Sic Bo in Vegas: Payouts, Odds and the House Edge

Las Vegas sic bo is something you hunt for rather than stumble on: the big resorts usually keep one table in the general casino. What that one table pays is set by the paytable printed on its layout, and the house edge of every bet on it follows from those numbers. Pay one unit more on the same bet and the edge falls. Pay one unit less and it climbs.

The dice do not change between Macau, Atlantic City and the Mirage. The price a casino pays for being right does, and that is the comparison this story makes.

The casino game sic bo, explained

Sic bo is a three-dice game in which players bet on what the dice will show and are paid at fixed odds printed on the layout. Every bet is a wager on one throw.

The layout groups its bets into a few families. The single-number bet, which Massachusetts rules call "one of a kind," wins when your number appears. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission rules pay it at no less than 2 to 1 when two of the dice show your number and 3 to 1 when all three do. Total bets pay on the sum of the three dice, with the rarest totals, such as 4, paying the most. Triple bets pay when all three dice match, either any triple or one you name in advance.

Those same Massachusetts rules carry a small instruction worth knowing at the rail: payout odds on the layout must be stated with "to", never "for." A placard that reads 60 to 1 is written that way on purpose.

New Jersey takes a different approach. Its code sets floors, not fixed paytables: a licensee must pay winning sic bo wagers at no less than the listed odds. The floor is 50 to 1 on a total of 4, 24 to 1 on any three of a kind and 150 to 1 on a specific three of a kind (as of October 2026). Anything above those lines is the casino's choice, and that choice is where the house edge lives.

Sic bo odds and payouts by paytable

Sic bo odds are whatever the posted paytable says, and the same bet is priced differently from one jurisdiction to the next. A total of 4 or 17 pays 50, 60 or 62 to 1 depending on whether you are in Macau, Atlantic City or Australia (as of October 2026).

For Las Vegas, the clearest published reference is the Mirage. A mathematics course on the game lists payoffs that match Atlantic City and the Mirage, and on that table a total of 4 pays 60 to 1. The same course notes that other casinos vary, which is the point: read the layout before the chips go down.

The any-triple line tells the same story as the total of 4: 24 to 1 in Macau, 30 in Atlantic City. Macau pays at the New Jersey floor on both bets. Atlantic City pays above it.

What one unit of payout does to the house edge

A bigger payout on the same bet lowers the house edge, because the chance of winning stays fixed while the reward grows. The single-number bet shows how far that can go.

Under the usual paytable, where three matching dice pay 3 to 1, the Wizard of Odds puts the house edge on the single-die bet at 7.87%. Under Australian rules, which pay 12 to 1 when all three dice match, it drops to 3.70%. Nothing about the dice changed. One line on the paytable did, and the casino's built-in advantage on that bet fell by more than half.

The total of 4 works the same way. A table paying 62 to 1 keeps less of every wager than one paying 60 to 1, and a table paying 60 keeps less than one paying the 50 to 1 floor. Our sources do not publish an edge percentage for each of those totals, so this story does not print one. The direction, though, is fixed: the higher the posted number on the same bet, the smaller the house's share.

Is there a best strategy at the sic bo table?

No betting pattern changes what three dice will show, so the only real choice a player makes is which bet to take at which price. Every bet carries a house edge set by the paytable.

That makes the placard the most useful thing on the table. Comparing it against the published floors and the paytables above shows whether a given bet is priced generously or at the minimum. It does not make any bet a winner, and no approach to sic bo guarantees a result over any session.

Letters: your questions

Where can you play sic bo in Las Vegas?

In the general casino of the bigger resorts, where a single sic bo table is the usual arrangement. Expect to look for it rather than walk past a row of them.

What does a total of 4 pay in sic bo?

It depends on the house. Macau pays 50 to 1, Atlantic City and the Mirage pay 60 to 1, Australia pays 62 to 1, and New Jersey will not let a casino go below 50 to 1 (all as of October 2026).

What is the house edge on the single-number bet?

The Wizard of Odds puts it at 7.87% when three matching dice pay the usual 3 to 1, and 3.70% when they pay 12 to 1 as in Australia.

Do casinos have to pay exactly the odds the regulator lists?

No. In New Jersey the listed odds are a minimum. A casino may post a better paytable, never a worse one.

Sources for this story

• Cornell LII, New Jersey Administrative Code: N.J. Admin. Code 13:69F-9.4 Payout odds (sic bo), accessed October 2026
• Wizard of Odds: Sic Bo, accessed October 2026
• Mathproblems.info: The Mathematics of Sic Bo, accessed October 2026
• Massachusetts Gaming Commission: Sic Bo rules, February 2018