Sic Bo originated in ancient China and means literally “dice pair”, although the game is actually played with three dice! The game is played throughout Southeast Asia, Korea, China and increasingly in Western casinos. Sic Bo is an easy game to play, the object being to bet on the outcome of a role of the three dice, to include combinations of any two or three of the dice, single numbers, two of a kind or three of a kind.
The game is played on a table that illustrates the 50 permissible bets in pictorial form and with their associated payout. Sic Bo payouts range from 180:1 for a specific triple, to 1:1 for betting on the value of just one dice. The dice are usually tumbled in a basket by the dealer, who will enter the results on to the table, and then light up the winning combinations. The dealer pays out the lucky winners and removes the unsuccessful bets.
The first and most straight forward betting option in Sic Bo is to bet on any one number of the numbers 1 to 6 on a dice, and if that number comes up on any one of the three dice rolled, then the bet is paid out at evens, if two number come up then the payout is 2:1 and if all three dice feature the chosen number the payout is 3:1. A player can also select a pair of numbers for example 2 and 4 to come up on any two of the dice, and if successful the payout is 5:1.
A bet can be placed on the total of the three dice from 4 to 17 inclusive. The odds vary for this bet depending upon the total bet. “Small bets” refer to a wager that the total of the three dice will be between 4 and 10 (although this does not payout for triple 1, 2 or 3), whilst “Big bets” require the total of the three dice to be between 11 and 17 (excluding triple 4 and 5); both these latter popular bets pay out 1:1.
A specific triple requires all three of the dice to show the selected triple e.g. 3 x 3, and this pays out the maximum of 180:1. A variant of this, at the lower payout of 30:1, is the any triple bet that pays out for any of the six possible triples. A specific double bet pays out 10:1 if any two dice match the number that has been wagered.
