Easy Guide on How to Play & Win at Craps

Craps is played with two identical six sided dice and craps is a dice game where everyone plays against the casino. A craps table is twice as big as a blackjack table, where 16 gamblers can play at it. Each end of the table is a mirror image of the opposite, all in the effort of having twice the participants play.

Each craps table has 4 employees. Two dealers, they stand in the inside of the table and they are the persons responsible with players bets and the payoffs on their half of the table. The box man stands between the two dealers and his job is to oversee all of the action, to settle any problems that may appear, to inspect the dice and to keep an eye on the rest of the crew.

The fourth employer at the craps table is the stick man. His job is to control the speed of the game, maintain dice security, call out the rolls, and to deal with center bets. Also, he is the one who controls the dice with a stick curved at one end.

Finding a table as low as $5 isn't difficult in Vegas these days, nor around the rest of the continent, so if you play the right bets you can get used to the game without giving up too much of your bankroll. Just before we get to the real action at the table, let's take a quick look at the dice of the game, a basic primer that is pretty much necessary knowledge.

As I already said, craps is played with a pair of six sided dice, making for (6x6) 36 possible combinations, pretty close to roulette, except the odds are a little different, as different combinations combine to the same totals. Since only one combination of two dice can give you a total of 12 (6 and 6), the odds of rolling a 12 are 1 in 36.

On the other extreme, you have six ways to make a total of 7 (1 and 6; 2 and 5; 3 and 4; 4 and 3; 5 and 2; 6 and 1), which produces a probability of 6 in 36, or 1 in six that you will roll a 7. Have a glance at the chart below to see what combinations account for which probabilities.



So, the chart you have looked at gives all the informations that you need to know about a pair of dice if you want to try to anticipate the outcome of each roll. Also, this is the only common sense way to do that. Do not believe in systems that say that the chances of a particular total being rolled depends somehow on the last total that was rolled.

This is an erroneous belief and you should avoid it. If you flip a coin nine times and it's heads every time, the probability of it being heads on the tenth flip is still 50%, not any less, no matter what you're betting brain may try to tell you.

After looking at the chart you will notice that everything revolves around the seven, rather symmetrically. A six is as likely as an 8, a five as likely as a 9, and so on. To calculate the odds, take the number of ways to get a number divided by the number of ways to not get that number. You have only 3 ways to roll a 10, and 33 ways not to and therefore the odds are 33:3 or 11:1.

More important for craps is the ability to calculate the odds of something being rolled before a seven. In order to do this you take the number of ways to roll a seven (6) compared to the number of ways the make the other number, lets say 5 (there are 4 ways to make a 5); so your odds against rolling a 5 before a 7 are 6 to 4 (reduces to 3 to 2).

Note the difference between the probability and odds of rolling a number. The probability of rolling a 10 is 3 in 36, or 1 in 12. The odds of rolling a 10 are 1:11 (read as 1 to 11). Either way, out of 12 rolls, chances are a 10 will come up once (one 10 and 11 non-tens).

To add more confusion, when someone normally talks about the odds of rolling a ten they really state them as the odds *against* rolling a ten; so you're more likely to hear 'the odds against rolling a ten are 11 to 1' (sounds more familiar right?). Hopefully that makes sense, because it certainly took me a minute to figure out what I was saying.

Lets step up to the table now. If you want to start to play at a craps table, first of all you must wait for a new round of play and that begins when the stick man is offering the dice to another player at the table. To be able to roll the dice, the shooter (which we all bet on) must make a line bet, either on the pass line bet or on the don't pass bet.

The best starting point for you is to wait until there is a new 'round' of play, which begins when one of the players is offered five or so dice by the stick man. You'll catch on to the rules of craps and the subtleties of the game quicker by watching a few minutes of play. If the player wants to roll, they select two of dice and become the 'shooter'. At the same time other players will be placing bets on the table layout. The bet on which almost all the players bet is the pass line bet.

The payoff for a pass line bet or a don't pass bet is even money. Everyone else who chooses to make a pass line bet along with the shooter is said to be playing 'with the dice'.

The pass line bet itself is a bet that is 'with the dice'. In the case of someone placing a bet that wins when the pass line bettors lose, they would be known as 'wrong bettors' or 'betting against the dice'.

The shooters first roll of the dice is called the come out roll. If in the come out roll the shooter rolls a 7 or an 11, the ones who bet on the pass line win and the ones who bet on don't pass lose and the round is over. To roll a 7 or 11 in the come out roll is called a natural.

If the come-out roll is a 2, 3, or 12 (called 'craps') who bet on the pass line lose and who bet on the don't pass line wins or in case the don't pass bet is a 12 in the come out roll it is a tie.

When the come out roll is a 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 (box points) the number rolled becomes the shooters point, which means that the shooter will roll the dice until he will make the point set or until he sevens out.

The pass line bettors win if the point is set and the don't pass bets lose. If the shooter rolls a 7 before the point number, pass line bettors lose, don't pass bettors win and the round is over. When a shooter will roll a box point the dealer will place a puck which has the word 'on' written on it and put it on top of the number that is the 'point' on the layout, to remind the players what the point number is.

In clockwise motion, a new player becomes the shooter only after the one before him sevened out. If the shooter rolls a natural or craps on the come out roll or if he set or makes the point he rolls the dice again.