loaded dice
nounEtymology From loaded (“weighted asymmetrically”) + dice.
1
Figuratively An 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:
- 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:
1 more example
- 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
Used 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: