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Dice setting. Is it for real?

Back in the 80s, when I first moved to Reno and started going to casinos, and then working in casinos, and then dealing in casinos, there was a rule that you were not able to set the dice at the craps table. They would warn you once and then throw you out if you did it again.

It's totally different today. As you may have read in one of my earlier post I had not played craps in about 20 years. And two years ago when I was working here in Reno (as a surveillance Observer) I noticed that almost all of the craps players we're setting the dice before they threw them. I was told that now the shooter was  allowed to do so as long as they made a reasonable attempt to hit the back wall with the dice.

So I started doing some research, which involves reading a few books and watching a bunch of videos on YouTube. Suffice to say there are almost as many different theories and strategies on dice setting and dice throwing as there are people commenting about it. I wondered how much of it was true and how much was BS.

So then I decided to do some empirical research yesterday at the Club Cal-Neva in downtown Reno. After watching a video on YouTube, click here to watch it, I decided to use a type of dice set where you place the 5 and 1 facing each other. He emphasizes that if the point is six and you want the set to equal 6. In fact he emphasizes that over and over.

Another video that I watched, click here to see it, seemed to emphasize a particular way of throwing the dice and gripping them. I would call this grip a "three fingered grip", with the thumb on one side of the dice and your three middle fingers on the other, leaving the pinky off the dice all together.

Although the video never says it, I believe that the idea is to put as a little energy into the throw as possible, while still attempting to get the dice to the far end of the table. (This means throwing the dice low and slow, with no backswing.)

The idea is to get the each individual die to tumble on the same axis, which in combination with the way that dice were set would (hopefully) prevent a 7 from coming up. (All of this dice setting and throw controlling seems to disregard the fact that once the dice hit the back wall of the table the ultimatemate total should be randomized and none of the setting or throwing should matter, BTW.) At any rate the video presenters seemed sincere so I decided to try it.

So I shot dice for about 30 minutes, using this set, grip and throwing technique. I bought in for $60 at a $3 minimum table.  I bet $3 on the pass line and took odds of $10 on each point. I also placed the six in the eighth for $6 each, working on the come out. (This is the normal way that I play dice, by the way).

There was one other guy at the table and he seemed to be setting the dice also although I couldn't see exactly which way because his hand was on the way. We each did pretty well in avoiding the seven. Each of us seem to roll a lot of fours and tens, which was unfortunate for me as I was on neither of those numbers. At any rate after we teach roll the dice two times I ended up winner of about $65, so I walked away. See my previous post on hit-and-run gambling for why I decided to leave so quickly.

I will continue my research on dice setting and dice throwing at a later time and keep you all updated on the results. I know it's a small sample set, but if so many people are doing it, there must be something to it.

As I close, I want to remind you all about my Patreon page. If you enjoy my content, and would like to see me expand into audio and video podcasts and a live radio show, please consider supporting my efforts. Click here to go to my page.

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Good luck everybody.

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