Play Sic Bo Online

What Is Sic Bo?

Sic Bo is a casino game played with three dice and a printed layout of forty-odd betting boxes. The dealer shakes the dice in a covered cup or an electric shaker, lifts the lid, and every bet on the layout is settled by that single result. There is no shooter, no point and no multi-roll cycle as in Craps: you bet, the dice land, you are paid or cleared, and the next round begins.

The headline bets are Big (a total of 11 to 17) and Small (4 to 10), even-money wagers that lose on any triple. Around them sit bets on the exact total, on one number appearing on one, two or three dice, on pairs and triples, and on combinations of two different numbers. Payouts run from 1 to 1 up to 180 to 1, and the house edge runs from 2.78 percent to nearly 19 percent on the same table. Knowing which box is which is the whole skill of the game.

Sic Bo is the natural next step after Chuck-a-Luck, which is really one Sic Bo bet played on its own, and it shares its arithmetic with the naval game Crown and Anchor.

A Short History of Sic Bo

The name sic bo (骰寶) is Cantonese for “precious dice” or “dice treasure.” The game is also called tai sai and dai siu, both meaning “big small,” cussec in the Portuguese spelling used in Macau, and hi-lo in Thailand and the Philippines. Its origins are Chinese and old, though exactly how old is unclear. Some writers trace it to the Han dynasty, roughly 2,000 years ago, when early versions may have been played with shells, stones or painted bricks rather than cubical dice. Three-dice betting games were certainly established across southern China long before any casino existed.

The modern game grew up in Macau, where the Portuguese colonial government legalized gambling in 1849 and licensed Chinese gaming houses. Sic Bo became a fixture of those houses alongside fan-tan, and when Macau’s casinos were modernized in the twentieth century it moved onto felt layouts with a dealer, a shaker and a lit board showing the winning boxes. It remains a big business there: in a recent year Sic Bo generated roughly 8.3 billion patacas (about one billion US dollars) in gaming revenue, making it Macau’s second most popular table game, well behind baccarat but ahead of blackjack.

Chinese immigrants carried the game to the United States in the early twentieth century, where it was played in the back rooms of Chinatowns and, in a simplified form, became the American carnival game Chuck-a-Luck with its wire birdcage. The Grand Hazard of nineteenth-century England, played with a “hazard chute” of inclined planes that tumbled the dice, is another close cousin. Sic Bo took much longer to reach licensed felt than to reach the immigrant back room. It became a fixture in Atlantic City and Las Vegas casinos around the turn of the twenty-first century, often in the Asian gaming pits, and the United Kingdom licensed it for casino play in 2002. Today the game is played from Australia to Austria, usually with an electric shaker under a glass dome.

Sic Bo Rules

Equipment

• Three standard six-sided dice.
• A shaker: a cup with a lid, or in casinos a mechanical shaker under a glass dome.
• A layout printed with every betting box and its payout, and chips.

Object of the Game

Sic Bo has no winner in the sense of a race or a scorecard. You place chips on one or more boxes, the dice are rolled, and each box either pays at its printed odds or loses its stake. The object is to end with more chips than you started with.

How a Round Works

1. Bets go down. Players place chips on any number of boxes. On our table you choose a chip size (5, 25 or 100) and click each bet you want; you can stack chips on as many boxes as your bankroll allows.
2. The dice are shaken. In a casino the dealer closes the shaker, runs it, and lifts the lid. Here you click Roll.
3. Winners are paid. Every box is checked against the three dice. Winning bets receive their stake back plus the payout; losing bets are swept. There are no pushes in Sic Bo and nothing stays on the table between rounds.
4. Repeat. A new round starts with an empty layout.

Bets and Payouts

This is exactly the table our game pays. It follows the layout used in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, which is more generous than the Macau paytable on triples, doubles and the high totals. “X to 1” means a winning bet keeps its stake and receives X times the stake on top. The house edge is the average share of each chip wagered that the house keeps.

A specific double on 4 still wins on 4-4-4. A total bet ignores the triple rule: a bet on 9 wins on 3-3-3. A single number bet is paid per die, so 25 on the 5 returns 25 on 5-2-1, 50 on 5-5-2 and 75 on 5-5-5. Totals of 3 and 18 have no box because only 1-1-1 and 6-6-6 make them.

