Gambling Tips on Sic Bo

Many people are a little intimidated to give the Sic Bo table a whirl when they go to the casino, so they stick with more well-known table games like blackjack, craps and roulette. The thing is, if you can handle craps and roulette, you will readily understand Sic Bo. It is sort of a combination of roulette and craps.

Sic Bo resembles the craps game in that it uses dice. Instead of a regular set of two, three dice are used. These are shaken mechanically and the result of the roll is keyed into a computer which makes the winning zones on the Sic Bo table light up.

Just as in roulette and craps, there are many variations of bets. The most common Sic Bo bets are BIG and SMALL, which is akin to the black and red of roulette. These bets pay even money.

If you bet BIG, you are betting that the total of the dice roll will be 11 through 17. If you bet SMALL, you are betting that it will be 4 through 10. These fields are on either side of the top of the Sic Bo board. Just as black or red will not be paid in roulette if a zero comes out, in Sic Bo, if a triple number comes out, there is no payout for BIG or SMALL.

You can bet on the result of any single die. At the bottom of the board are individual numbers from 1 to 6. You can place an even money bet that one or more of the dice will have that number on it. For example, if you place a $5 bet on the number 2 and the roll comes out 2-2-5, you will win $5 for each 2. If all three of the number you bet on comes out, you get a bonus payout.

The next row up from the bottom is a set of 2 dice combos that you can bet on for 1 to 6 odds. If you place a $5 bet on the combination of 1 and 2 and the roll is 1-2-3, for instance, you will win $30. The third number can be anything, as long as two of the dice are a 1 and 2 for you to win that bet.

The third row from the bottom contains specific number bets, each containing their own odds. The highest payouts on the SMALL side are, of course, 4 and 5. On the BIG side of this row on the Sic Bo board, the best paying numbers are 16 and 17.

Between the BIG and SMALL fields at the very top of the board are the double bets. You can bet that a roll will contain any set of doubles that you want to bet on. This is a bit of a higher risk than the bet on the bottom row and consequently, it pays better. One unit will get you back 10 if you are right. There are also specific triple bets, the least played and highest paying bets on the Sic Bo board. The payout for specific triples in Sic Bo for each unit is 180. Therefore, if you bet $5 on triple 4s and they came out, you would win $900. In the very center lies a place to bet on any triple. A one unit bet on any triple returns 30 units.

Feel free to walk up and observe a Sic Bo game in progress before you decide to lay down some chips. This may give you a feel for the table, and you may want to try a few BIG or SMALL bets if you think you spot any trends. Just remember that in this respect, Sic Bo is not like roulette since the dice are being shaken mechanically. The same way that I advise you not to be afraid of playing the zeros in my article Gambling Tips on Roulette, I would say don't be afraid of the triple bets in Sic Bo. You never know when one of these will come out and you just may get that $180 return on your dollar chip.

I once walked up to a table where another lady was playing and I could tell from the frustrated expression on her face as she put her chips on 16 and 17 that she had been playing these numbers for a while. I just played the 3 specific high triples 4, 5 and 6 and put one chip each on 10 and 11 to make my $5 minimum bet. The triple 4s came out. I won $180 on that one bet, and I walked. I don't know if that was my particular lucky day and I doubt it, since I had just lost $90 on a slot machine. Maybe it was that lady's unlucky day and that somehow worked in my favor. I doubt that too. It's just plain foolish to keep playing a long shot bet thinking it has to come out, and that's what she was doing. I really would not have stayed there and bet my whole bankroll that specific triples would come out. I would have tried it for a few rolls and left, but I just got lucky the first roll out.

If you're not into being a daredevil, then just pick a few numbers in the area between 8 to 13 and keep upping your bet till you make a decent profit, then leave. It is quite rare that these common numbers do not come more often than the numbers with bigger odds.

Finally, I leave with with these wise words: Don't try to outguess the dice and don't play Sic Bo a long time or you will get creamed.