How to Cheat in Sabacc

In Solo A Star Wars Story, Han loses to Lando the first time they play Sabacc. Because Han is an observant scoundrel and likely just as big of a cheat, he knows right away what Lando was up to. But what about everyone else?

Could this actually work?

There are conceivably many ways to cheat in Sabacc, but this is perhaps one of the best and most simple. There are 62 cards in Sabacc deck and only 2 Sylops (zero cards). Being dealt two Sylops at the beginning of the game has about a 3% probability.

So it's pretty unlikely that :
A. Lando has one or more of the Sylops
B. Anyone else has them.

In fact if you tried this most of the time (aside from giving away what you were doing), it'd probably work for most hands.

Flop these and it's your lucky day

How Han knew he was cheating

While it's not explicitly stated in the movie, Han does go into how he thinks Lando cheated. There is a brief line where he claims that they've already been played. The only way this would be possible is if Han saw them in the discard pile. OR somehow cheated and saw someone else's cards (more on that later).

Han isn't so innocent himself

This means one of three things happened (possibly all):

• There was a Sabacc shift during the previous round and he noticed that one or more of the Sylops were included in one of the hands facing up in the Discard Pile.
• At the end of each round the Sabacc dice are rolled. If the dice come up doubles all players discard their hands and receive the same number of cards.
• One or more players folded a hand that included a Sylop.
• Chewie helped Han look at the cards of other players.

This scene also helps clarify an important gameplay mechanic that the rule book leaves ambiguous to some degree. The deck is not totally reshuffled when a Sabacc Shift happens, so the cards in the Discard Pile remain. I also used this to create a modification to the game.
If double SPIKES are rolled, the Sabacc Shift still happens. But the whole deck (including the Discard Pile) gets reshuffling. Thus eliminating the use of the Discard Pile to anyone's advantage.

Method to the madness

Out of all the ways to cheat at Sabacc, this one is probably the most straightforward. Lando keeps his Sylop hidden away until he needs it, and presumably reloads his wrist device at the end of the round. But you can't just add a card to your hand and expect no one to notice. So the goal is switch a card without calling attention to yourself.

Just in case you want to literally have a card up your sleeve, these exist somewhere

Not so hidden might I add

So switching the card would be pretty easy. The other things to take into consideration would be:

• Switching the card AFTER the dice are rolled at the end of the last round. Otherwise you could lose your Sylop.
• Actually achieving some kind of winnable hand that a Sylop would enhance. These aren't easy.
• Also knowing if one or two of them have been played already.
• Familiarity with where you are playing, who's dealing, and creating sufficient distractions.
• Slimming down the competition by over-betting the pot and having less chance of someone beating you through luck.

For my not so elegant recreation of this, I ditch the fancy wrist device and just use my sleeve. My hand consists of a +8,-8, -2. Which isn't a bad hand, but a Sylop would really spice it up.

Then when the time is right, I accidentally drop my cards. Butterfingers. amiright

While collecting my cards, I switch the card I don't want with my hidden Sylop. And presto, I have a pretty decent hand.

oh so subtle

and like magic I have a YEE-HAA

Other ways to cheat

With Han and Lando in the same room they probably know more ways to cheat at Sabacc than all the other people at the table combined. We see some quick examples of this during their games. Some of these however are mostly in-universe methods. Plus I don't condone cheating.

• Know the other players cards
• Han very smoothly accused the player sitting next to him of looking at his cards. He's then in full view of their hand, and can make whatever decision he needs to.
• Task Chewie with looking at others cards, use Wookiee speak or signal to relay what they are.
• Stack the deck
• There isn't any indication of them doing this, and the dealer does seem to know their stuff. But in these seedy establishments I doubt it would be above anyone to accept a few credits for a leg up.
• Load the dice
• Let's say you have a bad hand and would like to trigger a Sabacc Shift. If they're allowing players to roll the dice, it would be a simple switch to use loaded dice.
• Distractions to actions
• This would be the equivalent of "hey look over there" and try to Swap or Gain to your advantage.
• Marked deck
• If you're providing the deck, all manner of things are possible. I have a -2 in my deck that has a bent corner and I always know when it comes up. I don't use this to cheat, but if you wanted to you could.
• Ensure everybody else is super liquored up

I'm sure there are more methods, but those are all that I could think of off the top of my head. Long story short Han and Lando are cheaters.

UPDATE:

Upon further inspection Han DID NOT CHEAT to win the Falcon. At least when it comes to using the Sylop he stole from Lando. I always thought he used the Sylop to win. However thanks to an eagle eyed Instagrammer, he didn't actually USE the Sylop. Instead he just literally threw it in Han's face.

But also, don't cheat.