all of our scientific findings, but only gives a general understanding of how the casinos are using Biased dice to "legally" (in Nevada) increase their house edge in craps

If you want to learn more, I suggest reading about the Biased dice or Percentage Dice as John Scarne describes them on page 209 of his book Scarne on Dice. Scarne explains that whoever is using percentage dice

Good LORD! Are you a millionaire from betting the don't yet? All you have to do is go at the right times, right?

I had the great displeasure of reading your linked page, and I am SHOCKED--- and I mean SHOCKED--- to find that you have precisely ZERO evidence presented on your page. You took the time to list all the amazing professionals (nameless of course) who are on your team, but did nothing to actually demonstrate the evidence you have. Take this biased dice you obtained from the casino and prove its properties on youtube.

Also, which number does the casino favor on the biased die to make them win more often? Are all the dice in a stick biased in the same manner?

It has been mentioned before, but all of the casino dice have a serial number in them. I believe all 5 dice in a set have the same serial. So even if you have 5 dice with the casino logo, AND you have the right color, you still won't have the right serial in hand. Of course, they do not look at the serial every time, but I have seen the box reach down and grab a die on occasion. This is where you will get caught switching a die. Not worth it

unbalanced dice??????

By that question i assume some thinks the dice are loaded in favor of the casino.........after i fell off my chair
laughing. i realized some one may actually beleive that.

To answer that question all you have to do is watch a typical craps game. People pick up the dice and throw them as hard as they can,
they throw them back wards, under their arms off the table, around the table, the play the field, the hardways the yo, the big red
and even a hop bet... and they think, the casino needs help taking all their money.......laughinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng

Craps is the only game i know people line up to lose their money, make no effort to get better and then call people that actually take the game
serious and work at a fraud.

What i have seen the past 35 years makes me wonder how people that play as stupid as they do could acually be smart
enough to make that money in the first place.

To me it is a simple concept really, one should work as hard keeping their money as they worked to earn it. Craps and poker are the
only way i know what i can play and have a better than average chance of winning.

Dicesitter

Quote: dicesitter

unbalanced dice??????

By that question i assume some thinks the dice are loaded in favor of the casino.........after i fell off my chair
laughing. i realized some one may actually beleive that.

To answer that question all you have to do is watch a typical craps game. People pick up the dice and throw them as hard as they can,
they throw them back wards, under their arms off the table, around the table, the play the field, the hardways the yo, the big red
and even a hop bet... and they think, the casino needs help taking all their money.......laughinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng

Craps is the only game i know people line up to lose their money, make no effort to get better and then call people that actually take the game
serious and work at a fraud.

What i have seen the past 35 years makes me wonder how people that play as stupid as they do could acually be smart
enough to make that money in the first place.

To me it is a simple concept really, one should work as hard keeping their money as they worked to earn it. Craps and poker are the
only way i know what i can play and have a better than average chance of winning.

Dicesitter

I enjoyed reading these comments.

Much to my surprise, one of the dice I used in tonights show didn't pass my balance test.

I'm Harley's biggest critic, but I have to give some more time to scrutinize what is going on with this die that's showing the corner of the 4/5/6 being heavier.

Quote: Ahigh

... what is going on with this die that's showing the corner of the 4/5/6 being heavier.

Being aware of that fact, how would you change your betting style to adjust for that, if anything?

Quote: Venthus

Being aware of that fact, how would you change your betting style to adjust for that, if anything?

Right now I wouldn't have any clue as I haven't followed along any line of reasoning that the idea of gaffed dice being intentionally used in the casino as possible.

I have the most advanced equipment for detecting unbalanced dice that's out there as I had it built myself from a master craftsman with decades of experience working for Rolex.

This die is coming up as unbalanced, though. And possibly the other one too.

There's only 140 samples, but it indicates that one die is biased to the six, and the other die is biased to the one, or otherwise they are both biased equally towards the six and the one.

I have set the dice aside to do some more digging, but the charts are likely to just be random. But it sure fits Harley's story, there just aren't enough samples for it to mean anything.

Randomness characteristics take a lot of samples to observe. This is a tiny number of samples, and still is likely to just be random even if the dice aren't balanced perfectly.

But it is interesting enough to follow up on.

Quote: bbvk05

Good LORD! Are you a millionaire from betting the don't yet? All you have to do is go at the right times, right?

