The rigged dice, all the way from the factory in Mexico, how did it work?
In Ocean's Thirteen they plan to rig the dice and the Malloy brothers go all the way to the factory in Mexico where the dice are made to rig them with some chemicals, which in turn would roll to the number of their liking by corresponding to the flip on their lighter.
How did this work?
Best Answer
I can't imagine that the filmmakers have a plausible explanation for how the dice work. I mean, it's just a powder that Virgil pours into a vat of liquid plastic. Unless the powder contains nanobots, which seems out of the realm of possibility considering the Ocean's team's budget, there is no way that the powder could be "activated" to tip the dice over.
So I'd say the filmmakers want the audience to suspend their disbelief, and to think the powder is something highly technically advanced. (As Arthur C. Clarke wrote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Audiences accept magic in movies - especially high-tech magic.)
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Answer 2
The movie explains it as a polymer that reacts to ultrasonic waves which are produced by the lighters. While this explanation is completely unrealistic, what the characters are trying to accomplish, being able to control when a dice is weighted, isn’t totally impossible
For starters magnetic dice are a real thing, however the pips in those dice are made from rare earth magnets and when rolled on a metal table will stop after just two or three rolls. However even with these you’d have no way of controlling the roll
The only real way to do what they did in the movie would be to have metal pips on one side of the die, similar to how a weighted die works, and then have an electromagnet under the table. You would then use the lighter as a remote to turn the electromagnet on and off. Electromagnets are way stronger than rare Earth magnets and would pull the metal pips down with a lot of force, effectively stopping the dice in its tracks. With enough practice you could probably get the timing down and make it look convincing, but the set up isn’t practical. You’d be better off swapping in regular weighted dice than trying to hide an electromagnet under the table.
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