Worked Examples

• 25 on Big, roll 6-5-3 = 14. Big wins even money. You collect 25 and your stake returns, so 50 comes back.
• 25 on Big, 25 on Even, roll 4-4-4 = 12. A triple. Both bets lose despite the total being big and even; 50 is gone. Had you also put 5 on Any Triple you would have received 150 plus your 5 back, and 5 on Triple 4 would have paid 900.
• 25 on Single 3, roll 3-3-1. Two dice show a 3, so the bet pays 2 to 1: 50 in winnings plus the 25 stake. If you had 5 on Double 3 as well, that pays 10 to 1 for another 50.
• 5 on Total 10, 5 on Total 11, roll 2-3-5 = 10. Total 10 pays 6 to 1, returning 30 plus the stake; Total 11 loses 5. Net for the roll: plus 25.
• 5 on the 2 & 6 combination, roll 2-6-6. Both numbers appear, so the combination pays 5 to 1 and 30 comes back. A roll of 2-2-2 would lose.

The Odds: 216 Outcomes

Three dice produce 6 × 6 × 6 = 216 equally likely outcomes. The totals are not equally likely, though: 10 and 11 can each be made 27 ways, while 3 and 18 can be made only one way each.

Totals 4 to 10 add up to 108 ways, exactly half of 216, and so do 11 to 17, so an even-money bet on either half would be fair. The triple rule removes three outcomes from each side (1-1-1, 2-2-2 and 3-3-3 are small; 4-4-4, 5-5-5 and 6-6-6 are big), leaving 105 winners against 111 losers: a loss of 6 chips per 216 wagered, or 2.78 percent. Odd and Even work the same way, since three of the six triples are odd.

The single-number bet is the best way to see how a layout payout falls short of the true odds. Bet one chip on the 4:

• Exactly one 4: 75 outcomes, win 1.
• Exactly two 4s: 15 outcomes, win 2.
• Three 4s: 1 outcome, win 3.
• No 4: 125 outcomes, lose 1.

Expected result: (75 + 30 + 3 − 125) / 216 = −17/216 = −7.87 percent. The bet wins something on 91 of 216 rolls (42.1 percent), but the 125 blanks outweigh the mixed winnings.

The proposition bets are worse because their payouts sit far below the true odds. A total of 9 has 25 winning outcomes, so its true odds are 191 to 25, about 7.64 to 1; the layout pays 6 to 1, a shortfall of 18.98 percent. A specific triple has true odds of 215 to 1 and pays 180 to 1. The two-dice combination wins 30 times in 216 (true odds 6.2 to 1) and pays 5 to 1. The same 6 to 1 gives Total 10 a 12.50 percent edge and Total 9 an 18.98 percent edge, purely because 10 can be made two more ways.

Sic Bo Strategy

1. Stay on Big, Small, Odd and Even

At 2.78 percent these four are the only bets on the layout that come close to the flat bets in craps. Every other box costs at least 7.87 percent, and most cost more than 12 percent. If you play nothing but Big or Small you will lose, on average, less than 3 chips per 100 wagered, and your bankroll will last several times longer than a proposition bettor’s.

2. Big and Small at the same time is not a hedge

Equal chips on both do not lock in a break-even round: any triple loses both bets, so the pair loses 6 rolls in 216 and wins nothing on the other 210. It is the same 2.78 percent edge paid twice.

3. Single numbers are the least bad way to chase a bigger win

If even money bores you, the single-number bet at 7.87 percent is the cheapest shot at 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 on a roll. It is the whole game of Chuck-a-Luck and Crown and Anchor, and still half the cost of most totals.

4. If you must bet a total, bet 7 or 14

Total 7 and Total 14 pay 12 to 1 against true odds of 13.4 to 1, a 9.72 percent edge. Totals of 10 and 11 (12.50 percent) come next. The totals of 9 and 12 look inviting because they come up often, but the 6 to 1 payout is the same as for 10 and 11 while the probability is lower, giving them the worst edge on the whole layout at 18.98 percent.

5. Prefer the Vegas paytable over the Macau one

The edge on Big and Small is the same everywhere, but triples, doubles and the 4/17 and 5/16 totals differ enormously. A specific triple at 180 to 1 costs 16.20 percent; at Macau’s 150 to 1 it costs 30.09 percent. If a live table pays 150 to 1 on triples or 8 to 1 on doubles, leave those boxes alone.