I had the great displeasure of reading your linked page, and I am SHOCKED--- and I mean SHOCKED--- to find that you have precisely ZERO evidence presented on your page. You took the time to list all the amazing professionals (nameless of course) who are on your team, but did nothing to actually demonstrate the evidence you have. Take this biased dice you obtained from the casino and prove its properties on youtube.

Also, which number does the casino favor on the biased die to make them win more often? Are all the dice in a stick biased in the same manner?

Good LORD ! .... some posts are not worthy of comment, but if you would have watched "The Ahigh Show" broadcast live this evening, you would have seen the effects of cheap biased real casino dice and how they impacted Ahigh's toss and betting strategies, even with the help of his really nice computer program.

Also - per your REQUEST - here are some links for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi7PMlAYJh8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PIafzk8KJc

.... stay tuned, 5 more videos have been produced and are on the editing table ....

Quote: Harley

Good LORD ! .... some posts are not worthy of comment, but if you would have watched "The Ahigh Show" broadcast live this evening, you would have seen the effects of cheap biased real casino dice and how they impacted Ahigh's toss and betting strategies, even with the help of his really nice computer program.

Also - per your REQUEST - here are some links for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi7PMlAYJh8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PIafzk8KJc

.... stay tuned, 5 more videos have been produced and are on the editing table ....

> Conflating cheap manufacturing processes with the intentional casino cheating claims I was mocking.

Harley is that your web page I found with melting the dice to show the pips don't melt? And this, you say, makes the 5 and 6 faces of the dice heavier?

This question came up: is the material used to create the pips heavier than the material used to make the actual dice cubes? If it is heavier then you found something that is suspect. But if the pip material is of the same weight as the cube material, then having more pips on any side of the dice would not affect the weighting of the dice.

So, you melted the dice, but did you weigh the pips and weigh the same amount of cube material?

If you are correct that the sides with the 6s and 5s weigh more, and gravity does its job, it will affect the distribution of numbers in a random roll. Over on my website I did a basic illustration of what those numbers would be turning each die by one face and there are dice results which would never appear. Again... if the faces with the 6s and 5s are heavier and the dice rotate only one face.

During the show, the die in question was heavy towards the 4-5-6 corner.

I am still a skeptic as much on this topic (casino biased-dice) as SOOPOO is on the other topic (player biased-throws.)

But nobody has done as much research to determine what side is heavier of an off-balance die as I have.

I will have to just fire that back up for a moment at least.

These dice were purchased in a factory seal (I have three boxes of them) and are not cancelled. Here's a merchant on E-bay selling sticks from boxes that he also purchased from the same guy I did.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Set-of-5-Paulson-Casino-Dice-Sun-Cruz-Casino-Dark-Blue-/310372621939?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4843a65e73&_uhb=1

After determining that the 4-5-6 side was heavier, I put that corner along the axis of rotation and it was balanced along that axis.

With my balance, there are three possible axes of rotation. If there is an imbalance due to pips being heavier, my balancer would be able to spot that, and it's reasonable to believe that what we saw could be explained by pips being heavier.

It could also be explained by deformations related to the logo of the casino and other things. So nothing is conclusive at this point. This is a tricky art form, really. But casinos generally just use faith that if they "mic" properly they are done.

This die mics properly but fails my balance test.

If there is a logical explanation besides the pips being the wrong density, it's likely that the casino's logo is interfering with proper alignment of the die in my caliper.

Ahigh


Again, what difference does it make......I have seen casino's balance dice a hundred times, i have seen casino's not open the
table because they ran out of dice and cant use the same dice as the night before.

My point was not to say that all dice are perfect, but to say the way most people approach the game it would be impossible for
them to tell.. I have seen people loss $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 and much more in one game throwing with their eyes
closed, etc......

i am 64,, over the past 35-40 years i have seen most of the best, ( i am sure not all) dice controllers, and have never seen or
heard of anyone detecting weighted dice. That question on here is amusing since there is no one within a hundred miles
that beleives dice control is possible. If a randum shooters throws 10 rolls, 3 off the table yet gets 3 results of 4/5 then we
are to assume they are off balance and we better bet 4/5.

I am sorry to sound like a jerk in this thread, i dont mean that, any question is a valid one, however i have seen so much
money lost by people that try so little, then try to find some reason for their loss. We should be helping each other keep
it rather than helping a casino take it.

dicesitter

Quote: dicesitter

Ahigh


Again, what difference does it make......I have seen casino's balance dice a hundred times, i have seen casino's not open the
table because they ran out of dice and cant use the same dice as the night before.

