Why do the dice feel streaky sometimes?

Real randomness is streaky; uniform randomness produces runs of doubles and one-sided sequences more often than intuition expects. Over many games the distribution evens out, which you can check yourself in your replay history.

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How our provably fair dice work

Q: Can the site or my opponent influence the dice?

No. Rolls are generated on the server from a cryptographically secure random source. The board is fully server-authoritative: your device and your opponent's device only display state, they never produce or modify rolls, and illegal moves are rejected server-side.

Q: How can I verify a game was fair?

Every game's complete move and roll history is recorded and replayable, so any match can be audited roll by roll. Matches use commit-reveal seeding: the server commits to its random seed before play, which prevents retroactively choosing favorable rolls.

"The dice are rigged" is the oldest complaint in online backgammon. Here is exactly how ours work, so you do not have to take fairness on faith.

1. Rolls are generated on the server, never on your device

Every roll comes from a cryptographically secure random number generator running on our servers. Your browser, your opponent's browser, your network connection: none of them produce, request, or modify rolls. They only display what the server already decided.

2. The board is server-authoritative

The server is the single source of truth for the entire game state. A client cannot submit an illegal move, replay a roll, or desynchronize the board in its favor; anything that does not match the server's rules engine is rejected. This closes the classic cheating routes before dice fairness even enters the picture.

3. Commit-reveal seeding

Matches use a commit-reveal scheme: the server commits to its random seed material before play. Because the commitment exists up front, the server cannot retroactively pick a different sequence of rolls after seeing the position. This is the "provably" in provably fair: the mechanism removes even the operator (us) from the list of people you have to trust.

4. Everything is replayable

Every completed game's full history, each roll and each move, is stored and replayable from your profile. Suspicious about a match? Step through it roll by roll. Across many games you can also check the aggregate: roll distributions in your own history converge on the uniform odds every backgammon book quotes.

What randomness really looks like

One honest note: fair dice feel unfair sometimes. True uniform randomness produces streaks, repeated doubles, and cruel timing more often than human intuition expects; that is a property of randomness, not a defect. The difference on this platform is that you never have to wonder, because you can check.

Test the dice yourself.

Play free, then step through your own replays roll by roll.

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Frequently asked questions

Can the site or my opponent influence the dice?

No. Rolls are server-generated from a cryptographically secure source, and the server-authoritative board rejects anything a modified client might try.

How can I verify a game was fair?

Replay any completed game roll by roll from your history, and rely on the commit-reveal seeding that locks the server's randomness in before play.

Why do the dice feel streaky?

Because real randomness is streaky. Over a large sample your own replay history will show the textbook distribution.

Is online backgammon rigged? The bigger picture →

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