Cheating Device Spot Light - The Dice Loads

The many different materials used by cheats to load dice. Loads from mercury to gold are exposed in this in depth article.

LOADED DICEDICECHEATER

9/25/20226 min read

The Loads

Common metals used to load dice are: Tungsten, Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Brass and Mercury.

These solid weights (and one liquid) are added to the dice after a small hole has been drilled out exactly where the pips are. After the load is secured the cheat must seal the hole and paint the pip to match the other spots on the die. It is far easier to conceal a load in an opaque die than in a transparent cube. In fact, loaded opaque dice allow the cheats to not only create heavy loads but more targeted loads as well.

Placement of the Load

There are three methods for loaded solid dice, 1) Flat load only one face, 2) a corner load and 3) an edge load.

Flat face loads favor the opposite face number. The Corner Loads favor the three numbers in the corner and the Edge loads favor the two numbers the load rests on.

All three load types can be replicated with transparent dice by adding weight to the appropriate pips. Since the space for weight is limited the effectiveness of the weight is reduced. The added difficulty with loading transparent dice doesn’t stop the dice cheat, there are plenty of clear cubes with loads under the pips. Those heavy weights can be seen on transparent dice, while there is no such issue with obscured cubes. This gaffing process is pain staking and requires the use and mastery of several special tools.

The type of material chosen varies. The precious metals, platinum and gold are the heaviest and therefore the best choices. However due to the cost of these metals many dice are loaded with a metal known as tungsten. Tungsten is the same metal used by some casinos to scribe their dice. More common still, are amalgam loads consisting of several different materials.

Mercury

Mercury is lighter than the precious metals used to load dice but heavier than all the other load metals. Another plus, it is not magnetic. One significant drawback, it’s a liquid and could spill out if the die becomes damaged. The mercury in this type of gaff is a true load. It fills the entire drilled out hollow of the cube.

You can find mercury (quicksilver) loaded dice all over the cheating catalogs of the early 20th century. They appear to have been quite popular. These liquid weighted dice are not confined to the recent past at all. In fact, in 1984 eighteen mercury loaded dice were unearthed in London by the Society of Thames Mudlarks. The Mudlarks search the banks of the Thames river, looking for anything of historical value. That day in 1984 the group hit the gaffed dice jackpot. The loaded dice they found were dated to the late 15th century. X-rays of the dice showed that eleven of them were rigged to improve the number of fives and sixes rolled while the other seven dice provided an advantage for the ace and deuce.

These fullams as they were referred to during their time were common. In 1545 Roger Ascham wrote in his treatise on archery and gambling called Toxophilis “…dise stopped with quicksilver..”. Quicksilver is of course another word for mercury.

Mercury can also used to create tapping dice.

Paint

An article in Life Magazine dated 1939 claimed a heavy zinc-based paint has been used to add weight to dice. In order to facilitate this type of cheat the dice often have over sized pips, so more paint (weight) can be added. One of the appealing elements to this load is no evidence of the load remains after the die is burned. In the illegal casinos operating in the 20thcentury, burning dice was a common method to prove they were loaded. It is unknown how effective this technique is. The paint is lighter than all other loads and is limited to the size and depth of a pip. If it does work, I’d expect to see it used to create dead aces.

Floats

Hollow dice with one side thicker than the other are known as floats or floaters. The lighter side is always more likely to be rolled. Smart cubes of this type are known as floaters. It must be noted that not all floaters float. The gaff is generally made heavy enough to sink on the water drop test. Of course, a sinking floater dropped in a glass of water will still show the heavy side down more often than expected. That is after a suitable number of drops (60 or more) have been made. These dice also weight less than an identically sized cube made of the same material. Dice that are too heavy which is the best evidence to look for.

Honey

One of the most unlikely materials claimed to have been used to load dice are honey. That’s right, honey made by bees. There is a report that in World War I soldiers in France loaded their crooked cubes with honey. The dice were said to be amber in color and that made honey, which matched the color, difficult to detect. These honey loaded dice lasted for only about six eek, after which time the honey began to change color and become visible. The honey load would function much like mercury loads, so as long as the “bee juice” has a different density than the rest of the die the idea does have some merit however, honey has an average density of about 1.4 g/cm3, which does seem a little too close to the density of cow bone to effectively load a die in the trenches of France 100 years ago.

Mechanical

Tap Dice

Mechanical tappers or tapped dice photo are similar in design to mercury tappers. They are constructed with a heavy load like brass. They are never magnetic. The brass weight is held in place by a ratchet tooth that requires a “tap” to disengage it and allow the weight to use gravity to send it to the bottom of the channel. Tappers can be made as on-way, two-way or three-way dice. One-way dice have the channel drilled in the center of the die, from one number face to the opposite number. To get two-way tappers the tunnel is bored from the edge of the die to the opposite edge. Picture the tunnel on the center of the cube, right next to the edge, traveling from trey to the four, right under the 5 pips. This die would favor 3-5 with the weight “tapped” to the trey edge and favor the 4-5 with the weight on the opposite side. With three-way dice the weight travels from corner to corner, favoring three numbers at the vertices of maybe the 2-3-6 with its opposite side favoring the 1-4-5.

These types of gaffed dice were never popular among the true dice grifters due to the difficulty in construction and the unreliability due to the complicated design. The “catalog men”, amateur cheats, were said to have bought them in droves. The is the tapping action limits the use of mechanical tapping dice when the dice are rolled in a bird cage Photo or from a cup. The tapping action is non-existent or very hard to accomplish when not throwing dice from the hand.

Mercury Filled Tap Dice

These educated dice are advertised to go from loaded to fair with a tap and waiting for three seconds. Sometimes called three second dice. They are always opaque and have been drilled on pips to create narrow channels that link to each other from the hollowed-out center of the die.

Mercury tappers have quicksilver added to the channels, but not enough to completely fill the tubes. In theory the dice cheat can hold the mercury filled die so the substance flows to the bottom of the channel on a pip, say on the four. This would mean the four’s opposite, the trey, would be more likely to come up. Mercury is very viscous and therefore flows slowly. To get the liquid moving the dice are tapped, thus the name; “tappers”. This attribute is meant to keep the weight remain in its desired position during the throw but once the cheat has the dice back in his hand, he could tap and hold them in the proper position to move the weight to a new desired number or to the center cavity, making them fair dice. Mercury tappers appear to be a dice swindler’s dream come true. The cheat can create loads to force desired numbers during play without switching in new dice. He can just as easily send the load to the center of the cube and make the dice fair again. A great advantage when someone is shooting against the cheat.

There are assorted mercury tapping dice for sale on the internet today. I found a 12 second video promoting quicksilver tappers. The video showed only two throws. The first toss resulted in a pair of aces, the second pitch, after the dice had been tapped on the table, brought a pair of fives to the top. I observed two things on the video that debunk these dice as true mercury tappers. First, for these to be true mercury tappers, we must accept the liquid metal was first on the six face and then after being tapped moved to the deuce. Remember, weight on the six favors the ace and weight on the deuce favor the five. This type of right-angled movement within the channel carved into the die is impossible. The second interesting tell from the video clip disproving its authenticity was easy to spot. The video clip was obviously cut and edited between throws.

What do the experts say? Well, per Mickey MacDougall in his awesome book titles “Dice and Cards”, “There never was, and there never will be, a workable pair of tap dice for two reasons: first no player could get away with waiting 3 seconds after every toss of the dice; second, if one of the cubes was set for a six to come up, and the cheat wished to fix it so a five would show, the quicksilver would have to travel, not in a straight line, but at right angles – and the law of gravity wouldn’t permit that".