Rock and Roll Wrist Action

Whether intentionally or not, craps players will find themselves hurling their dice at the back board using the same throwing technique every round.

One of the oldest gambling games known to man, rolling the bones remains as popular today as it was 5,000 years ago.

Early bone rollers

Archaeologists uncovered the earliest set of dice at excavations in the Iraqi town of Ur of the Chaldees. Further evidence indicates that dice were thrown as part of one of the first ever discovered games of backgammon.

Generations after the early Iraqis rolled their bone dice, many other peoples played with cubed and other shaped objects containing letters, numbers, and images. The ancients did not believe that each roll of the dice was a chance event and were convinced that supernatural powers could control their outcome. Dice rolling was extremely popular with the Greeks and Romans, as it was with medieval kings and princes. As the centuries passed, dice playing became more a game for the lower classes with the aristocracy favoring different varieties of card games.

Modern bone rollers

The most popular dice rolling game today is craps. Putting their trust in Lady Luck, players send a pair of casino dice down the craps table to bounce off the backboard for a winning roll. The game is fast, exciting, and unfortunately for the player, the dice roll generally tends to favor the house, even if ever so slightly. This fact certainly hasn't quenched the craps players desire to roll bones down the table.

Dice control

Recent attention has focused on the possibility of influencing the way the craps dice can fall. Most spectators have seen players on a winning streak as they roll winning throw after winning throw. The player gets into a kind of trance, throwing the dice rhythmically down the table.

Some have considered that this may suggest a way of swinging the odds back to favor the player over the house. Such talk has postulated that holding the dice in a certain way and throwing them with the same speed and angle of trajectory can actually affect the outcome of each roll. This effect is commonly called dice control, dice influencing, dice setting, or controlled throwing.

On the other hand...

Skeptics claim that predictive dice throwing is impossible, and that the physical factors such as gravity, air resistance, muscle twitching, and a host of other factors makes such predictive dice rolling simple fantasy. Dice controllers claim that while they cannot determine the outcome of every individual throw, they argue that there is a marked increase in the hit rate that reduces the house advantage.

The real problem is that, to date, nobody has performed any scientific study on the subject. Doubtless, if they did, and dice control was shown to work, you'd see crap games closing down all over the country. Alternatively, casinos would simply alter their odds tables, once again swing the chances back in favor of the house.

Still not convinced?

OK, so you're a gambling fan. You love games of chance and have little time for skepticism. Someone suggests a way of predicting the roll of the craps dice, so why not give them a spin!

To control the dice, the first thing you have to learn is the dice set, or the way you hold the dice before rolling them down the table. The most common hold is called the 3-V set where the player holds each three spot side to form a V-formation. This technique shows a total of six on the top of the two dice and an eight total below. The other faces show an eight (6 and 2) on the back, and six (5 and 1) on the front. There are no losing sevens in sight.

Backboard boogie

Having mastered the dice set, or hold, the next stage to learn is the roll. Each throw of the dice must be smooth and consistent. Performing the throw in precisely the same manner each round can maximize the chances of a winning roll while reducing the chances of scoring the dreaded seven. Employing the correct set and roll can change craps from being a simple casino game of chance to a game of skill like darts or snooker. However, the skeptics are waiting in the wings, and they'd love to see the dice controllers fall flat on their face...

Further reading

To learn more about this rock and roll method of dice control, you should consult the essential textbook on the subject entitled Wong on Dice by gambling pro and author Sanford Wong (aka John Ferguson). This book describes the methodology that the author believes can provide players with a higher craps throwing average.

Another writer in this field is Frank Scoblete, who penned the book Golden Touch Dice Control Revolution, another excellent expurgation on this fascinating dice throwing technique.

I wonder what they would have made of this idea back in Ur of the Chaldees...