Dear Mark,
I have seen in some casinos the dice game called
Sic Bo. I have never seen it before and have not
been able to find out much about it. Could you give
me a brief rundown on the game, and is it worth
playing? Richard S.
Ah,
yes, ancient game from the land of joss sticks-possibly
invented in the famous Naked Princess Gaming House on
the Huang-Ho-where the chopsticks are pure silver and
the river runs yellow as gold.
Sic Bo ("dice pair" or "dice in pairs")
also called Hi-Lo, Tai Sai ("big-small"),
and Cu Sic ("guessing dice") uses three dice
loosely imprisoned in a wire cage called the "shaker".
Hard to miss the Sic
Bo table where Asian games are offered with its
winning combinations illuminated like the Las Vegas
Strip under a full moon.
Sic Bo, Richard, is an easy game to play and, of
course, lose. The player picks one or more of the
six numbers appearing on a die, puts down his money
on his chosen outcome (nitty-gritty below), and
prays. The dealer shakes the shaker, whacks it down
on the layout so all can see the top faces of the
three dice, announces the numeric value of each
die, enters all that into an electronic device on
the table, which then illuminates all the winning
combinations -- the traditional abacus bit the dust
when electrons entered the fray-and the dealer pays
off all the winners. Simple, what? Well, there are
more than 30 betting choices, all displayed on the
table layout showing the faces of the dice in their
30+ combinations along with the massive payoffs
that are luring the player to play. And those payoffs
are not strictly aligned with their probabilities
of occurrence. You can bet in several ways: that
your number will come up somewhere, or it will appear
on two dice, or wow! all three. You can also bet
on any combination of numbers appearing on two or
three dice, or even more flamboyant bets, as below. The Single Die wager:
You bet that your selected number, 1 through 6,
will come up on one die. Payoff is 1:1.
If two of the dice come up with your number, the
payoff is 2:1.
If all three dice come up with your number the payoff
is 3:1. The casino advantage is 7.9%. The Two Dice wager:
You bet that some number will turn up on two dice
(any pair). Payoff is 8:1, but casino advantage
is 33.3%.
Two-dice combination bet: You select two numbers
and bet that they will turn up. Payoff is 5:1, with
casino advantage of 16.7%. The Three Dice wager:
You select a number from 4 to 17 and bet that the
sum of the faces will equal this number. Payoff
is from 6:1 to 60:1.
You wager that the three faces will show three specific
numbers that you select. Payoff is 24:1.
You wager that any three of a kind will show. Payoff
is 30:1.
You can also wager that a specific triplet will
appear. Payoff is 150:1.
The casino advantage on Three Dice wagers is anywhere
from 9.7 to 30.6%. Small or Big wagers:
You can bet that the total of the three dice will
be small (i.e. 4 to 10) or large (11 to 17). Payoff
is 1:1, house advantage 2.8%, but if any three-of-a-kind
shows, both small and big bets lose.
The skinny, Richard, is that although Sic Bo offers
some handsome payoffs, it is not recommended by
this writer, as the house edge on most bets is way
out of whack with my philosophy of only making wagers
that have less than a 2% casino advantage. The only
bet worth considering for those who want to try
the game is the small/big wager, in which the casino
edge is 2.8%.
