What does '...he won it of me with false dice' mean from Much Ado About Nothing?

Question

Act 2, Scene 1, line 247

Answer 1

That he has been cheated

Answer 2

Hi there. False dice in this case means loaded dice rather than fake dice, which the others quite correctly point out is cheating. The dice will look normal but contain weights to guarantee which numbers come up.
Cheers, Steve.

Answer 3

Much Ado about Nothing centers on social expectations and performance, which is itself a form of disguise. In order to be popular and well-liked, Benedick presents the persona of the perfect courtier, but it is not infrequently apparent that he suffers from insecurities about his romantic and physical prowess. Why would he be so reluctant to marry or to fight Claudio if he were fully confident in his abilities? Benedick and the other characters hide their true, vulnerable selves under a veneer of nonchalance which is stripped away in rare moments, but returns without fail. Only Don John refuses to wear a social disguise, instead opting to practice outright deceit.

Woven into the over-all theme of disguise are several scenes of literal concealment and deception. The masquerade ball in Act II: Scene 1 has characters in masks pretending to be other than themselves. Don Pedro impersonates Claudio, while Beatrice pretends not to recognize Benedick. Even Antonio claims that he is not Antonio when directly asked by Ursula. During offstage time in Act III, Margaret unwittingly masquerades as Hero, deceiving Don Pedro and Claudio into believing Hero habitually has strange men in her room at night. In Act IV: Scene 1, Friar Francis himself recommends and applies a ruse to repair Hero’s damaged reputation. Additionally, in the most complex case of concealment and trickery in the play, Benedick and Beatrice, in Act II: Scene 3 and Act III: Scene 1 respectively, hide in the garden while their closest friends, who are fully aware of the eavesdropping, lie about the two having confessed loving each other.

Beatrice feels cheated by Bennedick and likens his actions to using falce dice.