Poker Dice

The specialty game known as Poker Dice was designed and launched by the casino game software company Wager Gaming Technology.

Commonly referred to as WGS Technology within the online casino software industry, the company rebuilt itself on the foundation left by the old Vegas Technology software platform. Accordingly, Vegas Technology was formed when a Canadian software provider known as Odds On entered a restructuring phase.

Expanded Into Online Casinos

Wager Gaming Technology used its association with Vegas Technology to expand upon the latter company’s broad collection of client casinos, building itself into one of the industry’s major players. Unfortunately for fans of WGS-powered online casinos, however, the murky legal situation in the United States forced the company to restrict access to American customers in recent years.

In addition to Wager Gaming Technology’s claim over the Poker Dice concept, a second company, known as PariPlay also markets a game with the exact same name. PariPlay is primarily known for designing the scratch card and lottery-style games for online casinos, and their version of Poker Dice was released in 2012 – appearing to predate the Wager Gaming Technology entry.

Poker Dice Shares Basic Settings Aspects

Comparisons between both versions of Poker Dice show the same basic rules and setup, pay tables, and visual design, suggesting that either Wager Gaming Technology or PariPlay has licensed the concept from the other. Further confirmation of the relationship between the two companies cannot be located.

Game Overview

The concept of Poker Dice is similar in spirit to another Wager Gaming Technology offering known as Dazzling Dice, replacing the 1 6 markings on a standard six-sided dice with poker cards (9, 10, J, Q, K, and A). But rather than the slot machine interface found in Dazzling Dice, the Poker Dice game is meant to resemble traditional dice rolling pursuits like craps.

In essence, though, the game is befitting of PariPlus’ scratch card heritage, as Poker Dice is simply a lottery-like game of chance dressed up in the trappings of skill-based games like poker and craps. Players have no decisions to make, and the game begins and ends with pressing the “ROLL” button.

A Tailor-Made Game to Relax

With that said, Poker Dice provides a leisurely gameplay experience in which a few lucky rolls can produce major payouts. For players who prefer the gamble of games of chance like the slots, scratch cards, and keno, Poker Dice offers a refreshing alternative.

This page was written to provide a thorough guide to the game of Poker Dice, beginning with a detailed description of the rules and gameplay procedures. After that, we’ll run through a list of Wager Gaming Technology-powered online casinos where Poker Dice can be found before concluding with a section discussing the odds, probabilities, and proper strategy, such as it exists for a game of chance.

Poker Dice Rules

Poker Dice is an extremely simple game with only a single action occurring on each roll.

Five specially designed poker dice are “thrown” on each roll, and based on the result of each die, five “cards” will combine to form a poker hand.

Rather than the usual arrangement of dots signifying the numbers 1 through 6, the dice in this game feature poker “cards” instead. The six cards found in Poker Dice are the 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace. Each of the six faces represents a certain card, so rolling two 10s, for example, would provide you with one pair of 10s as your poker hand.

Game’s Possible Hands

Players are presented with the main game screen which is designed to look like the felt of a poker or craps table. To the left side of the screen, you’ll see a list displaying the seven possible hands you can form using the five dice. These hands are shown below, along with a description of how each hand is formed:

The Pay Table

As you can see by consulting the hand chart above, you’ll need to make two pairs at a minimum to earn a payout. The pay table used in Poker Dice can be reviewed below:

Note that these payouts are awarded on a “for one” basis, rather than the usual “to one” system. This pay scheme is commonly found in video poker, and it simply means that your wager will always be claimed by the house before the subsequent payout is awarded. Thus, if you bet $1 and landed two pairs, the $1 would be claimed by the house, before $1 was paid out, resulting in a breakeven proposition.

The Payout Tiers

In a gameplay element taken from slot machines, players can also choose from five possible betting tiers, with payouts escalating in kind based on the amount wagered. The payout tiers found in Poker Dice are shown below:

As you can see, these payouts are incremental across the board, so you won’t have access to an increased “jackpot” payout when betting the maximum.

Combinations and Probabilities

Given five six-sided dice, the seven possible poker hands players can form in Poker Dice will appear based on the following possible combinations and probabilities:

Based on the numbers above, you can expect to lose just over half of the rolls you make on Poker Dice while breaking even on one-quarter of rolls.

