Dice Roller

This dice roller is the analog of real dice in digital form. Whether playing a game, placing a bet, or just having fun, a virtual dice roller can provide you with 100% randomly generated results in seconds. As a bonus, you can select the number of dice.

And if it's not enough for you to roll a six-sided die, there's a secondary function where you can also change the number of sides on your dice. The possibilities are endless, as are each roll's potential sums and results.

Dice in the ancient world

A die is one of the oldest playing objects known to humanity. But in ancient times, people used dice primarily for divination and religious rituals. And later, playing dice became a pastime.

In ancient times, people believed that the gods determined the outcome of games by tossing dice and other objects like them. The Romans had the goddess Fortuna, daughter of Jupiter, overseeing the dice throw. The Indians considered the gods Shiva and Parvati as the lords of fortune.

People could decide fairly serious matters with dice, such as getting an inheritance, the throne, or land division. Rolls of the dice were relied upon when guessing what the harvest or the military campaign would be.

For sure, it's unknown when and where the first dice appeared in the world. There are different opinions about it. According to one version, they were invented by the Greek Palamedes during the siege of Troy, which lasted 10 years. Some say that the dice were invented in Lydia's ancient country during King Atys's reign. At that time, during a severe famine, gambling helped distract people from their troubles.

Archeologists' findings tell us that dice appeared independently in many cultures. There can't be a single source for the dice's origin and the invention's date.

In the early 2000s, Iranian archaeologists discovered in Shahr-e Sukhteh the oldest dice ever found. The research showed that these dice are about 5200 years old. By the way, these dice did not differ from those we know now. They had the same hexagonal shape and the same markings.

Ancient dice have been found in Egyptian and Sumerian tombs. However, they were two-sided and could only give two possibilities when rolled. In games of dice, people could use more than one die at a time. The Egyptians utilized four such flat sticks in the game Senet. They were painted on one side and were called "fingers." There were six-sided cube dice in ancient Egypt, though people did not use them for games but for cult and religious activities. Senet was played before 3000 B.C. and up to the second century A.D.

Double-sided dice are labeled D2, unlike the more popular six-sided D6. By the way, we can still use the counterpart of the D2 dice today by tossing a two-sided coin.

Coin toss games were practiced in ancient times in many cultures. The Romans played the game Heads or Ships (Capita Aut Navia). It got this name because the heads of gods and rulers were depicted on one side of the coins and ships on the other.

The rules of the coin game were different than they are today. The Romans did not, as we do today, make their prediction of the winning side of the coin. One of the actors had a "head". Since the emperor was on the side of the "head," he was thought to agree with whoever won. The person who got the "ship" always lost.

Later, in the culture of games came four-sided dice. They began to be used by nomadic tribes of Hyksos, who invaded Egypt from Mesopotamia around the 18th and 16th centuries B.C. The tetrahedrons quickly entered that era's gaming culture, combining with pre-existing gambling accessories. In Egypt, people used two-sided sticks and boards to play Senet. On the back of the board, the Egyptians began making fields for Tiau, the game where they used 4-sided dice.

The Greeks and Romans adopted dice in both religious rituals and games.

Two types of dice were popular in ancient Greece and Rome - tali and tesserae. Tetrahedral tali looked like oblong sticks with four elongated faces marked with numbers 1, 3, 4, and 6. The tesserae looked much like our modern hexagonal cubic dice. Tali and tesserae were shaken and thrown from a bowl called a frithillum, pyrgus or turricula.

The game of tali was played with four dice. The player got the best result when each dice showed a different number. The game of tesserae was played with three dice, and the best result was given by three sixes. The Greeks played with only two dice.

When Alexander the Great began expanding his empire, 6-sided dice started gaining popularity in Asia and India. In the ancient Indian chess game, Chaturaja, a roll of such tetrahedral dice determined which piece would move.

The tetrahedral dice were used in the north of Europe up to the middle of the XX century in the Daldøs and Sáhkku games.

The classical hexagonal dice became very popular in Greece and Rome. In Greece and Rome, such cubes were made of bone, bronze, agate, crystal, onyx, alabaster, marble, and amber. These cubes were almost identical to our modern ones.

