Although the five-spotted Ledyba is the most common type, the number of spots on wild Ledyba vary from one to six. This does not depend on the species of Ledyba, but varies like a Spinda's patterns, with different numbers found even in the same family. The spots on these pokemon are more familiar to most people as the arrangement of dots on a six-sided die, which is no accident, for Ledyba have historically been used in a variety of gambling games.
Most common among the games featuring Ledyba was the one which inspired modern dice. Six Ledyba, one of each pattern, were placed in a hexagonal cage, each in corners equidistant from the center, and an inexpensive food item such as an Oran Berry was dropped into the center from a tube. The six raced into the center and whichever Ledyba caught it was declared the winner, as was whoever had placed a bet on that one to win. At richer establishments, this contest was used in a similar fashion to modern die rolls, with multiple berry drops a game, players rolling against each other for the higher number, and a thousand other variants played only in gambling halls and casinos. Ledyba catching contests were also held, where points were tallied not based on the number of Ledyba caught, but on their spots; this in time evolved into the convoluted scoring system of today's Bug Catching contests.
Unfortunately, their training and feeding was expensive, and the results of Ledyba gambling were often less than purely random, depending on the individual skill levels of the pokemon involved. Today, save at a few traditionalist locations, gambling is done with dice and cards, and no one cares about Ledyba anymore.