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Sic Bo House Edge

Every bet on a Sic Bo table, priced from all 216 dice combinations, the tenfold spread in one place.

This prices every standard bet on a Sic Bo layout, under two documented pay-table conventions, from the exact enumeration of three dice. It says nothing about how any individual session will go.

Which schedule your table runs is a house rule, not printed on the layout. Both are documented and both are in live use; ask the dealer rather than assume.

Lowest house edge on this table

2.78%

Small (4-10, no triple) and Big (11-17, no triple), tied for the lowest edge on the American schedule. Still a house edge, not a win rate.

On this spot

Small (4-10, no triple)

One roll that pays: 2-6-1.

Rolls that pay105 of 216Chance48.61%Pays1 to 1House edge2.78%

Every roll of three dice, one cell each: a block for each face of the first die, in order, a row for the second, a column for the third. Lit cells pay on this spot.

Every bet, cheapest to most expensive

  1. Small (4-10, no triple)105 of 216 (48.61%) · pays 1 to 12.78%
  2. Big (11-17, no triple)105 of 216 (48.61%) · pays 1 to 12.78%
  3. Single number (any one face)91 of 216 (42.13%) · pays 1, 2 or 3 to 17.87%
  4. Total 7 or 1415 of 216 (6.94%) · pays 12 to 19.72%
  5. Total 8 or 1321 of 216 (9.72%) · pays 8 to 112.50%
  6. Total 10 or 1127 of 216 (12.50%) · pays 6 to 112.50%
  7. Any triple6 of 216 (2.78%) · pays 30 to 113.89%
  8. Total 5 or 166 of 216 (2.78%) · pays 30 to 113.89%
  9. Total 4 or 173 of 216 (1.39%) · pays 60 to 115.28%
  10. Specific triple (choose a face)1 of 216 (0.46%) · pays 180 to 116.20%
  11. Two-dice combination (any of the 15 pairs)30 of 216 (13.89%) · pays 5 to 116.67%
  12. Total 6 or 1510 of 216 (4.63%) · pays 17 to 116.67%
  13. Specific double (choose a face)16 of 216 (7.41%) · pays 10 to 118.52%
  14. Total 9 or 1225 of 216 (11.57%) · pays 6 to 118.98%

The bar beside each figure is that bet’s edge as a share of the most expensive bet on this table, total 9 or 12 at 18.98%, so the spread between the quiet corner bets and the ones printed largest in the middle of the felt is a picture rather than a column of numbers to compare by eye.

“Choose a face” and “any of the 15 pairs” bets price identically whichever face or pair you pick: a fair die has no favorite number, so a specific triple on the 6 costs exactly what a specific triple on the 1 costs, and so on for every double and two-dice combination.

For scale

Craps, pass line1.41%

Roulette, single-zero wheel2.70%

Sic Bo, Small and Big2.78%

Roulette, double-zero wheel5.26%

For scale against the two other games a Sic Bo table usually sits beside: a craps pass line bet costs 1.41%, and roulette costs 2.70% on a single-zero wheel or 5.26% on a double-zero one. Small and Big, at 2.78%, sit 0.08 points from the single-zero wheel, the closest of those three reference bets to them, and at about 53% of what the double-zero wheel costs. Every other bet on this layout costs more than any of those three, several of them by an order of magnitude. See the full breakdown on craps odds or roulette payouts.

Small and Big lose on any triple even when the total lands inside their own range, which is the one rule on this table that is easy to misread from the name alone. A cheap bet is still a losing bet: every row here has a house edge, and none of these numbers is a win rate.

Written and reviewed by Alexander Korsager · last reviewed October 2, 2026 · corrections

The idea

What this tool shows

Sic Bo has the widest spread of house edge of any game a US player can walk up to, and the layout is built so the spread stays invisible. Small and Big, the quiet even-money bets tucked in the corners, cost 2.78%. A specific triple, printed largest and paid at up to 180 to 1 in the middle of the felt, costs as much as 30%. Same table, same three dice, more than a tenfold difference between the cheapest bet and the most advertised one.

