Dice | Game Pieces - Britannica

Cheating with dice

Perfect dice are also known as fair dice, levels, or squares, whereas dice that have been tampered with, or expressly made for cheating, are known as crooked or gaffed dice. Such dice have been found in the tombs of ancient Egypt and the Orient, in prehistoric graves of North and South America, and in Viking graves. There are many forms of crooked dice. Any die that is not a perfect cube will not act according to correct mathematical odds and is called a shape, a brick, or a flat. For example, a cube that has been shaved down on one or more sides so that it is slightly brick-shaped will tend to settle down most often on its larger surfaces, whereas a cube with bevels, on which one or more sides have been trimmed so that they are slightly convex, will tend to roll off of its convex sides. Shapes are the most common of all crooked dice. Loaded dice (called tappers, missouts, passers, floppers, cappers, or spot loaders, depending on how and where extra weight has been applied) may prove to be perfect cubes when measured with calipers, but extra weight just below the surface on some sides will make the opposite sides come up more often than they should. The above forms of dice are classed as percentage dice: they will not always fall with the intended side up but will do so often enough in the long run for the cheaters to win the majority of their bets.

A die with one or more faces each duplicated on its opposite side and certain numbers omitted will produce some numbers in disproportionate frequency and never produce certain others; for example, two dice marked respectively with duplicates of 3-4-5 and 1-5-6 can never produce combinations totaling 2, 3, 7, or 12, which are the only combinations with which one can lose in the game of craps. Such dice, called busters or tops and bottoms, are used as a rule only by accomplished dice cheats, who introduce them into the game by sleight of hand (“switching”). Since it is impossible to see more than three sides of a cube at any one time, tops and bottoms are unlikely to be detected by the inexperienced gambler.

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Yet another form of cheating with dice produces controlled shots, in which one or more fair dice are spun, rolled, or thrown so that a certain side or sides will come up, or not come up, depending on the desired effect. Known by such colourful names as the whip shot, the blanket roll, the slide shot, the twist shot, and the Greek shot, this form of cheating requires considerable manual dexterity and practice. Fear of such ability led casinos to install tables with slanted end walls and to insist that dice be thrown so as to rebound from them.

Dan Glimne