My point was not to say that all dice are perfect, but to say the way most people approach the game it would be impossible for
them to tell.. I have seen people loss $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 and much more in one game throwing with their eyes
closed, etc......

i am 64,, over the past 35-40 years i have seen most of the best, ( i am sure not all) dice controllers, and have never seen or
heard of anyone detecting weighted dice. That question on here is amusing since there is no one within a hundred miles
that beleives dice control is possible. If a randum shooters throws 10 rolls, 3 off the table yet gets 3 results of 4/5 then we
are to assume they are off balance and we better bet 4/5.

I am sorry to sound like a jerk in this thread, i dont mean that, any question is a valid one, however i have seen so much
money lost by people that try so little, then try to find some reason for their loss. We should be helping each other keep
it rather than helping a casino take it.

dicesitter

I will tell you what difference it makes: if I don't do this work, Harley is going to take it as evidence that the conspiracy of casinos biasing the dice to be true because I don't do my due diligence.

I absolutely did not want to go down this road, as I verbalized after Harley suggested testing the dice.

I made the point that it's most likely just randomness and that we were only looking at an extra five sevens.

I made the point that I have rolled more than five sevens IN A ROW in a casino, and the point that I'm sure many people have seen this.

It's truly not that unusual. What we are truly looking at is just randomness with this few number of rolls.

But when after all that, the die comes up in my caliper just like what Harley expected to see, I am obliged to continue to trod down that path until I figure out what the hell is going on.

I may not get done for months, and I have no serious interest in following up on this.

But if it leads me to go play on the alibaba dice tables and play the passline with 10x odds to take advantage of a gaping hole they have for me to exploit, I have $50,000 worth of cash at my fingertips for just such an exploitation-fest.

I may not disclose what I'm doing until my work is done, but I will alert the casinos that if you see me random rolling in your joint, you may want to be more scared of me trying to deliver a controlled toss!!

Anecdotally, the most fear I have ever seen on Wayne's face at the Silverton was when I was just randomly throwing the dice. I think he came down to watch just out of disbelief that I wasn't trying to do a controlled toss. I was winning some bigger than normal amounts, but I could tell he was curious what the hell was going on and how far it was going to go.

I do love gambling, and when I bet bigger, I know that delivering a controlled toss is only even THEORETICALLY a valid approach if you have the number of samples to go behind it. If you're doing a few bigger bets, any toss will do!!! That's my opinion.

But if there is bias in the dice (which I highly doubt) you do want to flat bet with max odds or max lay odds once you get enough samples for a specific pair of dice that you can identify that indicates what that bias is.

I may do more research on how to pick out the same two die and if an entire table of random rollers can all pick the same two die based on specific criteria, and quantify a bias of those two die, the casino would have a right to be scared, and you better believe they are going to change those dice as soon as they are hip to what is going on.

This would be totally legal, and you'd only need one dude somewhere off to the side who is taking information and compiling the data from a monte carlo simulator to tell you how to bet to exploit the dice's bias with a minimal edge.

I have seen dice with spots on them that could help you identify them, but normally it's nearly impossible to tell one die apart from the rest.

If you found one die that was seriously damaged and the others were clean, just identifying the one damaged die would be the most effective way to make this scheme work.

At this point I am more concerned about dice having heavier sides than whether or not anyone has a controlled throw. I was always led to believe that the pips did not make any side of a die heavier. If in fact the 6 is a heavier side then we have all been playing with loaded dice for years.

Quote: Harley

Good LORD ! .... some posts are not worthy of comment, but if you would have watched "The Ahigh Show" broadcast live this evening, you would have seen the effects of cheap biased real casino dice and how they impacted Ahigh's toss and betting strategies, even with the help of his really nice computer program.

Also - per your REQUEST - here are some links for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi7PMlAYJh8

....

Hi Harley,
I have only watched the first video you posted above, but I have to say I agree with the person who posted you are not using the caliper correctly.
I was a machinist for a few years, and you need to set the points of the die firmly in the center of the cup, not resting on the bottom of the cup like you had done. Once the die is perfectly centered in the cup, you would back off on a thumbscrew just enough to make sure there is no pressure on the die. And given the velocity you spun the die at, it would spin for a very long time, even if it was unbalanced.
And when it finally slowed, you would see it oscillate back and forth for a number of iterations, with each cycle slightly smaller than the one that preceded it, until it final settled with the heaviest spot at the bottom. That is NOT what I witnessed in the video above.

With the die in the caliper the way you set it, the die is actually spinning on the edge of the dice, not the point. That in itself is going to cause an external affect on the die and cause it to settle in an unnatural spot.

The reason casinos are worried about someone slamming the dice into the mirrors is because of glass breakage, some tables still have glass mirrors on them! The fastest way to get the dice taking away for you is to keep hitting the mirrors, because of the glass. I've never seen any casino allow someone to keep hitting the mirrors; if the shooter doesn't stop they will take the dice off the shooter. I've seen the mirrors get broken on a few occasions, with a drunk throwing the dice so hard that if they hit someone they would have sent them to the hospital for stitches!

It wouldn't do you any good to keep hitting the mirrors to try to wear a bias into the dice, because you wouldn't know what bias you were putting into the dice, so casinos wouldn't sweat that. Then of course you are never getting the same dice back unless you ask for the same dice. The dice would go back into the bowl every time the roll ended, picking the same dice would be almost impossible, if you dumped the bowl you might pick the same dice back up after more then a few tries, for all the math guys out there what would the chances be to pick the same dice back out of a bowl of five or six dice, because now some casinos are using six dice sticks. That because the dice keep going off the tables, stopping the game.

Casinos are now buying the cheapest dice they can, thanks to the pencil pushers, even the dice that were made here in Vegas were never balanced; now how do I know that? Well three of us went into the local dice manufacture before they move to Mexico. You can read about that at:

http://crapsadvantageplayers.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-too-many-dice-are-unbalanced.html#links

The locals here in Vegas started to notice that on the weekends they were changing the dice to different serial numbered sticks of dice, or you would have one table where the dice were okay and all the other tables had different dice on them, lets say you walked into a casino that had 6 tables on the floor, 5 of those table all had blue dice on them and one table had red dice on it. The 5 tables that had the blue dice were all losing. Now the one table that had the red dice on it had winners screaming their heads off on it. On that one table there would be some good rolls happening on it, but none of the others. One of the guys started to call this dice percentage dice, because the percentage was with the casino. So you have five losing tables to one winning table!

We all tracked the tables we were playing on, and one of the guys decided to see what was happening, so he tracked those tables that all had what we were calling bad dice at the time. What he would found out was just about all the sevens were coming the same way. Now of course not ever seven would be the same, but we found this to be very interesting.

After doing a lot of research into what was happening there was three of us that decided to go to a manufacture to see how the dice were manufactured. What happened was we found out that they didn't even balance the dice and didn't have a balancer any where to be found at there place of business. Well we did, and asked if we could balance one of the sticks of dice, of course was the manager answer. What we found after trying to balance 5 or 6 sticks of dice that every stick was out of balance and they all were coming up the same way. There was a look of shock on the managers face, and he quickly tried to get us on to a different subject. One of the thing that this manager was bragging about was how they were undercutting there competition with the price of their dice!

After a while we also found out that this was not just a local problem any more and the bad dice were showing up around the country. Some of the local players stopped playing on the weekends because that was when we were seeing these dice come into play. We decided to put what we found out on the different craps playing boards, and was immediately called nuts, and every name in the book. Now these same boards sold classes, or just didn't want anything to do with checking out what we were telling them , they even went so far as lying about our willingness to share information about what we found. Most craps boards have to do with becoming DI's, think what would happen, if all their readers found out that they weren't playing with fair dice!

One of the guys went to the gaming board and was told that the casinos could do anything they wanted to. There are no regulations in NV on the dice. HarleyHorn as he is called went on to write Colorado before they started table game there, as to what they should include in their regulations about the dice.
Colorado now has the most comprehensive regulations on the dice that can be used in the casinos.

One of the things that Colorado wanted was fair games in their state for their residence, unlike most states that only want the money generated from the taxes on the casinos.
NV casinos pay the lease amount in taxes, because we were the first state to legalize gambling, the lobbyist here squash anything that has to do with taxing the casinos, we also have the worst school system in the country, because most of our taxes come from the casinos.
Just to give you all some idea of what I'm writing about, here is what Indiana casinos pay in taxes.
In the case of Caesars Indiana, the host city's portion of the wagering tax is paid to Harrison County, as Harrison County is designated as the home dock of the riverboat.
http://www.casinoassociation.org/taxes.php

Quote:

The wagering tax is 22.5% of a casino's adjusted gross revenue, paid daily for casinos that cruise. For dockside casinos, a graduated tax scale is utilized (HB1001 (ss) effective 7/1/02):
< $25 million - 15%
$25 - 50 million - 20%
$50 - 75 million - 25%
$75 - 150 million - 30%
$150 - 600 million - 35%
Over $600 million - 40%
The racino wagering tax:
Less than $100 million - 25%
$100 - $200 million - 30%
Over $200 million - 35%
Wagering taxes are paid "off the top," before employees, vendors, operating costs and normal business taxes, etc. are paid.

