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I am going to be doing a 15 minute performance at a local Social Club's Annual casino night next year and intend to do a few minutes on the old techniques of Dice Hustlers.

Does anybody have any suggestions on any old, or new, books on dice cheating?

I would prefer the more sleight of hand sided stuff, but using sleights to switch in dice is acceptable.

I am reluctant to do any dice stacking I might add, it drives me nuts.

There's a book called 'How to Cheat at Everything' by Simon Lovell which has about fifty pages on dice in it. It's probably not exactly what you're looking for as it's got lots of context within old dice games - it's worth a read though and it's generally quite an interesting and entertaining book. Not sure where to get it from - it was a present a year or so ago.

Best

R

I have an excellent book called Gambling Scams by Darwin Ortiz. It covers all manner of scams including dice scams. Check out the table of contents in that link above; I don't think the book is available new, but you may be able to get it secondhand at places like Green Metropolis if you do a bit of searching around. Highly recommended.

rhysjones wrote:There's a book called 'How to Cheat at Everything' by Simon Lovell which has about fifty pages on dice in it.

I'm reading that at the moment! Freddy the Fox, hehehe! I think the script writers for The Real Hustle read it a few hundred times, I gotta say!!

rhysjones wrote:Not sure where to get it from

magicbox dot uk dot com

The best thing I have seen with a dice is die stacking. I don't do it myself and don't know what resources to recommend, but I know that it impresses an audience. An old Irish magician, Patsy Murphy (Gemini) does a beautiful routine.

can't remember the title properly - something like "cheat 'em, leave 'em bleeding" or something charming...

anyway - cheap little book, plenty of fun scams, and some stuff with die too...

on cards4magic.co.uk last time i looked, oh and while you're there they do some lovely misnumbered dice...

There's a routine that everyone seems to rave about, where you hold two dice between your thumb and forefinger, show both sides of it, then do various funny things with the numbers... what does or doesn't add up to something etc... It uses the p****e move or a variant of it.

I've always found it to be very boring, but some people love it.

I've got a while, so some hardcore sleights/practice will be alright.

Not dice stacking or mathsy though!

The book 'Beat em, Cheat em, Leave em bleeding' was by Bob Farmer (although his name does not appear on it). It does have a number of intersting scams, some of which use dice.

Dr Sack's Dice routine is a nice pocket effect with two dice, although not a gambling routine per se, it helps if the spectators are a bit familiar with dice. It's been described in a number of places, probably the most accessable would be Bob Sheets' It's the Rules, James Lewis' video (not sure if it's on DVD yet) and Aldo Columbini's dice DVD from L&L. It will take some work, but when you have it down, all you need are a couple of dice for a two minute routine.

The original Stars of Magic has Mohammed Bey's Chink a Chink (Leo Horowitz) which uses sugar cube packets. This can easily be changed to use dice (although, if you are going down this road, you can do any one of the four thousand matrix type effects with poker chips. The script almost writes itself.

A couple of switches are always nice to be able to do, and for the laity they don't have to be too technically demanding. I'm not aware of any being explicity taught on DVD, but a bit of experimenting will do wonders.

There's a slim booklet, which you may be able to track down, called How to Control Fair Dice. Many of the techniques in this book are on volume 4 of Steve Forte's Gambling protection series, which has just been released on DVD. Not teaching tapes, but with a bit of diligent work you should be able to pick the moves up.

Aubery Walsh (I think) wrote a small booklet called Dice Dexterity, which has some routines that may be useful. I can't find my copy at the moment. Burton Williams wrote a booklet called Dice: Squares, tops and shapes which is about dice hustling. Remember that a good routine can be put together with a few moves and some well chosen stories. Read up as much as you can and weave a tale or two.

Take care, Ian

Lenoir wrote:I've got a while, so some hardcore sleights/practice will be alright.

Not dice stacking or mathsy though!

You're pretty much screwed then mate - providing numbers and balancing on top of each other are kind of what dice are best at! There are of course things you can do with dodgy dice but I suppose the whole point here is you want something that focuses on the dice themselves, which is exactly what you don't want if you're using gimmicks.

There's a pleasant enough trick on one of Daryl's DVDs that basically uses the dice simply for their uniformity and handy size properties - you cover four dice with a folded napkin, displaying an empty space under another napkin. Basically the dice transfer from one place to another one at a time. It's an enjoyable method - you know, one of those that isn't that hard but makes you feel like you're doing some proper sleight of hand - though takes practice because smoothness is everything.

Also, there's an effect of Steve Dacri's that uses a prop you could probably find with a bit of gentle inquiry. Can't remember what it's called. Basically a dice matrix (chink-a-chink) with a prop to make the last vanish very clean and visual.

I was hoping for demonstrations rather than effects as such I suppose.

I met a guy in New York who was incredibly skilled with the cubes, you'd call out any number between 2 and 12 and he would hit it within 2 tries etc.

He looked like he'd been hustling for years.

I might buy myself a few dodgy dice, get Scarne on Dice plus a few of the above booklets and lock myself away for a few months.

Thanks everyone, especially Ian and Farls!

Neither an effect nor a demonstration, but if you want a fun little game for when you're sitting around with a whiskey later, try "petals on a rose" (Also known as "eskimos* fishing" I think...).

You basically just tell people the name of the game, roll a pair of dice and start playing, by stating the correct number. Say you roll a 5 and a 3, the correct number would be 6. If you roll a 3 and a 6, the number would be 2. If you roll a 5 and a 5, the number would be 8...

It's good fun to see how frustrated people get as they fail to understand how the number is calculated (especially if they've had a drink or two). But as I said, neither a trick nor a demo, and could potentially make you quite unpopular



* Apologies to anyone of Inuit descent. But, y'know, that's what the game's called, so don't shoot the messenger.

The Spelmann and Nardi DVD, No Chance, may interest you. Alakazam also sell a No Chance Deluxe Dice Set for £45...

What we have here is a complete set of force dice . You recieve 21 dice in total, giving you three force dice for each number as well as 3 reg dice. These are the same dice that we use in our best selling No Chance effect . We have had this set custom made and they are perfect in every way.

Farlsborough wrote:There's a routine that everyone seems to rave about, where you hold two dice between your thumb and forefinger, show both sides of it, then do various funny things with the numbers... what does or doesn't add up to something etc... It uses the p****e move or a variant of it.

I've always found it to be very boring, but some people love it.

Dr Sacks that is. And it's wonderful. Jim Lewis showed me his routine for it at the Castle last year. Tis a thing of beauty in his hands. Looked just like magic. Seek out his instructional video on it.

Late again Damian! Look about eight inches up

Ian