Dice prohibitions and prejudices

Over time, the Romans became passionate gamblers. And this even led to bans on gambling, which became too powerful an addiction for some Romans. The very first such law dates back to the 3rd century B.C. Only the guards were allowed to play to keep them awake at night.

One of the laws stated that people who allowed gambling in their house could not sue if they were cheated or beaten. The ban on gambling in Rome was lifted only for Saturnalia, the December farming festival.

The ancient Roman poet of the "golden age" of Roman literature, Horace, ridiculed the young men of his day who wasted their time playing dice instead of horse riding.

The Catholic Church forbade dice until the end of the fourteenth century. In Christianity at the time, dice were associated with the humiliation of Christ. Evangelicals recalled how Roman soldiers after Jesus was crucified, played dice with his clothes.

The most spectacular instances of dice failure

But dice were too addictive for people prone to addiction. They robbed people of their fortunes and forced some to gamble away every last shirt. King Henry VIII of England lost the bells of St. Paul's Cathedral while playing dice.

To justify his actions, the king decided to devalue the significance of the bells. He declared that they were just pieces of metal with no special value. Sir Miles Partridge won the bells from the king. But soon after he received them, King Henry VIII condemned him for treason, and ordered that Sir Miles Partridge be publicly hanged.

King Henry VII forbade his army to gamble so that they could concentrate on recapturing parts of France. But he did not pursue the London bookmakers, for he worked closely with them in placing his bets.

Quite an interesting game of dice in the eleventh century was played by the Norwegian King Olaf II the Holy and the Swedish King Olof. At that moment, they were resolving the question of the division of the island of Hisingen. They decided to play out the disputed territory when negotiations reached an impasse.

The Swedish and Norwegian kings played "more/less," the simplest game. The players roll two or three dice, and the bet goes to the one who gets the most.

The Swedish king threw two sixes and already thought he had won the game. Then the Norwegian King Olaf threw the dice with such force that one of them cracked. The numbers 1 and 6 remained on the pieces of the cracked die, forming a total fallout of 13 points on 2 dice. Everyone present at the game recognized this throw as a winning one. In the end, the island of Hisingen went to Norway.

The story described in the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata was another famous example of losing at dice. One of the chapters describes the dice game between King Yudhishthira and the hero Shakuni. According to the legend, Shakuni was very fond of his nephew Duryodhana. During Duryodhana's visit to the beautiful city of Hastinapur, King Yudhishthira's wife, Draupadi, rudely ridiculed the guest for being awkward. And Shakuni resolved to avenge his nephew. The myth tells us that he used his father's thigh bones to play dice. That's why they always had the numbers he wanted.

After a few games, King Yudhishthira lost his brothers and his wife, Draupadi. Under the terms of the game, he and his subjects were to go into exile in the woods for 12 years.

Historical dice games

All dice games boil down to the fact that the player seeks to throw away a stipulated result. If he succeeds, he scores points and continues throwing. If not, the turn passes to his opponent. In the Middle Ages, different games used this principle - Landsknecht, Pig, etc. They were played by knights, guards, students, beggars, and even prisoners in prisons.

The game House of Happiness (Glückshaus) was popular in Germany. Five or six players could play this game at once. The game used two six-sided dice and a special board. If the result of the throw indicated an empty field, the player put a coin there; if the field had a coin, the player took it away. The fields on the board had their own unique rules. The seventh field was called "wedding," and when a player hit it, the player always put a coin in it. If the dice had a combination of two, called the "lucky pig," the player would take coins from all the fields except the "wedding." If the dice rolled a combination of 4, the player would give a coin to the board owner. When the dice rolled a combination of 12, called "king," the player became "king" and could take everything.

In the 18th century, the game of Craps appeared in New Orleans. It also uses two six-sided dice.

The game can be divided into two main stages: the player's first roll (Come Out Roll) and the roll after establishing the number of game points (Point Roll). The player rolls the dice, and the points determine the course of the game.

• If a 2, 3, or 12 is rolled, a Craps situation is declared. The player loses and passes the dice to another player.

• If 7 or 11 is rolled, the Natural situation is declared, the player wins and gets the opportunity to roll again.

