Pick them up and hand them back. That’s not a joke. When the dice (or a single die) bounce or fly off the table, the dealers usually rely on a customer to retrieve them. You don’t have to be playing on the game. In fact, dice typically bounce a long way and are picked up by passersby. If you see one, pick it up and bring it back to the game. The important thing is not to throw it onto the table. Rather, hand it to a dealer who will in turn hand it to the boxman to inspect.
Any time a die goes off the table, the main concern of the pit crew is that the same one gets put back into play and the boxman will always inspect it to protect against a gaffed die being slipped in. It’s usually a cursory inspection, but they always check. Dice switching is something that casinos constantly have to guard against. An excellent account of techniques used by a successful dice-cheating team can be found in the book Loaded Dice – The True Story of a Casino Cheat by John Soares.
Many crap players will call their bets off when dice go off the table. The phenomenon is addressed by Barney Vinson in his book Casino Secrets:
Occasionally, the dice will go flying off the table. If that occurs while you’re shooting, don’t worry about it. It only happens about 300 times a day in each Las Vegas casino. Unfortunately, most gamblers are superstitious, and there is an old saying at the dice table that goes like this: "Dice on the floor, seven at the door." Every player at the table will usually take all his bets down, and if dirty looks could kill you’d be on your way to Arlington.
There is a way of getting out of this sticky situation, however. After throwing the dice off the table, simply say, "Same dice." That’s what the pros do. You don’t want to shoot with just any old dice; you want the same dice you were shooting. It’s pure superstition, of course, but every seasoned dice player does it. No more dirty looks, no more worries about bombs in your luggage. Suddenly you’re everyone’s friend again.
It’s okay to ask for same dice, but you’ll have to wait for the errant one to be inspected before they’re returned to you. And as Vinson points out, there’s absolutely no valid reason to call bets off solely because the dice have gone off the table.
An interesting aside comes from Anthony Curtis, who says that expert players might purposely throw dice off the table during a tournament. In crap tournaments that have a time limit, it can sometimes be beneficial to stall to preserve position and intentionally bouncing a die off the table is a tactic that players have used.
Finally, if the dice fly far enough away, they could wind up being a souvenir for someone. We’ve seen a customer pick them up, put them in his pocket, and just walk away. Really.
