Harley - 13 June 2011 04:08 PM

Exactly S&G ..... the younger Boxman at Boulder Station likes to brag that he can do it within 3 rolls ...... he will stop the Stickman from pushing out the red dice before the next roller and roll the dice in front of him .... he will often get all 5 dice to show 1’s within 2 rolls

I will say thank you very much and take my chips to the cage without playing ...... on the other hand - the blue dice at Boulder Station are about as fair as you can get.

Wow what an idiot boxman that would set off red flags to any veteran gambler.Just do your job a craps table doesnt need a side show.I wonder if they know he does it?

S.C. I take it you don’t live in Vegas. I do and have been here for 6 years now. The first few years were great as far as the dice go. Made a lot of money from the tables. The dice were still good at most of the casinos. I’m sure you have heard this story and just don’t believe it so im not going to waste your time or mine. The only thing I will say is that i’ve seen it many times up till this day even. The one thing I don’t ever see is rolling out the dice and getting all 4s or 3s or 5s. I have however seen all six’s and one’s at different casinos. So like they say…you can lead the horse to water but you can’t make it drink.

S&G

So like they say…you can lead the horse to water but you can’t make it drink.

I’m not sure whether it should REALLY be:

You can lead a horse to the koolaid but you can’t make it drink.

OR if what you claim was true:

You can lead a Vegas resident to an advantage play opportunity, but they’ll only complain about it instead of profiting from it.

Silver & Gold - 14 June 2011 03:16 PM

S.C. I take it you don’t live in Vegas. I do and have been here for 6 years now. The first few years were great as far as the dice go. Made a lot of money from the tables. The dice were still good at most of the casinos. I’m sure you have heard this story and just don’t believe it so im not going to waste your time or mine. The only thing I will say is that i’ve seen it many times up till this day even. The one thing I don’t ever see is rolling out the dice and getting all 4s or 3s or 5s. I have however seen all six’s and one’s at different casinos. So like they say…you can lead the horse to water but you can’t make it drink.

S&G

Let’s just say you come on too strong with wild accusations nothing but air to back them up.  I wouldn’t buy a car from you.
You need to get over the “I’m from Vegas” attitude, Vegas hasn’t been that much of an influence on gambling in decades.  It means nothing to be from vegas.
What I read between the lines of those making these accusations is generally “I think I can toss the dice good but I can’t win.  It can’t be me so the casino has to be cheating.
I’m sorry, but even your vegas casinos don’t seem to cheat me.

Sir, I don’t have a VEGAS attitude. We just see whats going on here. You don’t beleive it, I really don’t give a DAMN. So please come to Vegas, have a great time, lose your money. Im sure you’ll do better next time!!!

S&G

Sir, I don’t have a VEGAS attitude. We just see whats going on here. You don’t beleive it, I really don’t give a D—N. So please come to Vegas, have a great time, lose your money. Im sure you’ll do better next time!!!

S&G

Silver & Gold - 15 June 2011 03:23 PM

Sir, I don’t have a VEGAS attitude. We just see whats going on here. You don’t beleive it, I really don’t give a D—N. So please come to Vegas, have a great time, lose your money. Im sure you’ll do better next time!!!

S&G

Don’t see why I should start losing my money when I go to Vegas now.  But thanks anyway.

Silver & Gold - 13 June 2011 03:59 PM

So how many times have you seen that happen at a casino? When I see it here in Vegas im outta there. Problem is you see it in Vegas alot

How many times is “alot”?

$nakeEyes - 10 June 2011 07:20 PM

Obviously you put a lot of time and effort into [calculating the effects different biases have on house advantages] -

Unfortunately, as much as I would like and as hard as I try -

I have no F’ing clue as to what you are trying to say _

As I am most interested to partake of your knowledge and insight into the effects that biased dice might have or not have on the outcome of a legimitate toss-

If possible - could you re-word your ... response so that a layman ( me ) could understand it.