Conversely, you’ll win the game’s largest payout of 100 for 1 less than 1 percent of rolls.

Finally, to see how Poker Dice actually plays out on your screen, check out this instructional video presented by the game’s designers, which runs through several actual rolls in real-time.

How to Play Poker Dice

1. Select Wager Amount

   To begin the game, players select their wager amount by clicking on the chip graphics located at the bottom of the screen. The minimum wager you can make is $0.25, while the maximum wager is $25.00.

2. Optional: Change Suits

   After selecting your wager, you can also toggle between the different suits (club, diamond, heart, spade) before each roll. This choice will change the appearance of the dice, but other than this, suits have no bearing whatsoever on the game’s results.

3. Click to ROLL

   With your wager and suit selections inputted, you simply click on the “ROLL” button to send the five dice tumbling onto the felt. Each die will land on one of the six poker cards listed above, and by combining the five dice, you’ll create your final five-card poker hand.

Best Places to Play Poker Dice

Poker Dice is a proprietary product of Wager Gaming Technology and PariPlus, which means it can only be found through online poker sites powered by either company’s software engine.

At one point in time Wager Gaming Technology served a wide selection of client casinos, but with the departure of brands like English Harbour Casino, Millionaire Casino, and SuperSlots Casino in recent years, the company’s portfolio has been cut down considerably.

Wager Gaming Technology Casinos

Even so, a small group of online casinos have remained loyal, so take a look below for the full listing of online casino platforms currently running Wager Gaming Technology software, including the game of Poker Dice:

Casinos Affiliated with PariPlus

As for the online casinos affiliated with PariPlus, you can find Poker Dice available at any of the following sites:

Strategic Considerations for Poker Dice

If you enjoy playing chance-based games like Poker Dice, the strategy is obviously not a priority. After all, in pure games of chance such as this, players have no ability to influence the action, improve their odds, or play “correctly.”

The best strategy, then, is simply to understand one concept above all else: every roll of the dice represents a completely independent event.

There is no System to Improve Your Odds

That is to say, searching for patterns or trends in the previous rolls will serve no purpose whatsoever, and you’ll never be able to accurately predict the result of an upcoming roll. If you’re able to resist this temptation to hunt for patterns, you’ll already be a step ahead of other players who keep betting under the belief that they’re somehow “due” to hit a big hand.

Your Only Task is to Press the Button

When playing Poker Dice you won’t have anything to do other than press the “ROLL” button and hope for the best. This gameplay experience can still be quite entertaining, however, hence the legions of loyal players who prefer slots, scratch cards, bingo, and keno over skill-based gambling games.

A pure game of chance can’t be “beaten,” of course, but Poker Dice still provides the thrill of anticipation on each and every roll.

If you are keen on applying some sort of strategic thought to Poker Dice, the way to accomplish this is by considering the role of house edge. This crucial metric is used by gamblers to assess the relative risk offered by a casino game or wager, essentially equating to the expected return the casino holds on every bet.

Games of Chance Have Bigger House Edges

Games like blackjack (0.50 percent house edge) and baccarat (1.06 percent) are favored by casino gamblers in the know because over the infinite long run, the house can only expect to collect $0.50 and $1.06, respectively, for every $100 wagered. When compared to games of chance like the Big Six wheel, which offers house edges ranging from 11.11 percent to 22.22 percent, or keno at more than 25 percent, clearly choosing skill-based games is the best bet from a strategic standpoint.

OUSC Recommendation

The house edge on Poker Dice stands at just 2.01 percent, making it one of the better options among the Specialty Games category dominated by scratch cards and arcade games. Consider the extremely similar game of Dazzling Dice runs at a house edge of 6.64 percent – or more than three times higher than Poker Dice. In effect, while playing basically the same game, you can shrink your house edge by two-thirds simply by playing Poker Dice over Dazzling Dice.

Overall, there isn’t much strategy to the game of Poker Dice. But when considering the range of chance-based Specialty Games found in most major online casinos, choosing Poker Dice over the alternative will represent a sound strategic decision.