  1. Every figure on this page comes from the 216 equally likely outcomes of three six-sided dice, not from a published table.Small wins on 105 of them for 2.78%. A specific triple wins on exactly 1 of them, so what it costs depends entirely on the payout, and that payout is not the same everywhere: some tables pay 150 to 1, others 180 to 1, and the difference alone moves the edge from 30.09% down to 16.20%. The calculator lets you switch between the two documented schedules rather than picking one for you.

  2. The bets are sorted by house edge, cheapest first, on purpose.The payout column is what a Sic Bo table sells; the edge column is what it actually costs, and they are not ranked the same way. The single most expensive-looking number on this page is not always the worst bet on the table, either: at some pay tables, a wide total like 5 or 16 costs more than the specific triple sitting next to it, because a big-looking payout can still fall well short of what the true odds would require.

  3. Nothing here identifies a winning bet.Every single one of these has a house edge, from 2.78% up. What the spread shows is how much that edge varies by which spot you put chips on, at the same table, on the same roll.

FAQ

Questions players ask

What is the best bet in Sic Bo?

Small or Big, at 2.78%, the same edge as an American roulette wheel's even-money bets. Both lose on any triple as well as on a total outside their range, which is easy to miss the first time: a roll of 2-2-2 sums to 6, squarely inside Small's 4-to-10 range, and it still loses. That rule is what keeps the edge at 2.78% instead of lower.

Why does a specific triple pay differently at different tables?

There is no single standard. Wizard of Odds documents two schedules in live use: a Macau-style table paying 150 to 1 and an American one paying 180 to 1, for a bet that wins on exactly 1 of the 216 possible rolls. The difference is not small: it moves the edge from 30.09% to 16.20% on one number. Four other bets (any triple, a specific double, and the two widest total bets) vary the same way, and this calculator prices all of them under both schedules.

Does a bigger payout mean a lower house edge?

Not on its own, and Sic Bo is one of the clearest places to see why. A specific triple's payout, as high as 180 to 1 on an American-style table, is the largest number printed on the layout, and it still carries one of the higher edges on the table, because it wins on only 1 roll in 216. On a Macau-style table the same comparison flips further: the specific triple pays 150 to 1 for a 30.09% edge, while a total of 5 or 16, on that same layout, pays only 18 to 1 for a worse 47.22% edge. The bigger-looking number is still the cheaper bet there, because 150 to 1 falls short of the triple's true odds by less than 18 to 1 falls short of the total's. The payout tells you what a win returns. It does not tell you how often that happens, and the edge is what puts the two together.

Does the Small or Big bet ever lose to a roll inside its own range?

Yes, on any triple. Small covers totals 4 through 10 and Big covers 11 through 17, but both lose automatically if the three dice all match, whatever the total. Two of the six possible triples, 2-2-2 and 3-3-3, land inside Small's range, and two more, 4-4-4 and 5-5-5, land inside Big's. That is why Small and Big price to 105 winning outcomes rather than the 107 a plain sum count would suggest.

Which pay table does my casino use?

It is a house rule and it is not printed on the layout, so the honest answer is to ask the dealer or check the table's own posted rules before you play. The two schedules this calculator prices are both documented and both in live use; a table paying something between them, or a further variant, is not something this tool can identify from the felt alone.

Is Sic Bo's house edge better or worse than Craps or Roulette?

It depends entirely on which bet. A craps pass line bet costs 1.41%, and roulette costs 2.70% on a single-zero wheel or 5.26% on a double-zero one. Sic Bo's Small and Big, at 2.78%, sit 0.08 points from the single-zero wheel, the closest of those three reference bets, at about 53% of what the double-zero wheel costs. Everything else on the Sic Bo layout costs more than all three, up to 47.22% on a total 5 or 16 bet at a Macau-style table, so the game that looks like one edge is really two: a corner bet priced close to roulette and a middle-of-the-felt bet priced several times worse than anything else at the table.

Methodology

How this is calculated

Three six-sided dice have 216 equally likely outcomes. Every bet's probability here is the count of those outcomes that pay, divided by 216, counted directly rather than looked up from a probability formula.

The house edge on a bet is the average amount returned per unit staked, including the stake back on a win, subtracted from 1: for a bet that pays P to 1 and wins on W of the 216 outcomes, that works out to 1 minus W times (P plus 1), divided by 216.

Common misreadings3
  • A bigger payout number is not a smaller house edge. A specific triple's 180 to 1 and a total's 18 to 1 both look like the standout number on the felt, and the edge column exists because the payout alone answers a different question than the one a player actually needs.
  • A bet's edge does not tell you what a single roll will do. Every bet on this page loses more often than it wins; the edge is the average cost over many rolls, not a prediction of the next one.
  • Nothing on this page identifies a bet that makes money. The cheapest bet here still has a house edge of 2.78%, which is a losing bet played long enough.
Assumptions6
  • Six bets (specific triple, any triple, specific double, and the totals of 4/17, 5/16 and 6/15) are priced under two named pay-table conventions, both sourced to Wizard of Odds' Sic Bo reference: an American schedule (Vegas and Atlantic City) and a Macau schedule. Every other bet pays the same everywhere every source we checked agreed on.
  • Small and Big pay 1 to 1 and lose on any triple as well as on a total outside their range, which is what holds their edge at 2.78% rather than a lower figure a plain count of totals 4-10 or 11-17 would give.
  • The single-number bet is priced as one blended edge across its three payout tiers (1 to 1, 2 to 1 and 3 to 1 for one, two or three matching dice), because that is how the bet is offered: one stake, one spot, a payout that depends on the roll.
  • The two-dice combination bet (there are 15 of them, one per pair of distinct faces) and the specific-double and specific-triple bets are each priced once and shown as a single representative row, because every face or pair prices identically to any other by the symmetry of a fair die. math.test.ts checks this for every face and every pair rather than assuming it.
  • Total bets of 3 and 18 are not offered separately. Both are reachable only by a triple (1-1-1 and 6-6-6), so a bet on them would duplicate the specific-triple bet at a different price rather than add a new one, and no Sic Bo table we found lists them.
  • The craps and roulette figures quoted for scale (1.41% pass line, 2.70% single-zero, 5.26% double-zero) are not derived on this page. They are this site's own sourced and tested figures on Craps Odds and Roulette Payouts, carried over as fixed reference points rather than re-derived here.
Limits3
  • Table minimums, maximums and chip denominations are ignored. The percentages here are exact at any bet size; a real table will round you to a workable chip amount.
  • Which of the two pay-table conventions a given casino runs is a house rule, is not printed on the layout, and is not something this tool can know. Sources describe further regional variants (Wizard of Odds notes an Australian schedule on some totals) that are not modeled here because we could not source a full table for them.
  • This prices bets, not sessions. It says nothing about how much a given number of rolls is likely to cost or how a bankroll behaves across them, which is the Bankroll Calculator and Variance Simulator's job, not this page's.
Evidence

Every probability is counted directly over the 216 equally likely outcomes of three dice (see the OUTCOMES enumeration), not read off a formula or a published table. math.test.ts checks the enumeration itself against the textbook 3d6 sum distribution (1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 25, 27 ways for totals 3 through 10, mirrored for 11 through 18), then checks every bet's win count independently: Small and Big at 105 of 216, a specific triple at exactly 1 of 216 for every face, any triple at 6, a specific double at 16 for every face, a two-dice combination at 30 for every pair of distinct faces, and every total from its own count.

The two pay-table conventions (American: specific triple 180 to 1, any triple 30 to 1, specific double 10 to 1, total 4/17 60 to 1, total 5/16 30 to 1, total 6/15 17 to 1; Macau: 150, 24, 8, 50, 18 and 14 to 1 respectively) are sourced from Wizard of Odds' Sic Bo appendix, retrieved 2026-09-12, and every resulting edge in math.test.ts is checked against that page's own published house-edge figures rather than derived only from this module's formula: Small/Big 2.78%, specific triple 16.20% (American) and 30.09% (Macau), any triple 13.89% and 30.56%, specific double 18.52% and 33.33%, the two-dice combination 16.67%, the single-number bet 7.87%, and every total bet from 4/17 through 10/11 on both schedules.

The four totals every source we checked agreed on (7/14 through 10/11) are additionally cross-checked against the same page's figures of 9.72%, 12.50%, 18.98% and 12.50%.

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