Most of the casino dice we know today are any shade of red, but since a few years, other colors became very popular. There are casinos like the Hard Rock and the Palms in Las Vegas which uses more than four different colors on their dice. Before the "casino age" when dice were made of ivory, metal, wood and other materials, the color was given by the material (or they were painted with whatever was available...). Today, blue, green, yellow and purple are very popular colors. Some casinos use a non-green layout at their tables which matches best with the color of their dice. White and black non-transparent-dice are very rare and only a few casinos have them on special ocasions. New Years Eve Dice from the Hard Rock Hotel end regular in the $ 200's on eBay!

Finish

Another subject I want to cover in this section is the finish of the dice. You distinguish two different finish on casino dice: Polished and Sanded (also called Frosted).

The last step in the manufacturing process is the polishing treatment. During this treatment three different finishs can be reached. The first finish is called lap and has a chalky apperance and the color of the dice often looks pale. The second finish is called sand finish and was the common finish from the 1930's through the late 1960's. This finish is translucent and leaves no pattern from the diamond cut on the surface. The last finish is the polish finish and most of the current dice are polished. The advantage of this finish is that you can see through the dice and it's almost impossible to load such dice. Polished dice do also have the brightest colors.

Looking through polished dice is like wearing colored sunglasses. A sanded die is not transparent although light comes through.

A good example of polished and sanded dice from the Paris Las Vegas. Top row is polished and the dice below are sanded. They have the same spots and logos, just a the finish is different.

To conclude this paragraph: Two souvenier dice from the Aladdin. They aren't casino dice and their surface is opaque.