Up front let me restate my exercise, adding two bias types in response to some comments.  I will also add the following comments about the configurations.
    Fair dice are unbiased.  I include this configuration to allow
          the effects of biasing to be seen easily.
    Flats, including “small 4&3”, are shaved so that some faces
          have a larger surface area (and are therefore more likely
          to show) than others.
    Loaded dice are made with the indicated faces being heavier
          (and therefore less likely to show) than the four faces
          adjacent to them.  This weighting makes the face(s)
          opposite the weighted one(s) more likely to show.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

What I did was to compute house advantages on various bets for six separate dice configurations:
    fair (all faces have probability of 0.166666667 of showing),
    six-ace flats (6 and 1 faces have probability of 0.177124 of showing;
          other faces have probability of 0.161438 of showing),
    loaded heavy 6 (6 face has probability of 0.161642333 of showing;
          1 face has probability of 0.171691 of showing;
          other faces have probability of 0.166666667 of showing), and
    loaded heavy 5 (5 face has probability of 0.161714333 of showing;
          2 face has probability of 0.171619 of showing;
          other faces have probability of 0.166666667 of showing)
    small 4&3 (4 and 3 faces have probability of 0.154514 of showing;
          other faces have probability of 0.172743 of showing)
    loaded heavy 6&5 (6 and 5 faces have probability of 0.164145333 of
          showing; 1 and 2 faces have probability of 0.169188 of
          showing; 3 and 4 faces have probability of 0.16666667 of
          showing).
I assumed all dice in play had the same bias, if any.  For the biased dice scenarios I found the maximum bias that the casino could use and still retain an advantage on every bet without considering whether or not that much bias could be readily detected without instruments.  I also assumed 12 was the DP/DC bar; the field paid 2x2 and 3x12; and 4 and 10 could be bought for $25, and 5 and 9 could be laid for $36, with $1 vig charged on a win only.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

Many here seemed to think that players could obtain an advantage against biased dice by betting the Don’ts.  What I was trying to show is that unless the house went completely overboard, not only were wrong-siders still facing a negative expectation, they could also do better using a different betting strategy.  IOW a casino could indeed increase its advantage on Pass/Come bets with biased dice, but would suffer a decreased advantage on other bets.  The trick, then, would be to determine the distribution of action among the bets offered.

For example, I think a casino would be foolish to use six-ace flats.  To be sure Pass, Come, Place, and Buy bets get a lot of action, and flats can add over a percentage point to the house advantage on those bets.  OTOH, to gain that much the house gives up its entire advantage in the Field, which gets a healthy amount of action IMHO, and cuts its advantage against wrong-siders by more than half.

My own feeling is that, even ignoring the possibility of getting caught and the negative (and possibly fatal) consequences thereof, using biased dice is not a no-brainer.  IOW I question whether this tactic provides more benefit than it could cost.

Skulker,

That’s interesting stuff.  Though I agree with your conclusion about cost/benefit to the casino, I’d like to expand a bit on your results.

Though Harley and Co. have not come right out and stated it specifically, they seem to indicate that the claimed dice bias results in an increased appearance in 6/1 and 5/2, and a reduction in the 3/4.  This, in my estimation, resembles your Small 4&3 data.  Given that, my assumption is that though there is still an HA on the DP/DC, it’s been reduced (not increased) by almost half.  My guess is that the reason it is not FULLY a player advantage bet is the claimed preponderance of come out sevens, and less so, due to more 11’s (you’d also have more 2’s and 12’s).  If you look at the Lay no-9, the HA on that wager is reduced to nearly 0.  So, as I indicated previously, it seems pretty straight forward that if you were to come across the claimed biased dice, the simplest strategy for beating this would be a combination of wagers.

For example:

For the come out, lay the 9 for $30 and make a DP bet of say $10.  If a seven rolls, you win the lay and lose the DP for a net profit.  If a seven does not roll on the come out, remove the lay bet, lay odds on the DP and wait for the seven since it’s appearing at a rate of 1:4 instead of 1:6 as claimed by Harley and Co.  You may feel compelled to drop a token dollar on the Yo, but I personally would not do that.

Despite the minimal info we’ve been given, I’m fairly certain you could spend hours at the table with biased dice and rake in regular profit with this strategy, and I don’t think volatility would be nasty either.

Harley - 11 June 2011 09:27 PM

.... Big props to The Midnight Skulker for stepping up your game—good research—but some casinos, namely Caesar’s in Las Vegas are increasing their house edge much greater than your numbers

I have added a couple lines to my analysis since you wrote this.  In particular I ran the numbers for dice weighted on the 5 and 6 faces.  The most advantage a casino can get on Pass/Come bets without giving the player an advantage elsewhere is 1.7464135% (compared to 1.4141414% with fair dice), a gain of a little less than a third of a percentage point.  Not only is this not “much greater” by my standards, but the casino is giving up more than that (over 2/5 of a percentage point) on the Dont’s and all of its edge on a $25 Buy 4.

Harley - 11 June 2011 09:27 PM

With a heavy sided 5/6 on the dice, a 5, 6, 2 and 1 face showing are POSSIBLE (1 in 6), but they are more PROBABLE (1 in 4.2 to 1 in 5.5 ) than occurring with fair balanced dice .

