Dice Control: Get Real Get the Feel / long

Dice Control = Scooting or Sliding the Dice. The only way this happens is (a) duplicity by the craps crew (their in on it) (b) not enforcing proper game protection procedure (c) stupidity by the craps crew. Most people can accidentally slide the dice once, then the crew tells them the proper procedure, end of sliding. If they continue to slide the dice they can be asked to leave. Now not too long ago there was a crew of African American dice scooters around that did quite well. The way the did it was a combination of (b) & (c), that and the fact that they were quite intimidating. This move, scooting, involves a ton of practice, why? Because if you do it wrong it will cost you, and your pursuers, I mean former Teammates will want to huddle up with you.
Now in all my years I've seen 2(two) people who could control dice by other means than scooting them. These moves were not cheating either. These men are legend and are quite well known.
So in a nut shell, proper use of game protection by the dice crew eliminates dice control (scooting/sliding).
If you all knew how much practice, disciplne and hard work this took you all would realise the nonsense some people speak about dice control.
Remember if the dice crew is smart it won't happen. And then when your caught your pictures will show up everywhere.
Hint 1: if your scooted dice doesn't make it past the nine in the field your busted.
Hint 2: if you can get away with it more power to ya, because then you've found a weak crew. But abuse them to much and they could be a terminated crew.
Good Roll: when both dice hit off the back wall (you can't control anything after that)
Bad Roll 1: one die slides across the layout, the other hits the back wall.
Bad Roll 2: both dice slide across the layout, neither hits the back wall. This is 1. bad procedure by the crew for not calling a no roll or 2. stupidity by the crew because they don't know procedure or 3. your splitting the take with them.
Either way it's "dicey" at best, at worst you could get arrested by some overzealous GCB Agent who wants to be the first to prove that dice scooting/sliding is a crime.
C the autographed book you gave me is still one of my prized possessions. Hope you and AS are still friends.
J.W. Powell Conquerer of the Grand Canyon

took one casino for $90,000 on a Sunday on the 3rd shift. The next day all those workers at that table were fired, including the floor. Never to be rehired.

Iggy.

is not what people are generally talking about when they are talking today about controlled throws.

Dice Scooting/Sliding is very shady.

offered by the house.

Bottom line: there is no such thing as a controlled dice throw when proper procedure is followed by the dice crew.

Please read my post below "I saw Scoblete roll," and realize that the "scooter" shot you are talking about doesn't really exist on a modern craps table, especially one that has a "speed bump" right in the middle of the prop bets, either under the felt or strung right across it. The "controlled throw" that Scoblete and his Crew use was nothing at all like that but it was obvious even from a cursory appraisal that those dice were not behaving randomly. Seven days of watching someone shoot may not be statistically relevant but seven days of watching Barry Bonds hit home runs or Scoblete rolling number after number sure appears as if home run hitting and dice control are possible.

Contrary to the "voodoo" I think you'll find if you ask the experts who have seen Scoblete and his Crew roll, Jean Scott, Henry Tamburin, John Grochwoski and Don Catlin and several others who attended his Jamboree in Tunica in November, you'll find that it is possible to change the odds at craps. Scoblete wrote a very interesting article comparing dice control as a "performacne based skill" to "card counting." I can't seem to find where it was now.

Here's a link to an article written by Don Catlin, a major mathematician in the gaming field, who sheds some light on what he saw as well. It appeared on December 13 on the www.casinocitytimes.com web site.

if the shooter is forced to hit the wall with both dice. But it may still be possible to land just before the wall and still hit the wall with a gentle force and still have an edge. But what you really want is to not hit the wall at all.

Some casinos have forced me to do this, hit the wall with both dice, under threat of being barred from throwing. So i no longer throw at those houses.

The best thing to do for those who wonder about dice controllers is to position yourself at the opposite end of the table as the shooter and watch the dice as they are released, you may be amazed at what you see happening in the air.

Your wrote:

Seven days of watching someone shoot may not be statistically relevant but seven days of watching Barry Bonds hit home runs or Scoblete rolling number after number sure appears as if home run hitting and dice control are possible.

What you are describing is a huge edge! I will repeat the question I asked before. If people can control the dice with that kind of edge, why aren�t they rich.

Let us do some numbers. These are �back of the envelope� calculations, and could be off a little. But I think they are useful to start the discussion.

I skimmed over the Catlin article. At the end he gave a figure of an 8.4% edge. This was on placing the 6 or the 8. There is a little bit of variance here; I think the Kelly optimal bet is about 7.2%. A player could use a failry conservative strategy and bet only 3% of bank. Then they would make about .25% of Bank on each roll.
Suppose they bet at a fixed level until they double their bank. Then they double their bets. This means that they would be doubling their bank about every 400 bets.

