This game is illegal.
Heres abeautiful demonstrationby mathematician James Grime ofNumberphile, and magician Brian Brushwood ofScam Nation.
Lets look at that chart!
Say you roll the marbles, and the numbers add up to 45.
Well then: youve won 5 points, and youre halfway to winning!
Its a bit dizzying, but so are most games when you start out.
You dont have to learn any strategy, just play the odds.
So you pay a buck to play the first round.
Just to see how quickly the points add up.
And wow, yeah, you got some points right away!
Youll win that TV with like five bucks!
You keep playing, spending more to make more.
Soon youre very close to winning.
It also doubles the cost per turn.
Sure, fine, as soon as you win youll make all your money back.
So you keep playing.
Until youre out of money.
How did your luck turn so fast?
How it actually works
How did you earn points so fast, then not at all?
Because you never actually earned those points.
The scammer lied and pretended youd rolled the right scores.
But your odds of actually rolling those scores are very low.
Razzle boards basically work like rolling a bunch of six-sided dice.
(Some versions do use dice.)
Your odds of rolling a 7 are 1/6, but your odds of rolling a 2 are 1/36.
Razzle works on the same principle, but youre rolling eight dice.
Your odds of rolling, say, 28, are about 1/12.
Your odds of rolling an 8 are literally less than one in a million.
Seriously, you’re free to test it onthis calculator.
All the lowest and highest totals are very unlikely, and the middle totals are very likely.
Guess which kind of total gives you points.
That crazy yellow chart hides the odds, because it puts the totals out of order.
And as this graph illustrates,the numbers at the end are very rare.
The most likely point-getting rolls, 17 and 39, are a 1 in 160 chance each.
The least likely, 8 and 48, are a 1 in 1.6 million chance.
Youd have to roll hundreds or thousands of times to rack up enough points.
The scammer doesnt have to weight the marbles, or even sneakily arrange the numbers on the holes.
Play for a very long time, and you would eventually win.
So about every 12 rolls, you start losing money twice as fast.
By the time you caught up, youd spend way more than the cost of a TV.
No no no wait wait but I scored those points early on!
The scammertoldyou that you scored points.
Hes been running this game for a while, and hes learned how to add up numbers really fast.
Hes also learned how to add them up wrong, quicker than you notice.
And if youdonotice, you notice that he accidentally gave you points you didnt earn.
So you dont call it out.
You hope he makes the same mistake again.
And you see to it he never makes a mistake in his favor.
But the scammer doesnt have to make a mistake in his favor.
He can honestly tell you when you win points, because youbarely ever win points.
But he could also just wait, and let the odds take control.
All he has to do is keep you interested by handing you fake points now and then.
How cool it is
Theres something cool about this, right?
Scams and gambling are sexy!Oceans Eleven!American Hustle!Casino Royale!
Mob families fought forterritory rights.
The game has a lot of…razzle dazzle.
Like most gambling, its less glamorous in person.
Just stealing a guys sneaker money in a parking lot.
A 1981 Department of Justice report on Razzle-Dazzle says the game can fool affluent, intelligent marks.
So if you were eyeing the Razzle-Dazzle model in that magic store, maybe keep your money.