Nevada Casinos only pay 6.75% in taxes

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-04/D9U3DS380.htm

Quote:

The initiative sought to raise the top tier of gambling taxes to 9 percent, up from 6.75 percent, for casinos that make more than $250,000 a month in gambling revenue.

That didn't pass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This just goes to show that the casino industry in NV could care less about the residence in the state and the same thing goes for their players. The casinos are only here for the money, with the lease amount of regulations on them, the have a wide open state that they can just about do anything they want to on the craps tables.

Now getting back to what we are now calling cheap dice, that are unbalanced, for all you Nay Sayers out there that you would clean up at the table if you found bias dice on the table, I have one question for you, what kills the dark side players on the come out rolls?
There is one thing more to remember, these dice are not loaded, and even if the were would not come up with a seven like in the movies every time they were thrown. Only in the movies does that happen!

Just this past weekend a well known high roller was playing at one of the casinos, with a buy-in of $50,000. The table was doing okay before he bought in, then they change out the dice, that was out of sync with the serial numbers they were using before he bought in and a different color. The table went south, but lucky for him there was one of the local players on the table that warned him about what just happened and he got off the table!

There has been a lot written about the bad dice over the past few years, the DI boards have tried to down play what a lot of players call the bad dice, trying to keep their followers in the dark. You can call them anything you want to, cheap dice, bad dice, and unbalanced dice. The fact is that here in NV there are no regulations about the dice and the casinos can do anything they want to!

Superrick, Colorado gaming goes by the regs. Do they ever ! In 2001 Digital 21 was trialed at the Isle. Gaming came in one day and made management tape a discard rack onto the table, so it would comply with regs.

First, I want to say that the taxing issue is a non-issue and really has nothing to do with the question about whether or not fair dice are being used. Leave taxes for another day.

I am more interested in the dice issue -- all by itself -- because that's the question.

I cannot accept the notion that a casino would willingly introduce unbalanced dice onto a table. Frankly, Ive only seen wrapped sticks brought to tables and never saw them checked for balance. Do casinos check the dice or do they accept them with the understanding that they are manufactured to be fair?

Perhaps the casinos are not at fault but the manufacturers are? And the casinos are at fault for not checking the dice?

When new cards are introduced into a poker game, the cards are checked for marks. It would make sense to me that the dice are checked for balance, but perhaps they aren't??

I think there are some casino employees here. Do you check the dice or just accept them as-is from the factory?

Quote: AlanMendelson

Perhaps the casinos are not at fault but the manufacturers are? And the casinos are at fault for not checking the dice?

*IF* there is anything to be worried about the casinos should be MORE worried about it than the players.

That is a BIG if.

But not a single casino that I know of in Las Vegas does anything related to testing density of the pips. And if they were doing it (clandestinely), they would be doing it in a back room somewhere out of sight.

At the Silverton, where I play most often, they have a micrometer (or "mic" as they refer to it), and they "mic" the dice with this old jalopy. It's no better than the "mic" that I bought for $50, and it has an analog readout.

The point is this: all they do is measure shit with a really old piece of crap mic, and that's IT.

Everything else is based on superstition, effectively. If the table is dumping CHANGE THE FUCKING DICE!!!

You don't have to play there long to see this happen. They don't give a shit what possible explanations there are they are just going to create as much choas as possible with the dealers and pretending to make mistakes on bets to get everybody worried about the dice slowing down and anything else hoping for the seven to finally come around. As soon as the seven out comes, HERE COMES A NEW STICK OF DICE. Thank you very much and GOOD LUCK!

Ive never seen the dice changed because the table was "hot," but only because it was "that time" for new dice which is usually about three times a day.

Every place has different policies for when to change the dice and which dice to use. Some are corporate policies, some are up to the pit boss. But they are different at each place in general.

I am talking about the Silverton. Table dumps ==> change dice!!!

.......

Quote: AlanMendelson

I am more interested in the dice issue -- all by itself -- because that's the question.