6. Do not cover the layout

Spreading chips over ten boxes guarantees that something wins nearly every roll, but each chip carries its own edge and the losses on the other nine boxes are larger than the win. Spreading bets exposes more chips to the house edge; it never reduces it.

7. Set a stop and count rolls

Every round is a full decision, so Sic Bo settles bets faster than craps. At a chip on Big every roll you should expect to lose about 3 chips per 100 rolls; at a chip on Total 9, about 19. Decide how many rolls you will play before you sit down, and treat a big proposition win as a reason to bank it, not to press.

Common Mistakes

• Treating a triple as “just a big or small number.” It is the one result that beats Big, Small, Odd and Even all at once. Six rolls in 216 do it.
• Thinking a specific double needs exactly two. Double 5 also wins on 5-5-5. If you hold both Double 5 and Triple 5, a 5-5-5 pays both.
• Assuming the two-dice combination needs a pair. The 3 & 5 combination needs one 3 and one 5 on different dice; a roll of 3-3-3 loses it.
• Reading “pays 6 to 1” as a fair price for Total 9. It is the most expensive box on the layout.
• Betting the streak on the results board. After five Bigs in a row the next roll is Big 105 times in 216, as always.

Variants and House Rules

• Macau paytable. Specific triple 150 to 1, Any Triple 24 to 1, specific double 8 to 1, Total 4 or 17 at 50 to 1, 5 or 16 at 18 to 1, 6 or 15 at 14 to 1. Edges of 29 to 47 percent on those boxes. Big and Small are unchanged.
• Two-dice combination at 6 to 1. Many layouts outside the United States pay 6 to 1 on the combination, which cuts its edge from 16.67 to 2.78 percent and makes it as good as Big or Small. Ours pays 5 to 1, the common American price.
• Odd and Even boxes. Standard in Macau and on many electronic tables; missing from some American layouts. Our table includes them.
• Four-number combinations and three single-number combinations appear on British, New Zealand and Austrian layouts, paying 7 to 1 and 30 to 1.
• Grand Hazard is the English ancestor, played with a hazard chute; its “raffles” (triples) paid 180 to 1 too.
• Chuck-a-Luck keeps only the single-number bet and a few side bets and swaps the shaker for a birdcage.
• Yee Hah Hi (“fish prawn crab”) uses picture dice instead of pips; it is the Chinese counterpart of Crown and Anchor.

For two-dice betting with a similar flavor, Under and Over 7 is the simplest possible layout, Hazard is the medieval game that became craps, and Cee-lo is the three-dice street game where a banker takes on the players.

Glossary

• Big / Small (Tai / Sai): The even-money bets on 11 to 17 and 4 to 10.
• Triple (three of a kind): All three dice showing the same number; loses the Big, Small, Odd and Even bets.
• Double: At least two dice showing the same number.
• Total (sum) bet: A bet on the exact sum of the three dice, 4 to 17.
• Combination bet: A bet that two named different numbers both appear.
• Single-number bet: A bet on one die face, paid once per die showing it.
• Shaker: The covered cup or motorized dome in which the dice are rolled.
• True odds: The payout that would make a bet break even in the long run.
• House edge: The share of each wager the casino expects to keep, expressed as a percentage.
• Paytable: The set of payouts printed on a particular layout; Macau and Las Vegas tables differ.

Play Sic Bo Online on Dice.now

The game at the top of this page is free play with virtual chips only. You start with a bankroll of 1,000 chips; there is no real money, no account and nothing to download, and your best bankroll is saved only on your device. Choose a chip size (5, 25 or 100) and click any box to stack chips on it: Small, Big, Odd and Even; the six single numbers; Any Triple and the six specific triples; the six specific doubles; every total from 4 to 17; and all fifteen two-dice combinations. Clear bets takes everything back. Roll shakes the three dice and settles every bet at once using exactly the Atlantic City and Las Vegas paytable above, with each result explained in the payout log; the roll history shows recent totals colored by win or loss. If your bankroll drops below the smallest chip, Play Again resets it to 1,000. Ready? Shake the dice.