Gambling Guide

Mia is a very old dice game and has probably survived due to its high entertainment value.

Contents 1 Equipment 2 Play 3 Scoring 4 Strategy 5 Reference

Equipment

Two dice and a flat bottomed container with a lid are needed. This game is played by any number of people but cannot be played alone.

Play

All players start with three lives. The first player rolls the dice and keeps their value concealed in the container. The player then has three choices:

• Tell the truth and announce what has been rolled,
• Lie and announce a greater value than that rolled, or
• Lie and announce a lesser value.

The concealed dice are then passed to the next player in a clockwise fashion. The receiving player now has three options:

• Believe the passer and try to roll something better,
• Call the passer a liar and look at the dice. If the dice show a lesser value than that announced, the passer loses a life. However, if the dice show a greater or equal value, the challenger loses a life.
• Pass the dice, without looking, to the next player, as if it had just been rolled and announced. This relieves the original passer of all responsibility.

Each player must announce a value greater than the previous value announced or pass and take responsibility for the current value.

If Mia is either rolled or announced, the player in turn to lose a life loses two.

The game is won by the last player with at least one life.

Scoring

Unlike most dice games, the value of the roll is not the sum of the dice. Instead, the highest die is multiplied by ten and then added to the other die. So a 2 and a 1 is 21 and a 5 and 6 is 65. The highest roll is 21 and called Mia. Next come all the doubles from 11 up to 66, and then back down again. The complete order of rolls is as follows:

21, 11, 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, 65, 64, 63, 62, 61, 54, 53, 52, 51, 43, 42, 41, 32, 31

Strategy

The appeal of Mia resides primarily in the potential it affords for bluffing. But before deciding whether or not to bluff, one must, at the very least, have some idea of what constitutes a "good" roll, and this is not so straightforward as it may appear upon a casual glance at the preceding list of possible results. Since there are two ways to achieve any result that is not a double roll (e.g., a result of 43 can be achieved by rolling either a 3-4 or a 4-3), while doubles can only be made in one way, the "middle" roll in this game is not 62 but rather 54, despite the fact that ten possible results sit above and below the former, while there are twelve possible results above and eight below the latter. Nevertheless, owing to the "off-balance" structure of possible results, relative to possible rolls of two dice (21 possible results, 36 possible dice rolls), the likelihood that someone rolling a 62 (the numeric median result) will be beaten by a subsequent roller is only about 39 percent, while someone rolling a 52 (the statistical, or actual, median result) is facing exactly even odds. The complete list of possible results, and the approximate likelihood (x%) of each being beaten on a single subsequent roll, is as follows:

21 (0%)

11 (5.6%)

22 (8.3%)

33 (11.1%)

44 (13.9%)

55 (16.7%)

66 (19.4%)

65 (22.2%)

64 (27.8%)

63 (33.3%)

62 (38.9%)

61 (44.4%)

54 (50%)

53 (55.6%)

52 (61.1%)

51 (66.7%)

43 (72.2%)

42 (77.8%)

41 (83.3%)

32 (88.9%)

31 (94.4%)

Reference

• Lore and Saga: The Ancient Dice Game of Mia