Collecting Casino Dice

Ever pick up a set of casino dice? Well, if you never played craps then you might not have thought about collecting dice, but there are plenty of collectors out there who have a drop-dead, crazy, unhealthy love affair with casino dice. Now I'm not one of the crazy ones, no, I'm a more sedate collector.

Sure, I've driven 200 miles to a casino out in the middle of the desert in Nevada to get a single pair of old dusty, crumbly dice, but that's not crazy. Really, I'm cool. No problems.

The dice in the picture above are from the Bank Club in Reno, Nevada - somewhere around 1950. The Bank Club was one of the first major casinos in Reno and while the name changed slightly, nothing beyond hookers, gambling, drinking, and your general Reno stuff went on until the place burned to a crisp in the early 1960's. That's the short story.

The collecting story is that casino dice are fun and can be inexpensive to collect. Current casinos often sell their dice in vending machines or the gift shop for a buck or two. Old dice are available at chip and casino memorabilia shows and swap meets. Ebay is neither of those, but there are a lot of dice listed there too.

As for dice, small town clubs that had fewer dice made and popular mobbed-up clubs like the Flamingo (a great pair from the 1940's for $150 is standard) in Las Vegas usually command the highest prices. Dice that have logos are also more expensive. A pair of cubes from Reno in the 1980's from the Cal-Neva, Harrah's, Horsehoe etc. don't need to cost more than $6 or $8 a pair.

I personally have winnowed down my collection to less than 500 matched sets, so I'm not crazy, I'm not I'm not! The Bank Club dice above are special because they have a dot inside a circle for each number - not too common. They run about $60 a set.

If you want to see a whole lot of Vintage Dice, you can click their name and go to their site for a peak at hundreds!