• If the numbers 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10 are rolled, this number is called a point. The game passes to the next stage - Point Roll.

At the Point Roll stage, the player rolls the dice until he gets the number point or the number 7 he set at the first stage. If he gets the number set on the first stage, the player wins, and the game starts again. If the number 7 is rolled, the player loses and cedes the right to roll the dice to another player.

The dice in craps games have to be thrown according to the rules. They could only be thrown with one hand and had to hit the board at the opposite end of the table.

There were more complicated games with dice, such as Poker Dice, Yacht, Generala, Crown and Anchor. They used five dice and a special table. Dice poker was quite similar to card poker.

In the ancient Chinese game, Siс-bo players bet on the result of the upcoming roll, which resembled modern roulette. The croupier would place dice in an opaque mechanical device in the form of a cap, which would toss them. When all bets were placed, the dice would be removed, and the numbers could be displayed.

Modern roulette also, in some measure, traces its history back to dice, and specifically, from spinning dice teetotum.

The 36 sectors of roulette appeared thanks to the calculations of the French mathematician Blaise Pascal. He calculated the probability of winning the bingo with 36 tickets, and his calculations formed the basis of the roulette system. The sector zero was invented by the creators of the first casino, brothers François and Louis Blanc.

Yahtzee is one of the most popular dice games in the world today.

It is believed that the rules of this game were invented by a Canadian couple while vacationing on a yacht at sea. The couple liked this game so much that they approached the entrepreneur Edwin Lowe with a proposal to establish its mass production. Edwin Lowe agreed and purchased the copyright to Yahtzee. The first set of the Yahtzee game was released in 1956.

The goal of the game is to score points by rolling five six-sided dice to make certain combinations. The dice can be thrown three times in one turn. At the same time, the player must make certain combinations with the dice. The game consists of thirteen rounds. The winner is the player with the most points.

Dice Manipulation

Even in ancient dice, you can see how their manufacturers tried to influence the roll's outcome by modifying the dice. They filled them with lead, sharpened them, made them a little bit elongated, and ground their edges inward or outward. These manufacturers tried to achieve a shift in the center of gravity. And now you can see how players can shake the bone for a long time to see if its center of gravity is displaced.

Professional players hone their throwing technique to get the right result. If you roll the dice parallel to the table, the top edge will stay up, keeping the gyroscope effect from causing the dice to tip over.

If the table's surface is slippery, the cube can slide instead of rolling. In this case, the desired number will remain on the top edge.

The Ancient Romans used a turricula to prevent skillful dice throwing techniques. It was a hollow tower with sloping plates inside, along which the dice rolled. In modern times, such dice towers are called "dice towers".

Dice Precision

Dice are considered "accurate" if each side has an equal chance of ending up on top. All manufactured dice have a slightly non-ideal shape to one degree or another.

The most accurate dice are made for casinos. An error in rib length of no more than 1/2000th of an inch is acceptable for these dice. It is essential not only to have the edges perfectly chiseled but also to balance the dice.

The dots on the dice are placed according to specific rules. The numbers on opposite sides should add up to seven. On opposite sides, there should be marks 1 and 6, 2 and 5, 3 and 4. If the sides 1-2-3 are counter-clockwise, the die is called right; if the marks on the die are counter-clockwise, it is called left. Usually, right dice are used in the west and left dice in the east.

The dots should be drilled to a depth of 17/1000 inches and filled with paint.

For expensive casinos, dice with sharp ribs and corners are produced. They are often hand-forged from a plastic rod. The marks on such dice are applied with paint, which weighs as much as the plastic. So it does not change the balance.

Such a dice has the monogram of its casino and a unique serial number to make cheating difficult. Transparent plastic is used for the dice. This way, players can see no foreign objects or materials on the die. Cheating dice can use magnets placed inside the dice. At the same time, an electromagnet may be hidden in the tabletop.

Before using special dice for casinos, they are tested. The specialists make 100-200 rolls and record the dropped result. And if it turns out that the result is biased, the dice are rejected.

For conventional board games, the dice are made by machine punching. There is no need for perfect accuracy.

Dice regional characteristics

On Asian dice, points are deeper, larger, and they are located closer to each other. A point with a value of 1 is made larger to balance the six points on the opposite side.

