Crazy Chinese back alley dice game

I found a series of sketchy back alleys across the street from my apartment complex.  The area begins behind the row of shows Beer Monster and I call the Welding District, and it stretches to the Wal-Mart near our school.  One of the streets has a plethora of restaurants, one of which looks incredibly out of place, with nice finished wood paneling and tables with bench seats.  It’s a Hunan joint, which means the food is extremely spicy.  Walking home from dinner there on Monday night with two friends, I suggested we turn right and explore a section I hadn’t yet seen.  My friends agreed.  These roads do not smell good at all.  There are little shops where you can buy live ducks, chickens, and birds to eat.  Food carts line the right side of the road and open air markets are on the left.  We walked about 50 yards and came upon a crowd of people standing in a circle under a tent.  They were yelling and screaming, so we walked over to investigate.  There was a table in the middle, and on it was a board with six squares.  In each square was a picture.  There was a crawfish, fish, crab, lion, hookah, and chicken.  A man had a cup cylinder down on the table.  Under the cup were three dice, and on each side of the dye were the pictures that were on the board.  People put money down on the picture, or pictures, they thought would come up.  Then the man shook the dice and lifted the cup.

We had to get in on this.

My friends and I started placing bets.  The first time I won, I got really excited and yelled, “Boom!”  The crowd laughed, and one woman began to imitate me whenever she won.  I walked away with 150 RMB more than I started.

The next night, I took another friend, one who loves games of chance, to the back alley.  We got there at 7:30 p.m. and the table and board were not there.  I looked around to see if any Chinese people would recognize me, and sure enough, some guy gave me a head nod.  I made a dice-throwing motion, and he nodded his head and smiled.  Then he told us 8 o’clock in Chinese.  My friend and I walked around for a half hour and returned for the start of the game.  In a matter of seconds, the game was set up and a crowd of people holding wads of money appeared.  I lost about 100 RMB, and then one of the lookouts yelled something.  There was a mad grab for money, the board and table disappeared, and then everyone ran away.  Someone picked up my friend’s money, but it was returned to him before we walked away.  I didn’t see any cops, so I have no idea what happened.

That same friend returned to the game last night with a British guy he met traveling through Cambodia.  They discovered that you can place money on the line between two pictures and win double if they both hit.  My buddy figured it out that if you bet on one picture, the odds of winning are 42%.  The game is fun in small doses, and it’s hilarious to be playing a back alley dice game in China.  But, it’s impossible to walk out of there with a substantial amount of money, and you’re more likely to lose, so it’s not really worth it.  I can’t wait for Beer Monster to return to Shenzhen and play.