The main casino dice games are craps, sic bo and chuck-a-luck. Craps, played with two dice, is the most popular and offers the best odds, with a house edge near 1.4 percent. Sic bo uses three dice and is a live casino staple, chuck-a-luck is a simpler three-dice game with a higher edge, and online the live dealer studios add Lightning Dice, Super Sic Bo and Bac Bo.
Casino dice games are the oldest wagers still running, and a handful of them hold their place in every online lobby today. Craps is the giant among them, but it is not the only one: sic bo, chuck-a-luck and a few rarer games each have their own following, and the live dealer studios have added a new generation built on the same dice. Each one is introduced below, compared on how it plays and what it costs, so you can head for the best odds among them.
- Craps is the most popular casino dice game. It also has the lowest house edge of any dice game.
- Sic bo is the three-dice favourite. A live-casino staple with a wide range of bets and decent odds on small or big.
- Chuck-a-luck is simple but costly. The birdcage game is easy to play but carries a much higher house edge.
- For the best odds, choose craps. Its pass line and free odds beat every other dice game on value.
What are the casino dice games?
Casino dice games are games where the roll of one or more dice decides the outcome. Only a few are commonly offered today: craps, played with two dice, and the three-dice family of sic bo, chuck-a-luck and grand hazard. Craps is the headline act, the fast, social game that draws crowds, while the three-dice games are quieter and, in the case of sic bo, increasingly popular online.
Online there is a fourth group, the live dealer dice games such as Lightning Dice and Bac Bo, which take the old formats and add multipliers or a baccarat-style layout.
What separates them most is value. The house edge ranges from about 1.4 percent on craps up to nearly 8 percent on chuck-a-luck, so the game you pick matters a lot. If you are new to dice, our how to play craps guide is the best place to start, since craps is both the most popular and the best value.
The main casino dice games compared
Choose a game to see how it is played, how many dice it uses, and its house edge on the best available bet. The difference in value between them is striking.
Craps: the best odds of any dice game
Craps is the most popular casino dice game and the one every other has to measure up to. Played with two dice, it lets players bet with or against the shooter, and its pass line bet has a house edge of just 1.41 percent, the lowest of any dice game. Back that bet with free odds and your overall edge drops even further, which no other dice game can match.
It is also the most social game in the lobby, with a live dealer calling the rolls and the whole table cheering the dice. For the full picture, our craps odds guide breaks down the house edge on every bet, so you can stick to the cheap ones.
Sic bo: the three-dice favourite
Sic bo is the best known three-dice casino game, an old Chinese game whose name means precious dice. Players bet on what the three dice will show, from the total to specific numbers to the small and big ranges, and it has become a live-casino favourite thanks to its fast pace and colourful layout. Its small and big bets carry a reasonable 2.78 percent house edge, though the triples are far more expensive: any triple at 30 to 1 costs 13.9 percent and a specific triple at 180 to 1 costs 16.2 percent.
If sic bo appeals to you, our dedicated sic bo guide covers the rules, the bets and the odds in full.
Live dealer dice games online
The dice games Canadians actually meet in a lobby today are mostly live dealer formats, and nearly all of them come from Evolution. Live Craps is the traditional game with a dealer throwing for everyone, and its pass line keeps the 1.41 percent edge. Bac Bo deals two dice each to a Player and a Banker side and plays like baccarat; its Player and Banker bets return a published 98.87 percent, a 1.13 percent edge, which makes it the cheapest dice game after craps.
Super Sic Bo is standard sic bo with random multipliers added to some bets each round, so small and big keep their 2.78 percent edge while the multiplied bets cost more on average.
Lightning Dice drops three dice down a tower and pays on the total, with multipliers up to 1,000x on some numbers; its published return of 96.21 percent means a 3.79 percent edge, the price of the fireworks. All four run around the clock, and our guide to online and live craps in Canada covers where each province can play them.
Chuck-a-luck, grand hazard and rarer games
The rest of the dice family is simpler and harder to find. Chuck-a-luck, also called the birdcage, spins three dice in a wire cage and lets you bet on a single number appearing, but its house edge of around 7.87 percent makes it one of the poorer value dice games, and it turns up more at carnivals than casinos. Grand hazard is a close, slightly more elaborate cousin from which chuck-a-luck evolved, and both descend from sic bo.
Older still is hazard, the medieval English two-dice game from which craps itself grew, and klondike, a five-dice house game, both now essentially historical curiosities. You will rarely see either in a modern casino, but they are the roots of the games that remain.
Playing casino dice games
Choosing between the dice games comes down to edge and pace. Craps and Bac Bo are the cheap ones at 1.41 and 1.13 percent; sic bo and Super Sic Bo are a fun change of pace at 2.78 percent on small and big; Lightning Dice and chuck-a-luck are entertainment with a price, at 3.79 and 7.87 percent. Pick by how much action you want per dollar, not by how exciting the layout looks.
When you are ready to roll, choose a licensed site that offers them in Canadian dollars; in the regulated markets, AGCO-registered Ontario casinos and AGLC-registered Alberta casinos carry the full Evolution dice range alongside RNG craps and sic bo.