I cannot accept the notion that a casino would willingly introduce unbalanced dice onto a table. Frankly, Ive only seen wrapped sticks brought to tables and never saw them checked for balance. Do casinos check the dice or do they accept them with the understanding that they are manufactured to be fair?

Perhaps the casinos are not at fault but the manufacturers are? And the casinos are at fault for not checking the dice?

When new cards are introduced into a poker game, the cards are checked for marks. It would make sense to me that the dice are checked for balance, but perhaps they aren't??

I think there are some casino employees here. Do you check the dice or just accept them as-is from the factory?

Alan, I have talked to countless Pit Supervisors and Table Game Supervisors with various answers, most are on our website ... for Instance, the Golden Gate Tables Games Supervisor was sitting as Boxman for the regular Box that went to lunch ... I was kidding about how many 6/1 Seven-outs were dominating the table so I asked him if he balanced the dice .... he would not answer .... after a few minutes and several more 6/1 Seven-outs , I asked why he would allow such unbalanced dice on his tables ..... he did not deny that his dice were unbalanced but simply stated that the dice

Quote:

"were purchased from a dice factory that was approved by the Nevada Gaming Commission"

... I professionally responded

Quote:

That is the same Nevada Gaming Commission that you pay their salary and pensions

.... he did not reply as I walked away

Alan M, Also 3 members of our Dice Research Team were fortunate to have a meeting with the owner of a local Las Vegas Dice Company a few years ago. This particular Dice Company supplies dice to several Las Vegas casinos according to the owner as he named several key casino contacts that buy his dice.

He further mentioned that his Dice factory was producing at near full capacity now since he was able to convince casinos that his dice are:

1. Better than Paulson dice ..... since his dice are within 2/10,000ths of an inch of being perfectly square compared to Paulson dice which are made to Atlantic City standards of 6/10,000ths of an inch

2. Cheaper than the market ..... he said most dice sticks are selling at $4.00 to the casinos -- but he is able to offer his sticks at about $2.85

So we asked him if he had a professional grade dice balancing caliper to measure our dice we just bought in the Gambler's Store. He stated:

Quote:

No, I don't have a balancer of any kind in the factory since my dice are near perfect.

the Dice Factory owner said let's measure a NEW stick of dice right off the assembly line. So he retrieved a stick, put in the micrometer to show that it was near perfectly square ...... Then he put the dice on the balancing caliper and the whole stick of dice wobbled consistently to the 5s & 6s up

This dice factory specialist went on to explain (or defend his dice) by saying that it was hard to get the pips to exact weight since they were made of a resin and inserted into an acetate cube (2 different materials being mixed together) ....... He also stated that he did not polish or sand down the pips after they were inserted so they are not perfectly flush, but still within tolerance according to Atlantic City standards and to Nevada since there were no regulations here.

A member of our Dice Research Team met with the Nevada Gaming Commission and reported this dice factory to them. Within 6 months the dice factory moved to Mexico, but still supplied dice to Las Vegas Strip casinos just like before .... the difference now is the Nevada Gaming Board does not have jurisdiction over a factory in Mexico .... or any in China either.

I still think the unbalanced thing is ridiculous overall.

But let's just assume that it's possible. Do you already have a way that I can run a Monte Carlo simulator for biased dice to come up with how it helps the casino make more money on both the standard passline better and don't better as well?

IE: for a stick of five dice, instead of 16.66% for each face, give me 30 percentages for each face of each die that would accomplish something that would universally benefit the casino.

Quote: Ahigh

I still think the unbalanced thing is ridiculous overall.

But let's just assume that it's possible. Do you already have a way that I can run a Monte Carlo simulator for biased dice to come up with how it helps the casino make more money on both the standard passline better and don't better as well?

IE: for a stick of five dice, instead of 16.66% for each face, give me 30 percentages for each face of each die that would accomplish something that would universally benefit the casino.

This can't be done for a casino, unless you have the data on what bets craps players make and in what proportions. If you are at a table with 100 x odds, and people are actually betting those odds, that will be far different from a table where there is a big betting 'don't' player. I don't play enough to know, but my limited experience tells me that if the casino increased the '7 outs' versus the points, the money on the right side usually dwarfs the money on the wrong side. I think if you asked a casino executive if every roll was point, seven, out, the casino would take that.

One monkey wrench in the simulation would be if the bias was visible enough, and players started changing their betting patterns. If snake eyes hit enough and players felt it was not a coincidence, then instead of betting the 'yo', they would take advantage of the aces....