In this article on Slate, Ben Blatt calls the classic rules of Dreidel "slow and unfair," citing simulation-based statistical analysis, and proposes his own modified rules to speed up the game.
Given that the rules we have come as a tradition from previous generations, are we required to preserve them, unmodified, and reject reforms such as this one?
Answer
I'd say, "mess away!"
While relatively recent Hassidic sources have ascribed all sorts of significance to the dreidel, if I'm not mistaken the earliest sources simply discuss the practice of gambling on Chanukah. (Chavos Yair, if I'm not mistaken.) Dreidel seems to simply be a form of gambling that rabbis originally tolerated at best, that at some point became part of the American commercial thingamajob that everyone observes as Hanukkah -- and that Hassidic Jews assume must have been an iron-clad practice.
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