[1] Historically a gambling game doubling as an educational tool for acquainting Chinese males with the bureaucratic hierarchy, it still enjoys relative popularity nowadays.

The keju imperial examination system, which Shengguan Tu is based on, was first explicitly mandated upon Chinese students during the Sui dynasty.

[1] A more recent attempt by Cai Ce in 1968[1] to retrace the early history of Shengguan Tu is similarly "so flawed as to be practically useless".

[4] In the nineteenth century, Chinese emigrants to the United States, particularly California and New York,[11] who worked as clerks and "barely literate" blue-collar workers enjoyed playing Shengguan Tu as a pastime.

[12] An apocryphal anecdote by Zhao Yi has it that the ailing Emperor Xingzong of Liao began promoting or demoting officials by the roll of a die instead of using his own judgement.

[14] In December 2008, as part of its winter festivities, the North District Tourist Service Centre (北區遊客服務中心) in Changhua, Taiwan installed a lifesize Shengguan Tu board.

[15] In January 2016, as part of its first anniversary celebrations, the Taiwanese Fongyi Academy in Fengshan District, Kaohsiung rolled out some hundred modernised copies of Shengguan Tu for public use.

[18] Furthermore, the written instructions provided on one version of the board obtained by Carole Morgan often "contradict each other" and have to be "supplemented by orally transmitted rules".

[19] Scholar Ji Yun,[20] who was active during the Qing dynasty, was allegedly very addicted to Shengguan Tu as a gambling game.