How long does it take to make 400 bets. Say a week? (Correct me if you think it is different.) If you double your bank every week, within 10 weeks it will increase 1000-fold. If you started with only $10000, you would have a million after 10 weeks. After 20 weeks, you would have 1 Billion. After 30 weeks, you would have trillion. In 40 weeks, you would own the planet.

Now this isn�t quite realistic. You will have trouble finding casinos willing to accept 1 Million dollar wagers. So there is a limit as to how far our exponential growth can take us. Eventually, we will run into Max Bets, and our growth will only be linear.

Still, I think a craps player can take 100K out of a casino before getting backed-off. There are a lot of casinos to play in, and making several million should be fairly easy.

Now you may turn the question around, and ask why aren�t card counters rich. There are several obvious differences.

1. Our edge is nowhere near that great. You could not observe a card-counter for 100 hours and ascertain that he/she has an edge, just from the results.

2. There is more heat for card-counters than craps-shooters. If casinos would let us play until we made 100K in each one, we could all quit our day jobs and play BJ for a few years, before retiring on Easy Street.

So basically, your telling me that this guy has a money machine in his shooting hand. He can make almost as easy as the Federal government can print it.

Would any intelligent person with that capability advertise that they had the capability?

Now to put this is some perspective: I think �controlled throws� are possible; I think there are some people practicing it. However, I think of level of control that can be achieved is much less. I don�t know if anybody can get an outright edge on craps. I do think they could lower the house edge.

Why would anyone want to play if all they could do is to lower the house edge. If they combined this with a comp hustle, they could make money. They could also deflect some heat from other forms of AP.
But note that these gains are much more modest than the gains you suggest are available.

Shooting dice is not as mathematical as you make it sound. Take the Barry Bonds analogy. If you caught him when he was hitting a lot of home runs, you'd figure him for 200 or more a year, perhaps. But in a performance based activity, too many variables exist to make an accurate assessment. Chance are Barry doesn't feel too good on certain days; his swing isn't there, etc.

Over time you see he's hit a lot of home runs.

I think the same applies to dice controllers who are at the expert level. Putting aside the question of having to play at tables with other shooters, which Scoblete handles by applying the 5-Count to them, I think most of them probably look at what they are doing as a pastime, not a profession. Only one group of players that Scoblete wrote about in his book, The Craps Underground, were lableled by him as professional - the Lee Brothers, the rest did it to have fun and make some money. Yes, some of them he claimed made over a million dollars; certainly the Captain, the Samurai Shooter, the Lee Brothers and a few others. These I would describe as rich and that answers in the affirmative "how come they aren't rich?" question -- some are. (This can be applied to every advantage player on this board, most of whom I would guess, have not become rich at blackjack, although a few might have.)

I also think that some people lose their edge when big money starts to be on the line. If you had a bankroll of $1,000 and a job that paid you $75,000 a year, losing a hundred dollars, or ten percent of your bankroll wouldn't really be that upsetting. Now let us say that you still had a job that made $75,000 but you had grown your bankroll over however many years and you now had $25,000 -- you were that good at dice control. You now figure to increase your bet 25-fold (for arguments sake). A loss of $2,500 would feel devastating, even though it is still only 10% of your bankroll. The bets required to be in a position to lose $2,500 might cause undue stress on the dice controller and hurt his performance.

For most people, money is absolute and not relative.

However, from what I saw with my own eyes, I know I can answer the question of whether there are actual, skilled dice controllers out there. Yes, there are. Yes, some of them are rich. But, no, I don't think everyone who attains the skill level required to flip the odds will become rich.

What you are describing is a huge edge! I will repeat the question I asked before. If people can control the dice with that kind of edge, why aren�t they rich.

You make a number of valid points. However, there are a number of practical obstacles to this type of reasoning.
1) We don't really know for certain if these players are not rich. If some are getting rich with this, then it is more likely they would keep it secret.

I skimmed over the Catlin article. At the end he gave a figure of an 8.4% edge. This was on placing the 6 or the 8. There is a little bit of variance here; I think the Kelly optimal bet is about 7.2%. A player could use a failry conservative strategy and bet only 3% of bank. Then they would make about .25% of Bank on each roll.
Suppose they bet at a fixed level until they double their bank. Then they double their bets. This means that they would be doubling their bank about every 400 bets.

How long does it take to make 400 bets. Say a week? (Correct me if you think it is different.) If you double your bank every week, within 10 weeks it will increase 1000-fold. If you started with only $10000, you would have a million after 10 weeks. After 20 weeks, you would have 1 Billion. After 30 weeks, you would have trillion. In 40 weeks, you would own the planet.

