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by jedimastert 1557 days ago
Fun fact: Die don't have to be the same all sides to be provably fair.

Check out the "skew die" https://www.mathartfun.com/DiceLabDice.html

And a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAnCL3vhVIs

3 comments

The dice on that page are in fact the same on all sides. For each of those dice, every face on it is the same as every other face, the same shape and attached to the same adjoining faces at the same angles.

They're not regular - the faces are not regular polygons - but that's not a requirement to have an equal chance of landing on each side. The standard d10 is an example of this in itself.

I think he means the same distance between opposite faces, the quantity that was discussed in the article.

The skew dice faces are all identical but none are even parallel.

Parallel opposite faces isn't a requirement for fairness either. A standard d4 doesn't have that.
Those dice look to have either the same face or a symmetrically opposite face.

It would be more impressive to see a die with a pattern of a buckyball with the pentagons and hexagons having equal probability of being rolled. I'm sure its theoretically possible, just not practical.

If the faces are different shapes, their probability would depend on how you quickly you roll them.
I don't use dice, but those sure are nice dices. The 120d, the 2/3/4d and alphabetical ones are particularly neat. The uneven dices look like they will roll all over the place.