How Many Ways Are There To Gaff Dice for Craps?

I just watched an episode of an old TV show called “Police Story” from 1973: Season 1, Episode 23, called "The Gambler." It's about the police in Los Angeles cracking down on illegal gambling operations. A supervisor gives a short rundown on types of illegal dice to a group of officers crowded around a crap table. He describes four kinds of illegal dice: shaved (sides and corners), which come up 7 more often than not; tops that have no 7s; loads (weighted to miss or pass, depending on where the weight is); and mercury (solid ivory, criss-crossed with tunnels filled with mercury that goes to the bottom for weight). How much of all that is true? I'm most intrigued by the concept of rigging a pair of dice to never produce a 7.

A world-class card mechanic and veteran cheater of our acquaintance says, "I got my first pair of loaded dice when I was about 10 years old. Maybe younger! They weren’t very sophisticated, certainly not intended for play under fire. They were switch-out dice that rolled only 7s and 11s. These are known as 'door pops.' The trick was to palm them while handling real dice and do a switch on the roll. The only problem was, if anyone really looked at them before you switched back to the regular dice, it ended in disaster.

"Later, I learned about dice sliding, shaved dice, and weighted dice as mentioned in the question. I never became proficient with any forms of dice manipulation, but having said that, I know an absolute master at cheating with dice. He had a large selection of just about every form of gaffed dice you can imagine. The police supervisor on that cop show was barely scratching the surface."

We did a cursory search and came up with the following ways to gaff, or alter, dice to give cheaters a big advantage. And these are just the most common.

Loaded dice are heavier on one side, so the opposite sides will come up more often than they should. Other names for loaded dice are passers, missouts, floppers, cappers, and tappers.

Floaters are the opposite; they have weight taken away, but generally achieve the same result.

Dice can be shaved in many ways to effect different biases on the rolls. Depending on where and how they’re altered, they can be called shape, bevel, suction, trip, cut-edge, raised-edge, razor-edge, sawtooth, brick, flat, and capped dice.

Slicks are polished on some sides and roughed on others, making the dice roll off the rough sides and slide more easily on the smooth.

Raised spots, bristles (tiny pins that catch the felt), magnets, and more have all been used to cheat with dice.

As our acquaintance mentioned, mis-spotted dice, a.k.a. double numbers or tops, have duplicate numbers on opposite sides, so they don’t add up to 7 (the opposing numbers on a single legitimate die always add up to 7). So doubling certain numbers on the first die and others on the second will produce either more or less of certain numbers, such as 7s.

Note that most crooked dice aren’t perfect. Thanks to some randomness, they don’t turn up or turn off the sought-after number every time. But they definitely change the odds in the favor of the cheater.

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Ray Jun-27-2023

Many questions

How hard (easy?) is it to spot fake dice. The boxman often "inspects" them, but can he or she easily spot fakes? Can the house take advantage of dice that produce more than normal amounts of 7's? The tilted odds might make more come-out 7's but also more seven-outs. And since there are 5 dice to choose from, wouldn't/couldn't the fixed dice get mixed up and unable to be removed, also losing their ability to alter the odds? I'm sure there are more complications that I haven't thought of, but I guess the difficulty of even implementing such a scheme, let alone getting away with it, shows how desperate someone must be to even try it.

jay Jun-27-2023

Dice Cheat

Here are a few links. I doubt any of this will fool a Casino but perhaps your friends.

AliExpress sells books on how to dice cheat. 
Here is a URL to Aliexpress
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804758690527.html

Trick Dice sold by Amazon 
https://www.amazon.com/Forum-Novelties-Loaded-Trick-Every/dp/B0163B2MJG/ref=sr_1_7?crid=2LXZ2TGLIB8VY&keywords=loaded+dice&qid=1687878507&sprefix=loaded+dice%2Caps%2C175&sr=8-7

Then there are dice practice stations
https://spinettisgaming.com/products/portable-craps-throwing-station?_pos=2&_sid=2c001e3ad&_ss=r

Trainwreck Jun-27-2023

Ray

Each set of 5 dice used at the table has a unique serial number embossed on it in addition to the casino's logo making any substitution easily and immediately detectable.

[email protected] Jun-27-2023

Craps "Odds"

The odds on getting caught with "loaded" or any non-casino dice during a craps game are about 99:1 because they are inspected regularly during a game and every time any shooter goes on a big roll of any sort. The "odds" are 100% if that happens you will get convicted of a FELONY and be sentenced to 1-5 years in prison, $10,000 fine + restitution if it's a FIRST offense. The good news is you likely won't have an opportunity for a second offense because you will be banned from pretty much every casino in America.

Jackie Jun-27-2023

@  steveludwig777

What you forgot to mention;

"because they are inspected regularly during a game and every time any shooter goes on a big roll of any sort."

The dice you were shooting get tossed into the bowl and the bowl handed toward you to pick a pair of dice from.

They have experience that this tactic throws you off your roll.  Instant craps roll.

rokgpsman Jun-27-2023

Dice cheating

There might have been a time long ago when a player could get away with something like loaded dice, but nowadays it's practically impossible, and the downside penalties of getting caught isn't worth it. You'd be better off robbing the cage or grabbing a bunch of chips from a blackjack table and making a run for it. The dice tables are one of the most closely watched games in the casino by security and the pit guys due to the fast action and money getting handled quickly by multiple dealers at the same time.

Deke Castleman Jun-28-2023

This in via email from Jeff

I couldn't help but notice the inspiration for today's QoD; Police Story Season 1, Episode 23 (The Gambler) is the first appearance of Angie Dickinson as Police Woman "Pepper" Anderson. A great choice of reference material, IMO.

Question of the Day - 27 June 2023

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