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Dice Apps & arc4random_uniform(6)

Posted By: Phil Simborg
Date: Thursday, 23 February 2017, at 9:30 p.m.

In Response To: Dice Apps & arc4random_uniform(6) (Florin Popa)

1. We know of many people who have cheated with real dice.

2. We also don't know how many times people have cheated with real dice that we don't know.

3. I agree that cheating is rare and not likely. And I believe that is true with both using real dice and using someone's dice generator. I don't think that is a big issue, but it is one that some people are using to say why we shouldn't use dice generators. (When you don't want to do something, any excuse will do.) So my answer to these people is that no matter what we use, we should do reasonable things to minimize cheating. If you and I are playing with the TD's dice rolling app, what do you think are the possibilities of being cheated? If you and I are using the TD's dice, I maintain that a) there are chances that they could be switched or manipulated, so that possibility is even higher than with an app. But I also maintain that if there is no cheating, you will, in the long run, get random dice with an electronic generator and you may not get that with our current, non-precision dice.

You ask for evidence. No one has done a study that proves that our rounded dice are random. We do know they are NOT precision once rounded. And I can tell you that a private study with over 5,000 rolls of many rounded dice has shown that not a single one generated random rolls. Every single one favored a number strongly enough to be considered non-random.

Will we share the results of this study? No. Why? We do not want to be held responsible for hurting the individuals who have and do sell these dice, and because we are producers of a dice generating app, we do not want to be accused of being biased or not conducting a proper study. We challenge you, or Deprelli or any impartial person out there who wants to roll dozens of dice thousands of times, and keep the statistics, to show just how non-random they are.

Is there any reasonable person out there that doubts that non-precision dice, dice that do not have exactly equal sides and corners and perfectly balanced, would produce non-random results in a long study?

Again, you and many other state "we have been using these dice for years and they are just fine." I agree...for the most part, they are fine. In the short run, the differences are probably not noticeable. However, that doesn't mean they are always fine. What if I were a cheater and I kept testing my dice until I found one that rolled more 5's, by a lot, than it should. And I knew that. And of course they look like all other dice to the naked eye. Don't you think that would give me an advantage, even if I didn't conveniently switch the dice when I need a 5 or more higher numbers?

That potential is not there with dice apps.

But again, just the fact that they are not random, and when you sit down to the table to play with them you have no evidence that they have proven to be random, and the fact that when you use a dice app not only was it proven to be random, but you can actually see a recording of the rolls to see if it continued to remain random when you were playing, makes me say that the argument about random dice is not a valid one to use against dice generators.

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