How to play Under and Over Seven

Under and Over Seven is a simple betting game with two dice, for 2 to 8 players. You also need a pile of chips and a sheet of paper with three fields drawn on it: one marked "under 7", one marked "7" and one marked "over 7".

The game is traditionally played for stakes at fairs and casinos, but at home it works fine with chips or points of no value. Pick one player to be the banker for the first round.

Each round starts with the players placing their stake on one of the three fields. The banker then rolls both dice, and the total decides everything:

• A total of 2 to 6 wins for everyone on under 7.
• A total of 8 to 12 wins for everyone on over 7.
• A total of exactly 7 wins for those who backed the seven.

Under and over pay even money. A seven usually pays four times the stake. Every losing stake goes to the bank.

Two dice give 36 possible combinations: 15 land under seven, 15 land over seven, and 6 land on exactly seven. Seven is the most common single total, yet by far the least likely of the three fields.

The payouts are set so the bank profits on every field. A perfectly fair game would pay 1.4 times the stake on under and over, and 5 times the stake on the seven.

Because the bank holds the edge, the role should rotate, for example after each round or after an agreed number of rolls. When you decide to stop, the player with the most chips wins.

Some groups pay five times the stake on a seven instead of four. That makes the seven field completely fair, leaving the bank's edge in the under and over fields only. Others allow players to spread their chips across several fields at once, which works perfectly well.

If betting on the total of two dice appeals to you, Craps is the big game in this family. For something even simpler, have a look at High Dice, where all that matters is beating the banker's total.

With two dice, seven is the only total that every die value can be part of: 1 and 6, 2 and 5, 3 and 4. That gives six combinations, more than any other total. At the same time, seven splits the remaining outcomes into two exactly equal halves, with 15 combinations on each side. The whole game is built on that symmetry.