loaded dice

noun

An advantage obtained by manipulating rules or insider influence.

Meanings

nounloaded dice pl (plural only)
  1. figurativelypluralplural onlyAn advantage obtained by manipulating rules or insider influence.

    Slave states have always won. They have played with loaded dice—loaded with Slavery.

    1960, Charles Sumner, The Republican Party its origin necessity & permanence, J. A. H. Hasbrouck & Co., page 10
    2 more examples

    In fact, the need for a cultural-relativistic point of view has become apparent because of the realization that there is no way to play this game of making judgments across cultures except with loaded dice.

    1972, Melville Jean Herskovits, Cultural Relativism: Perspectives in Cultural Pluralism, page 56

    The riverboat gambler’s most intriguing insight on the stock market is that all investors use loaded dice if they only knew it.

    2012, Fred Carach, Forty Years a Speculator: My Discoveries and Insights, Dog Ear, page 53
  2. pluralplural onlyUsed other than figuratively or idiomatically: see loaded, dice.

    We here behold an impudent unlettered miscreant, wheedling himself into the acquaintance of the young and unexperienced, taking advantage of the hour of intoxication, to introduce loaded dice, and then enforcing his pretended claim by means of a loaded pistol.

    1792, The Analytical Review, volume 14, page 409

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see

Origin

From loaded (“weighted asymmetrically”) + dice.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

loaded dice. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/loaded%20dice

MLA

“loaded dice.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/loaded%20dice. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “loaded dice,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/loaded%20dice.

Source: loaded dice on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.