The problem with these calculations is the element of stress. If you bet money that is significant in absolute terms, it does affect your throw. Let me put it another way - can you make a long-ball shot at pool? A good player can do this well over 50% of the time. Now, $1000 is riding on that shot. With most players the % will fall by at least 10%. And, the most minute change in muscle tension has a far more significant effect with a controlled throw than at the pool table, there is almost no margin of error.

1. Our edge is nowhere near that great. You could not observe a card-counter for 100 hours and ascertain that he/she has an edge, just from the results.

No, but card counting is not a very good example. There are comparable advantages from other relatively well-established forms of blackjack advantage play-steering, hole-card play, sequencing etc. Grosjean acolytes tell me all the time that next-card, hole-card games grow on trees.

Relatively few such players make big money. The reason is that most players, like casinos, are insanely risk-averse and bet like nothing even the smallest Kelly fraction.
The Sharpshooter book, while demonstrating considerable knowledge of the physics of dice control, mentions absolutely nothing about Kelly betting. Its possible they may just not understand it, few counters do.

2. There is more heat for card-counters than craps-shooters. If casinos would let us play until we made 100K in each one, we could all quit our day jobs and play BJ for a few years, before retiring on Easy Street.

I would qualify that: there is less heat for non-standard advantage players, but the heat, when it does occur, the consequences are far more serious.

Would any intelligent person with that capability advertise that they had the capability?

Physical skills are not neccessarily correlated with intelligence, witness the world of professional sportsmen. That said, when I asked Scoblete if I could get a video feed of a dice controller in action over a statistically significant sample, he politely told me that would be a step too far, and that he was reconsidering publishing too much info about this.

Why would anyone want to play if all they could do is to lower the house edge. If they combined this with a comp hustle, they could make money. They could also deflect some heat from other forms of AP.

In addition, you could play with an edge if very favourable rules are offered. 100x odds crop up every now and again. Even I could beat that game with the very limited level of control I have demonstrated to myself.

Say, I set the dice and throw one die above the other, the latter rolling in one plane. A small % of the time the top die will trap the other die in one plane at the base of the wall, otherwise the dice fall randomly. By doing this unremarkable feat I have changed the raw odds to some extent.
The question is whether you can do this accurately enough to overturn the house edge. But, I dispute the notion that you cannot change the odds at all.

it's a proven fact that if you can change "just one"
dice combination result out of 46 results.... the true
odds of craps are changed!

reference for dice sets... i prefer the "2V" and
shoot a lot of 4's, 9's, 10's and 5's.

http://www.dicecoach.com/dicesets.asp

Just setting the dice isn't the be all and end all of a controlled shot. It's how you grip and deliver the dice to the back wall that counts. The sets are like different pitches for a pitcher; he still has to have the skill to get the ball over the plate and have the ball do what he wants it to do. That takes tremendous practice.

The sets that Scoblete and his Crew seem to use are mostly the 3V set, with the 3-spots in a V and 6s and 8s all around, and the Harway set, with hardway numbers all around. Scoblete himself uses the 3-V mostly. On the come-out roll, Scoblete uses the All-Sevens set with sevens on all sides, except when he or his Crew have Come bets, then he sticks with the 3-V, at least when I saw him. On most of his initial rolls, before anyone could have a come bet obviosuly, that I saw in those seven days I discussed, he'd come out with one, two or three sevens in a row before he established a number. I remember one hand he had where he hit something like six 8s in a row, two of them back to back hard 8s using that 3-V set. That means his dice were behaving in unison.

I think the skill needed to perform such feats is greater than what the average dice setter or average dice controller, if there is such a thing as an average in this area, can do. In the group I saw there was a real range of skill level. Some of the shooters' dice looked as if they were glued together as they went through the air, others were split quite a bit and I don't really think they were playing with an advantage. I think this is an area of play where someone could con himself into thinking he has the ability. Of course, in time the losses will convince him, he just doesn't have it.

You can find out more about dice control by going to the following pages:

Dice control setting is simply voodoo by itself.

Mr. Dice let me get this straight. According to the arcticle; Frank held the Dice for 1 hour, people were lined up three deep, the table lost between $10,000 and $20,000. Wow! Were they playing a "tub" game (a type of table not an actual tub) Hey MathProf what do you think the odds are of someone holding the dice for 1 hour and the table losing a only 10 or 20K? I do believe these here fellas were under betting. How much does this school cost? There are many shamefull things in the gaming industry on both sides of the table. But to offer this "VOODOO" to unsuspecting novice players is reprehensible. Let me tell you something, the casinos would love a hundred "Franks" "Sharpscooters er shooters" and "Deadeyes" to play with those "Sets". Just remember no sticking pins in the dolls while your at the table.

