“Money is the root of all evil” and in the case of backgammon tournaments, never has there been truer words spoken, although any backgammon match where there is money at stake will inevitably raise the possibility that the players will attempt to cheat. It is quite frankly, nothing short of remarkable how quickly people lose any sense of honor or self-respect especially when there is money involved regardless of how low that may actually be. This article will provide an overview of some of the more common and blatantly obvious scams in order to ensure that people do not get caught out.

The following scam is surprisingly effective, rather ironically for precisely the same reasons as to why it shouldn’t work: it is so blatantly obvious that the victim would not give it a second thought. Whenever the cheater rolls the dice in order to determine how many points they can move their counter, the number of spaces they actually move does not tally with the number that they rolled on the dice. This is best reserved for higher numbers, and as a result, the number 6 (as determined by the dice) is the number most commonly used in this trick. The cheater will loudly state “six!” when they are moving the pip but in reality will either place the pip one point more or less (entirely dependent on which is more strategically beneficial).

The beauty of this particular trick is that the cheater enjoys a certain degree of plausible denialibility meaning that in the event that they are caught out, they can simply plead ignorance and claim that they had made a genuine error as opposed to willfully cheating.  In order to prevent the possibility of such a trick make sure that you and your opponent agree that they count off every point as they reach them in order to prevent any such “confusion” from arising.

Cheating can quickly cause people to lose their cool and a friendly game of backgammon can end up souring an otherwise solid and decent friendship due to the indignation felt by whatever party happens to be the most aggrieved. Being accused of a cheat and a liar is offensive to anyone, and so for the sake of keeping the peace, make sure that there are adequate ground rules in place in order to prevent the remotest possibility or suspicion of cheating from rearing its ugly head.