Luck of the Throw: The Origins of Dice Games

Think a dice is just a basic little cube with some dots sprinkled across it? Well actually, yes, it is. But there’s also a whole other story to the humble game piece too. 

Dice have a storied history dating back thousands of years, long before recorded history. Modern historians are relatively confident that while our forebears huddled around their fires thousands of years ago, they were using artefacts fitting the rough definition of dice for rituals and other purposes. Whether one of those purposes was games isn't known for sure. 

Early civilisations such as ancient Egypt and Sumer have been found to have dice-like artefacts, and evidence left behind proves they did use them in games. However, reliable and detailed information about dice and their origins is a rarity. There are many blank spaces in the history of dice, but there is enough information for us to get a good picture of how they first came to be used by our ancestors and evolved into what we have today. 

Definition of Dice 

Dice, or die can be loosely defined as any throwable object marked with numbers or other values. Usually used to determine a game's outcome, modern dice will generally come in cube form with six sides valued from 1 to 6. There are other dice with many more sides. For example, a special die called a disdyakis triacontahedron has 120 scalene triangular faces. Most people have undoubtedly seen or used a dice at some point in their life.

Nobody Knows for Sure Where Dice Came From 

Historians and archaeologists say dice-like objects in the form of knucklebones have been used for thousands of years, long before even the first recorded cultures wrote down their history on parchment and stone walls. The oldest known examples are knucklebones and ankle bones, taken from animals killed for food by our ancestors. Some of these bones have been dated to around 5000 BCE, over 7000 years ago. 

The best guess of experts is that these bones were used in rituals, rather than games, based on the markings on the faces, but it's impossible to know for sure. Given how long ago these items were used, little evidence remains - which isn’t surprising. For example,  many people in the modern era can probably tell you Elon Musk created Tesla, Mark Zuckerberg is behind Facebook and Twitter has now been rebranded to X. In 7000 years, those facts will probably be relatively unknown and open to speculation and guesswork as well. 

Knucklebones have also been found all over the world in ancient archaeological sites, making it very hard to pinpoint precisely who came up with the idea to use them as dice first. One theory suggests that knucklebones, and the precursors to dice were not the result of one clever individual from one region. Rather the best guess by experts is that many different cultures all created their own version of dice-like tokens independently. Over time they all followed a similar path of development to create the first objects we would consider dice.

The First People We Know Used Dice 

Regardless of who came up with the idea first, eventually dice were used in games. The ancient Egyptians are believed to be one of the first to use dice in games, or at least they are one of the earliest cultures to have left behind evidence. Hieroglyphics from around 3100 BCE showcasing a game known as Senet have been discovered by archaeologists.  

Very little is known about the rules and gameplay for Senet, other than players used a board, and a two sided playing piece that appears very similar to a dice. For context, it's believed the three famed pyramids of Giza and the intricate burial complexes were built around 2550 to 2490 BCE. So if the timeline is correct, dice were being used long before the Egyptians built some of the most incredible structures ever created. 

Other Dice from Around the World 

Often made from bone, sticks, shells, soapstone, ivory, bronze and various other materials, ancient dice had two sides or more. The sides of the die were often painted or had carvings to help differentiate between the faces. Many different cultures have been found to have used dice or very similar objects at various times throughout history. 

Not all ancient dice were made for fun and games either. Many cultures used them for fortune telling and divining the will of their Gods. A backgammon-like game that uses dice was discovered in an archaeological site in south-eastern Iran, known as the Burnt City. There is a lot of debate around the age of these dice. Most sources seem to agree that they were used around 2500 BCE. Another culture known as the Indus Valley civilization was found to have used terracotta dice around the same time as well. 

The ancient Romans are known for creating one of history's largest and longest surviving empires. Throughout the many centuries they also apparently revelled in dice games. Roman dice very much resembled modern ones, coming in several different varieties with one to six sides. However, they weren't symmetrical and didn't have a standardized design. 

The creators appear to have followed a rough outline, but more or less made each dice a unique design. Researchers are confident the designs would have affected how the dice fell. Which would create many problems if you were playing a game that relied on dice being fair and reliable. 
These early Roman designs resemble modern loaded dice, which are tampered with to land with a specific side facing upwards more frequently than a fair die would. Whether this was by design or for some other reason isn't clear. Like a lot of the history of dice, nobody bothered to write down or record what exactly happened and why. 

Dice Change Forms Again 

All over the world, from the Americas to ancient Asia, the Aztecs, Mayans, Vikings and pretty much every other civilization were using dice in one form or another. It wasn’t until around 1100 AD that a standardized design for dice appeared in some European countries though. The reason for the change from haphazard handmade creations to a uniformed design isn’t known. 

It’s been suggested that because dice had become prominently used in games of chance, gamblers wanted reliable dice. Which is probably fair enough; if you are going to wager your hard-earned cash on a game, you want it to be as honest as possible. For the most part though, dice remained lopsided and unreliable in most regions during medieval times. 

Dice would take until the 1500s to be more standardized in symmetry and configuration. It’s suggested this change resulted from new knowledge in the fields of probability and mathematics during the Renaissance. Great thinkers like Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer Galileo apparently used gamblers for research while conceptualizing theories about probability and chance.

Having hard data on these concepts may have been behind a more significant push for fair dice, especially in games of chance. However, once again, nobody really took the time to write down the exact reasons for the changes to dice. So unless somebody finds some old texts outlining what happened, best guesses from experts are all we have to go on. 

Modern Dice Emerge

By the late 1600s, dice were losing popularity to cards and the associated games. More people started to play cards than dice games but that didn't stop significant advances in the development of dice. In European regions, people started to exchange ideas and information on what dice should look like. As a result of these idea exchanges, an actual standard practice for the manufacture and creation of dice emerged. Over time these standards spread, and a standardized symmetrical die shape developed en masse.

Over the next few hundred years, dice continued to evolve into what we know them as today. With technological advancements and materials, dice started to be produced in mass quantities and made of plastic material. In the wake of these new die, modern dice games emerged, incorporating new elements and unique gameplay experiences that were very popular with audiences. Yahtzee in particular took off when it was first introduced in the United States in the 1940s. 

While they might be less popular than other forms of entertainment now, in the modern era dice are still widely used. Games of chance like Craps and sic bo are still very popular in casinos worldwide, while board games like Monopoly, Trouble, Dungeons and Dragons and Backgammon also still have a place in many homes. Dice might have changed in design and materials but they are still entertaining the masses just like they did thousands of years ago.

Dice, Where Are We Headed Next?

Whoever the original architects of dice were, they could never have envisioned that one day people all over the world would be using their invention in new and clever ways. With new tech, modern dice don't even have to exist in the physical sense. Online casinos have entirely virtual die that operate the same as their physical counterparts, while many board games have been made virtual as well. What is next for dice is anyone's guess — considering all the new tech, virtual reality, AI and other advancements, it will undoubtedly be impressive.