In Asian countries, the dots on the facet marking the four, as a rule, have a red color. The fact is that in Chinese, the word for four (四) is consonant with the word "death" (死) and is considered unlucky. Red, the color of good luck, is meant to neutralize negative energy.

Dice with more faces

The advent of role-playing games has expanded the options of existing dice. The popular game Dungeons & Dragons began to use such dice as a tetrahedron (D4), cube (D6), the octahedron (D8), the dodecahedron (D12) and the icosahedron (D20) in a standard set. Random events in this game are simulated by rolling a die.

Such games can use a "percent" die with two decahedrons, one of which defines tens and the other units. An advanced version of this cube is a nested dice. This is a transparent cube that contains a second, smaller one. One roll of such a die can produce two results at once.

Randomness of Results

Seasoned gamblers are well aware that some dice scores are higher than others. In the 16th and 17th centuries, mathematicians such as Gerolamo Cardano, Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia, and Galileo Galilei performed calculations on the dice numbers. It turned out that when playing with two hexagonal dice more often than others the sum of 7 points.

It is not difficult to find the probability P of a particular sum of points S.

• Two points can fall in one way: (1,1), so P{S=2} = 1/36.
• Three points can fall in two ways: (1,2) and (2,1), so P{S=3} = 2/36.
• Four points can fall in three ways: (1,3), (2,2) and (3,1), respectively, P{S=4} = 3/36.
• The highest probability will be seven points. This sum can be obtained in six ways: (1,6), (2,5), (3,4), (4,3), (5,2), (6,1). Hence, the probability of seven points is P{S=7} = 6/36 = 1/6.

The statistics of the results for the three dice turned out to be even more complicated. Here, 216 different combinations arise when the order is taken into account. Thus, the mathematicians applied scientific methods to the concepts of chance and probability, and the mystique of the dice dissipated.

The French mathematicians Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat, using dice as a hardware generator of random numbers, formulated and proved the first theorems of combinatorics and probability theory. Their discoveries formed the basis of modern mathematics, statistics, and economics.

The Introduction of Virtual Dice Rollers

The idea of using a "dice simulator" or virtual dice roller goes back to the early days of computing. Humans have always been interested in "acts of chance." So, programmers began employing dice rollers when a type of software or a game required the generation of completely random numbers.

One of the first examples was the computer game Dungeons & Dragons, published by CLOAD in 1980. As with the real-life game, players are tasked with rolling dice to know whether a particular outcome has been successful. For instance, a player might want to know if a sword hit is powerful enough to destroy a monster or if their character is smart enough to open up a locked chest.

Since computer games can't interface with dice being tossed into the real world, game mechanics heavily use random number calculators. They are hidden deep within the programming of each game. But all of these outcomes are powered by a sort of virtual dice roller. Another example would be "games of chance" in casinos.

As helpful as dice may be, they are still tiny and, therefore, can easily be lost. Of course, you couldn't play a game like Dungeons and Dragons without the proper dice.

But by utilizing a virtual dice roller, you can eliminate this problem. You can roll dice using only your phone, laptop, or tablet.

Maximum Convenience and Versatility

The best thing about this digital dice calculator is that it provides maximum convenience no matter what game you are playing. The "dice amount" option goes up to 100 individual dice. Meanwhile, the secondary function allows you to create dice with an endless number of sides. So, if, for the sake of argument, you need to see what happens if you roll a die with 100,000,000 sides, you can do it with a few clicks of your mouse.

Suggestions for Using This Dice Roller

Want to get the most from our virtual dice roller? Check out the following tips.

• You can make a game more fun simply by changing the number of dice involved. Instead of using five to play Yahtzee, try doing "double rounds" and rolling ten dice at a time!

• Using the main dice roller, you can roll up to 100 dice at once. This calculator provides a visualization, so you can see the results just as you would if you were using physical dice.

• If you're playing a game with multiple types of dice (one 20-sided, one six-sided, etc.), you can use the secondary dice calculator for each roll. Just change the number of sides.

Finally, you can make up your games or solve disagreements using a dice roll. With our application, you can make each roll as complicated or simple as you'd like.