Roll two dice and 7 comes up more than any other total, 6 ways out of 36. Snake eyes (two ones) is 1 way. That’s the whole reason craps works the way it does, and the dice probability calculator above shows the odds for any total with one to five dice.
Three dice? A 10 or an 11 comes up 27 times in 216, so 12.5%. Three sixes is 1 in 216. Those are the numbers behind the totals on a sic bo table.
How the dice probability calculator counts
Each die has 6 faces, so two dice give 6 × 6 = 36 equally likely results, three give 216, and so on. The calculator counts how many of those results add up to your total, then divides.
| Total (2 dice) | Ways | Chance |
|---|---|---|
| 2 or 12 | 1 | 2.78% |
| 3 or 11 | 2 | 5.56% |
| 4 or 10 | 3 | 8.33% |
| 5 or 9 | 4 | 11.11% |
| 6 or 8 | 5 | 13.89% |
| 7 | 6 | 16.67% |
Choose “or more” or “or less” for a range. Rolling 8 or higher with two dice is 15 ways, 41.67%.
Dice odds in craps
Craps is built on this table. Say the point is 4. To win you need a 4 before a 7. There are 3 ways to roll a 4 and 6 ways to roll a 7, so you’re a 2 to 1 underdog. That’s why the free odds bet behind the line pays exactly 2 to 1 on a 4 or 10, 3 to 2 on 5 or 9, and 6 to 5 on 6 or 8. It’s the one bet in the casino with no house edge at all.
The proposition bets in the middle of the table are where the edge lives. “Any 7” pays 4 to 1 when the true odds are 5 to 1. The calculator gives you the true odds. Compare them with what the table pays and you’ll see the gap.
Why totals bunch in the middle
There’s only one way to make 2 (1 and 1) but six ways to make 7 (1-6, 2-5, 3-4 and the reverses). Add more dice and the bunching gets stronger. With five dice, the most likely total, 17 or 18, comes up about 10% of the time each, and the extremes (5 and 30) are 1 in 7,776.
The average is always 3.5 per die. Seven for two dice, 10.5 for three. If a game pays as though every total were equally likely, the totals near the average are where it’s losing money, and the ones at the edges are where you are.
Dice have no memory. A run of sevens doesn’t make the next roll any less likely to be one. BeGambleAware.org is free and confidential if it stops being fun.