A set of nontransitive dice is a set of dice whose face numbers are such that the relation "is more likely to roll a higher number than" is not transitive. (See wikipedia)
For some sets, the deviation from transitivity is small in the sense that A beats B beats C beats A with probabilities $p_{ij}$ only slightly greater than $0.5$ . Efron's dice (there are 4 of them) beat each other nontransitively with probability $2/3$.
Can we make a strictly better set of $4$ six-sided dice? That is, a set of 4 six-sided dice such that they beat each other nontransitively with all probabilities $> 2/3$ ?
Can we make a strictly better set of $4$ $n$-sided dice for some small $n$ which one can conveniently make a die out of, e.g. $n = 4, 8, 12, 20 $ ?
Can we make a strictly better set of $5$ $n$-sided dice for some small $n$ which one can conveniently make a die out of, e.g. $n = 4, 6, 8, 12, 20 $ ?
Can we make a strictly better set of $3$, $4$ or $5$ dice, each having a potentially different number of sides ($4, 6, 8, 12$ or $20$) ?
Ideally I would like to find a fairly small set of fairly easy-to-make, preferably platonic-solid dice which beat each other nontransitively with probabilities > 80%. They would make an excellent teaching aid and magic trick. There is an answer on math.stackexchange which claims that the best you can do with 3 dice is $p = 0.58$, which is disappointingly close to $0.5$; for a teaching aid you need to be able to beat students almost every time for them to spot the pattern quickly. Efron's dice are substantially better at $2/3$, but is that really the best we can do? (Crossposted from math.stackexchange)