I think Catlin was mistaken in his estimates, although most of the players at the table, with the exception of Scoblete and a few of his crew, were nickel players. Scoblete had a hefty stack of purples when he left, almost all of them won on his roll. As far as your sarcasm goes, I have nothing to combat that with. If what they are doing is voodoo, send me some pins!

I am still skeptical. You indicated that Frank may have god days and bad days. I suspect your right. But I would also suggest that the same thing is true of voodoo gamblers.

Let us say we observe a gambler using a voodoo system. Let us say he/she plays sessions of about 1 week each. Now if observe this person for a year, you will find that in a few weeks lose big, and in a few weeks they will win big. If you only observe during the week that they happen to be winning big, you may think �Boy they have a great system.�

This is why after-the-fact sampling is so poor.

After the fact sampling is basically Ploppy methodology. It makes me skeptical when people argue for a form of AP using ploppy methodology. Not only is the methodology suspect, but they become suspect for using it.

The point that you and John made about the quality of play decreases with higher stakes is an interesting one. But I am not sure that is true if you increase your bets gradually. When I was a red-chipper, losing $1000 was a big deal. Now it is trivial. Losing 50K would be a big deal for me, but if I had doubled my bets several times, I wouldn�t feel that way. You get used to the fluctuations as the betting increases.

Now I do admit that there may be external factors that impact on the quality of play. If your rolling for low-stakes and no-one is paying attention, you may be more relaxed. If you betting the casino maximum, and there is a big crowd watching, including 6 pit bosses, you may feel differently.

But I remain skeptical.

Mr. Dice let me get this straight. According to the arcticle; Frank held the Dice for 1 hour, people were lined up three deep, the table lost between $10,000 and $20,000. Wow! Were they playing a "tub" game (a type of table not an actual tub) Hey MathProf what do you think the odds are of someone holding the dice for 1 hour and the table losing a only 10 or 20K? I do believe these here fellas were under betting. How much does this school cost? There are many shamefull things in the gaming industry on both sides of the table. But to offer this "VOODOO" to unsuspecting novice players is reprehensible. Let me tell you something, the casinos would love a hundred "Franks" "Sharpscooters er shooters" and "Deadeyes" to play with those "Sets". Just remember no sticking pins in the dolls while your at the table.

I have some misgivings about charging a large amount for an unproven method. I would like to see some proof, such as the video feed I mentioned, before encouraging people to pay hundreds of dollars.

That said, I don't want the concept dismissed out of hand due to thin anecdotal evidence. We should keep an open mind.

Insults? Typical, deflect the focus from the facts by claiming you are insulted. Bottom line, how much control can you have if you only win 10 to 20K for the whole table after 1 hour of holding the dice? The point I'm making is this, people make outrageous claims to promote their systems. It just sounds like an advertisement for that golden school you mentioned. Many people will believe what you say about dice control is the gospel and that would be false. It sounds as though you are backpedaling somewhat in you posts. Initially you made it sound as though this was a fool proof system. It is not. I'm just asking for some honesty and truth in your advertising. Ask any Blackjack player, its one thing to keep the perfect count, remember the indices and bet accordingly while in the safety of your own home. It is quite another to do this in the hot glare of the casino with the lights, noise, cameras and action. Advantage players don't claim to win everytime, remember standard deviation, how does this apply to your dice control system of playing craps? You ask me to send you pins? Again your practicing the voodoo (selling the system) but you ask me to send you some pins (money?). I guess there is one born every minute. And that's all I got to say about that.

I told you what I saw and experienced. I also said that I think Scoblete himself made quite a bit of money considering all the purple chips he had. I have no idea how much the table made or the casino lost because I was watching him. But certainly if Scoblete made, for arguments sake, 10 to 20K, then I would think the table made more than that. When Barry Bonds steps up to the plate, you don't watch the left fielder.

I'm not selling anything, I have no stake in the dice control classes of Golden Touch Craps or any other group. The people that follow Scoblete and his Crew around the country in order to play at the tables with them say that what I saw was typical of their performance. One guy at the table was in Vegas the month before and saw Scoblete have an hour-long roll at Harrah's. Someone doesn't have an hour long roll every night but over the seven days of play, I saw Scoblete have, as I said, a majority of his rolls in the teens to twenties range. He wasn't the only one. Most of his Crew were excellent shooters as well.

Seeing with my own eyes the way his dice react was believing for me.

For you it might not be. It is quite possible that you wouldn't have the drive, talent, discipline and mental toughness that such a feat would require and for you dice control would be voodoo. I can understand that. No amount of discussion on a message board can convince anyone of anything. What it can do is perk your interest to investigate a matter to see for yourself. Or, because it doesn't resonate with you, to reject the ideas out of hand.

I just know that for me, I am now trying to find out where and when Scoblete and his Crew will be playing so that, if I can make it, I'll be there.