
The Development of Sic Bo Online from Time to Time
Written on June 28, 2021 By Sonya in Viral News
Sic bo dice game, known to some as the Big-Small game, Dai Si or Hi-Lo. There are even some players who call it Tai Sai. This game is played using 3 dice and comes from Ancient China.
Sic Bo is a very popular casino game among gamblers in the Asian region and is commonly played as Dai Siu in Macau casinos. The game is also quite popular in Southeast Asia and is played in the Philippines and Thailand as Hi-Lo (from High Low aka Big-Small).
Sic Bo is thought to have been introduced in the United States by Chinese immigrants in the 19th century and can now be found in most American casinos. In America and Europe, especially England, Sic Bo has come a long way to have new variants called Grand Hazard and Chuck-a-Luck.
Thanks to its simple gameplay and easy-to-understand rules, Sic Bo has now become a dice game in casinos that can match the popularity of Craps, which only uses two dice.
Thanks to its ever-increasing popularity, most of the well-known online gambling sites now offer an online version of this game.
History and Development
Ancient China Era
The dice game that became the forerunner of Sic Bo is thought to have started a long time ago, and over time underwent changes and developments to become what we know today.
Based on historical records from ancient Chinese texts, a game called Sic Bo existed during the golden age of martial arts in China. In these texts, it is told that Sic Bo is a form of entertainment for relaxation from training and fighting carried out by martial arts experts.
Yes, in the history of the game, Sic Bo was originally told as a means of relaxing for martial arts masters, whose concentration and discipline far exceeded the abilities of ordinary people. Interestingly, in the texts that tell about Sic Bo, no one writes about the game having anything to do with betting activities.
One more thing to note, Sic Bo at that time was not yet played with dice as we know it today, because at that time the dice that had 6 sides in the form of a cube had not yet been created.
So, at that time martial arts experts made dice from various materials, including seashells, small animal bones, and stones. They then carved marks on these objects and used them to play, much like modern players use dice.
Over time, from the special games of elite martial arts experts, Sic Bo slowly began to find its way into the general public. In the end, this game gained mass popularity in China and the wider Asian region.
During its long history, Sic Bo has also gone by a number of different names in different parts of China. Some of them are like Dai Siu which means Dice Bowl, and Tai Sai which means Dice Pair. Although some regions use different names, the gameplay and the rules are the same.
Modern Sic Bo Era
Despite its slightly slow development in the West, the game became very commercially popular in Asia. In the 1960s casinos in Macau started offering Sic Bo live on the main gaming floor, right next to big games like baccarat and roulette. From here Sic Bo quickly became the second highest-earning game in Macau casinos and only lost to baccarat.
The success of Sic Bo in Asia immediately attracted the interest of casinos in Las Vegas. Some of them started to introduce Sic Bo in a special room for gamblers or guests who came from China.
It wasn’t until the 1990s that the game really became part of the main floors of casinos in Vegas. Especially when China’s economic growth caused wealthy tourists to flock to Las Vegas.
Sic Bo was so successful that non-Asian gamblers also started to like it, and casinos across America quickly followed the trend.
Meanwhile, in England, Sic Bo did not experience growth as fast as America, because, for some time, this game was categorized as an illegal activity in Queen Elizabeth’s country. It wasn’t until 2002, with the amendments to the Gambling Act, that Sic Bo started to find its place in casinos across the UK.
Today, Sic Bo has grown rapidly from its beginnings as a game for the relaxation of martial arts experts, to become one of the most popular gambling games. Although Sic Bo remains more popular in Asia than elsewhere, that doesn’t mean Sic Bo doesn’t have its own fans in other parts of the world.
The development of the internet and the advent of the online version of Sic Bo has also brought about major changes to all gambling activities. Today, Sic Bo is one of the fastest-growing online gambling games, second only to roulette.