Sic bo
Sic bo is a casino dice game in which the player bets on the outcome of three dice shaken together, either on their total, on particular numbers or on combinations such as doubles and triples. The name comes from Chinese and is usually glossed as “precious dice”. Online it appears both as an RNG game and at live casino tables, where a dealer runs a mechanical shaker. Every throw has 216 equally likely outcomes, and that single figure explains almost everything about the odds.
How sic bo bets are paid and priced
The simplest bets on the layout are Small and Big. Small wins on a total of 4 to 10, Big on 11 to 17, and both pay even money, 1 to 1.
The catch is the triple. Both bets lose whenever all three dice match, even if the total falls inside the range, so each wins on 105 of the 216 outcomes and loses on the other 111. Stake €1 on Small for every one of those 216 outcomes and the player gets back €105 in winnings against €111 in losses, a net cost of €6, or 2.78% of the amount wagered. That is the house edge, and it equals an RTP of about 97.2%.
The same sum works for any bet on the table: multiply the winning outcomes by the payout, subtract the losing outcomes, and divide by 216. A specific triple, such as three fours, comes up once in 216 throws, so its true odds are 215 to 1. Paid at 180 to 1, it keeps about 16.2% of every euro staked over the long run; paid at 150 to 1, about 30.1%.
None of this predicts a session. A run of fifty throws without a triple does not make the next one more likely, because the dice carry no memory and each throw starts again from 216 outcomes.
Big or Small against a specific triple
Players new to the game often weigh the even-money bet against the long shot printed in the corner of the layout. The figures below follow the most common online paytable, with 180 to 1 on a specific triple.
Big or Small | Specific triple |
|---|---|
| Wins on 105 of 216 outcomes, about 48.6% | Wins on 1 of 216 outcomes, about 0.46% |
| Pays 1 to 1 | Pays 180 to 1 on common tables, 150 to 1 on some |
| House edge of 2.78% on every standard paytable | House edge of 16.2% at 180 to 1, about 30.1% at 150 to 1 |
| Payout identical across almost every version | Payout varies by table and studio |
| Loses on any triple despite the right total | Is the triple the even-money bets lose to |
Where players meet the paytable
Sic bo has no single standard paytable, and this is where the number on the page and the number at the table part company. Big and Small stay at 1 to 1 almost everywhere, so their 2.78% edge travels well between operators.
The bets further out move. Any triple, which wins whenever all three dice match whatever the number, commonly pays 30 to 1 for an edge of about 13.9%, but some tables pay 24 to 1, which lifts the edge to roughly 30.6%. A two-dice combination at 5 to 1 carries about 16.7%; the same bet at 6 to 1 costs only 2.78%. Totals such as 4 or 17 shift in the same way, depending on which studio built the game and which paytable the casino chose to run.
Every live and RNG version prints its payouts on the layout or in the help screen.
Reading a quoted RTP
When a review gives sic bo a single RTP, it is usually the Big or Small figure. That number says nothing about a session spent on triples and totals, which is why the bet and the paytable belong next to any percentage quoted for this game.
What sic bo is often confused with
Sic bo is sometimes mixed up with craps, since both are dice games with a crowded layout. Craps uses two dice and a sequence of rolls built around a point, while every sic bo bet is settled on a single throw of three.
It is also confused with Hi-Lo and Chuck-a-luck. Chuck-a-luck is a close relative that keeps only the single-number bet, and Hi-Lo is a different three-dice game.
Inside sic bo itself, the commonest mix-up is between any triple and a specific triple. The first wins on six outcomes out of 216, the second on one, and their payouts reflect that gap. Newer live versions add random multipliers to some spots, and those games usually trim the base payouts to fund them, so the classic figures above do not carry over automatically.
