The spots are always arranged, that two opposite sides of the dice equal seven (1+6, 2+5, 3+4). Crooked dice have sometimes different layouts.

This is the regular layout of a die. If the two face is on the top and the one face in front of you, the three will be left, the four on the right, five on the bottom and the six back of the die.

The bigger the dice, the larger the spots. The regluar diameter of the spots range from 5/32" to 7/32". Larger tables required larger dice and larger spots.

These are the only dice pictures on this website that are true to scale. All other pictures are 100 x 100 pixels, regardless of their true size! Some casinos used smaller dice after the indicated period of time!

During the manufacturing process, the holes for the spots are drilled in the dice about 17/1000". Then the holes are filled with color with the equal weight-to-volume relation. For cellulose nitrate a polyester resin with zinc peroxide catalyst was used and for cellulose acetat the color had to be changed to epoxy resin with mercury #9 catalyst which is used until today.

Sometimes you find different deep dice spots. To guarantee perfect balance of the dice, the depth of the different spots vary. The single one spot is drilled six times deeper than any of the six spots on the opposite side.

Further you find dice with heavy beveled corners and concave spots. Most of these dice are souvenier dice and were not used at craps tables (Although early craps dice [1920s - 1940s] had concave spots and opaque surfaces).

The majority of all casino dice today have solid spots. With a few exceptions, all dice have white spots regardless of the color of the dice. In the past the variety of used spots was larger. Ring eye, birds eye, bulls eye and double ring are some names for non-solid spots. Many different variations exist, but you won't find many in current play. Most of them are obsolete and older dice. All spots have in common that they are round. I have never seen casino dice with square or triangle shaped spots.

Doughnut (Donut) spots used in the past by Harvey's Lake Tahoe and the Launceston Country Club (Tasmania).

Double Ring spots (Bulls-eye spots) from the Golden Gate, Bally's and Paris in Las Vegas (all current), Harolds Club Reno, Wrest Point Tasmania (both obsolete) and fake dice with "Nevada Palace" on them.

Dot within circle spots (Birds-eye spots) from the Horseshoe Club in Reno and from the Hyatt in Puerto Rico.

Rare variation from Bally's Las Vegas (yellow dot within white circle) and common variations from the Golden Gate and Paris Las Vegas with one solid spot among double ring spots (combo / combination spots; the solid center spot is used for a hidden letter key).

Hard to find and very expensive examples of non-white spots from the Palms Las Vegas.

Other spots include: Dot within Double Ring, Octagon Dot within Circle, Double Ring / Dot within circle combinations, intricate spots and Enlarged spots. Unfortunately dice with such spots are still missing in my collection...

Security Features

There are two common security features which I know about:

Hidden Letter Key:

The hidden letter key can be seen if you look through a polished dice. It's a single, capital letter in black which can't be seen from the other side of the spot. Most of the casinos which have such dice use the initial letter from their name. Others change the letter from time to time to avoid the possibility of switching an altered dice from an old series into the game. The hidden letter key was invented in the 1940s but you wont find many dice prior to 1970 with this feature. On sanded dice, the hidden letter key is hard to see. Use some spittle to have a better look through the die.

Some examples of hidden letter keys from different casinos. "BJ" in the last dice is believed to be the initials from Bud Jones, a dice manufacturer. (I am wondering how long it takes until I can build an A - Z alphabet with hidden letter keys!)

Glo-Spot Key: Introduced in the 1980s, the Glo-Spot can only be seen when you hold the die under a blacklight. While all other dots remain white, the UV dot turns from white to purple. Only a few casinos use this feature and on older dice you won't find it at all. It is produced by mixing special ink / paint in the color which is glowing under UV light waves.

Here are fivie dice from various casinos seen under normal light condition. The second picture on the right was taken when only a UV blacklight was on. You can see only certain spots glowing, the rest remains dark.

Some examples of Glo-Spots. A similar feature is very common on casino chips (cheques).

Other Security Marks: Some casino supervisors mark the dice prior to play with small pin pricks on certain spots or initials. These kind of marks allow the boxperson to make sure only current marked dice are on the table and such marks aren't part of the cancellation after play.