Are casino dice fairly balanced? This question comes up a lot and I believe they are -- I think the casinos have no reason not to use fairly balanced dice because the casinos can win no matter how you bet since it is a negative expectation game and the casino has an edge.
In fact, if a casino used unbalanced dice players could determine that and immediately start playing the way the dice are tumbling -- if more 7s were showing, players could switch to the darkside. If more 11s were showing, players could bet the field more often, and so on.
But I was curious about what was on the Internet about fair dice and unfair dice and what has been written about dice being fairly balanced or not. And I discovered this website and page:
http://crapsadvantageplayers.blogspo...ced.html#links
The web page talks about melting casino dice and that the white pips on the dice are made of a heavier material that doesn't melt as easily as the cubes themselves. And the writer claims this makes the 5 and 6 faces of the dice heavier.
If so, would this mean 1 and 2 are more likely to show face up?
I took two casino dice and placed them with the 5 and 6 down. The top number is of course 3 since the opposite numbers of all dice add up to 7. So if the 5 and 6 were weighted, theoretically, a 7 would never show. But the craps number 3 would show up more often-- theoretically.
Now, with 1 and 2 showing on top, here are the numbers that i would get on all four vertical sides without rotating the dice:
4-1
6-3
by rotating the dice, keeping 1 and 2 on top, I can also get on the vertical:
4-4
4-6
4-3
5-1
3-1
2-1
4-1
now, with the dice showing 1-2 on top, just by rotating the die showing 2 by one face, I can get:
1-1
1-6
1-5
1-4
and by rotating the die showing the 1 by one face I get:
5-2
2-2
3-2
4-2
Now, with the one on top and rotating the die with the 2 showing by one face, I get these numbers:
1-1
1-6
1-4
1-3
Now, with the two on top and rotating the die with 1 showing by one face, I get these numbers:
5-2
2-2
3-2
4-2
Now, by the reasoning of the original writer, 6-6 should be the heaviest sides down. So let's show the numbers with one rotation with 6-6 on the bottom:
1-1 on top
rotating the right die by one face:
1-3
1-2
1-4
1-5
rotating the left die by one face we obviously get the same results:
1-3
1-2
1-4
1-5
That's a pretty good distribution of numbers with rotating each die one time, but it is not a complete distribution of numbers. There is no 5-5, there is no 3-3, there is no 5-3, there is no 3-5.
Does it mean dice are in fact biased? I don't know. But I do think it's curious.