Chō-han

Chō-han, more fully Chō-Han Bakuchi, is a traditional Japanese gambling game played with two ordinary six-sided dice, historically associated with organized gambling circles. A dealer shakes the two dice inside a bamboo cup or bowl and sets it down still covered, and players place their bets on whether the sum of the two hidden dice will come out even, chō, or odd, han. Once betting closes, the dealer lifts the cup to reveal the result, and bets are settled according to whether the roll matched even or odd. The exact betting structure can vary: in some forms the dealer acts as the house, directly collecting every losing wager, while in others players bet against one another and the house instead takes a percentage cut from the winning side. Because the outcome depends purely on the combined value of two hidden dice with no player skill involved, chō-han is treated as a pure game of chance. The game has retained enough cultural visibility in Japan to appear repeatedly as a recognizable set-piece in films and video games depicting historical gambling dens.