With a heavy sided 5/6 on the dice, a 3 and 4 face showing are POSSIBLE (1 in 6), but they are less PROBABLE than occurring with fair balanced dice.

OK, apparently I don’t know what you mean by “heavy sided 5/6”.  I interpret “heavy sided” to mean the stated faces are heavier and are therefore less likely to show because they are more likely to end up on the bottom.  Consequently, my analysis of “heavy sided 5/6” dice came up with the following probabilities for faces showing as the maximum a casino could use and still retain an advantage on the Buy 4 bet:

p(1) = 0.169188
p(2) = 0.169188
p(3) = 0.166667
p(4) = 0.166667
p(5) = 0.164145
p(6) = 0.164145

If the dice are loaded so that the 1 and 2 faces will show 1 time in 5.5, the house advantage on the pass line does indeed more than double to 3.2927881%, but I want to be at that table because I will have almost a 1% advantage on the Don’ts (0.9971039% to be exact) and a whopping 6.8743363% advantage buying the 4!  (I can also get over a 1.5% advantage placing 5 and laying no-9, and over a 2.5% advantage laying no-10.)  Of course increasing the load so that the 1 and 2 faces will show more frequently only increases my advantage on those bets while adding Place 5 and 6, and Lay no-8 to the list.  If this is truly the situation on fight nights then when is the next fight?

wrecknball - 16 June 2011 10:48 AM

Though Harley and Co. have not come right out and stated it specifically, they seem to indicate that the claimed dice bias results in an increased appearance in 6/1 and 5/2, and a reduction in the 3/4.  This, in my estimation, resembles your Small 4&3 data.

Yes, which is why I added that line to my analysis.  As I indicated in my previous post, Harley’s terminology is confusing me.  To reduce the appearance of 4 and 3 faces I think the dice would have to be shaved, not weighted, yet on his web sit Harley specifically states that he detected no shaving.

wrecknball - 16 June 2011 10:48 AM

Given that, my assumption is that though there is still an HA on the DP/DC, it’s been reduced (not increased) by almost half.  My guess is that the reason it is not FULLY a player advantage bet is the claimed preponderance of come out sevens, and less so, due to more 11’s (you’d also have more 2’s and 12’s).

Here are the actual probabilities with I calculated—OK, had Excel calculate—for the Small 4&3 scenario.

I think the main reason the Don’t player does not get an advantage quicker with increasing bias is that more of the bar number does not help that bet.

wrecknball - 16 June 2011 10:48 AM

If you look at the Lay no-9, the HA on that wager is reduced to nearly 0.

That was the bet that determines the maximum bias the casino can use without giving the player an advantage.  (It turns out that Lay no-5 behaves identically in this scenario, but not in others, so I listed only Lay no-9.)  The reason the lay bet(s) become player-favorable more rapidly than any other bet should be intuitively obvious: rolls of 5 and 9 require the 3 or 4 faces to show.  Reducing the probability of the 3 and 4 faces showing therefore reduces the probability of throwing a 5 or 9.

As for the inverse effect biasing has on Pass/Come vs. DP/DC, goatcabin’s balloon analogy is applicable.  The bulge created when the balloon is poked depends on the depth of the poke.  As I said, I restricted the poke so that the Lay no-9 and no-5 bets remained just barely player-negative.

wrecknball - 16 June 2011 10:48 AM

So, as I indicated previously, it seems pretty straight forward that if you were to come across the claimed biased dice, the simplest strategy for beating this would be a combination of wagers.

For example:

For the come out, lay the 9 for $30 and make a DP bet of say $10.  If a seven rolls, you win the lay and lose the DP for a net profit.  If a seven does not roll on the come out, remove the lay bet, lay odds on the DP and wait for the seven since it’s appearing at a rate of 1:4 instead of 1:6 as claimed by Harley and Co.  You may feel compelled to drop a token dollar on the Yo, but I personally would not do that.

I have totally ignored laying odds on DP/DC bets, but the player would obviously have a healthy to tremendous advantage on them.  Since Lay no-5 has the same house advantage as Lay no-9 in this scenario an aggressive variation would be to lay both of the odd numbers; you can win both but lose only one on the comeout roll.

wrecknball - 16 June 2011 10:48 AM

Despite the minimal info we’ve been given, I’m fairly certain you could spend hours at the table with biased dice and rake in regular profit with this strategy, and I don’t think volatility would be nasty either.

And this is where Harley and I part company.  If I found a casino using dice biased as heavily as Harley says they are I’d play till I dropped there.

edit: SPAM

Man where are all these schmucks coming from? Don’t click on this please!