Now, you have a place at the table. Now, you have chips to play. But as you can see from the Craps table, it can be confusing to know what to bet on. This is all that you need to remember: Take one $5 chip and put it anywhere on the bar marked “Pass Line”. That’s it. If a casino attendant takes that chip away, it means you lost that bet and you can replace it right away with a new bet. If a casino attendant pays that bet, you can take the winnings and leave the $5 chip there for another round. That’s all you need to know about Craps!
Alright, how do you win and how do you lose?
Before going into that, what is important for you to understand about Craps is that the Craps table is confusing on purpose. It is meant to be a ‘hodge-podge’ of bets when in fact, most of those bets are sucker bets! That’s right, you would do well not to bet on almost everything on the Craps table. Before you decide that you now want nothing to do with this game, bear in mind that the ‘smart’ bets you can make in Craps –like that bet you placed on the Pass Line- are some of the best casino bets you can make. The irony of Craps is that it’s made up of mostly terrible bets, and a couple pretty good ones.
To illustrate this point, I will explain something basic about dice probability. There are 36 ways that two dice can land. Before reading further, give a look at the Craps table, specifically the section to the right marked “ONE ROLL BETS”. Just like it says, these are bets that you can make that are good for the next roll only. You can see that one of these bets is double Sixes and it pays 31:1 if you win (in a live casino, it pays 30:1). If you bet $5 that the very next roll will be double Sixes and you’re right, you will be paid a whopping $155 for that bet. If you’re wrong, you’ll lose your small $5 bet. As mentioned, there are 36 ways that two dice can land: double Sixes is ONE of those ways. So, every time that two dice are rolled, there is a 1-in-36 chance that the roll will be double Sixes and a 35-in-36 chance that it won’t be double Sixes. In probability, there is a 35:1 chance that double Sixes will be rolled. But, the payoff as you saw on the Table is only 31:1. If you bet on this space 36 times in a row, then statistically, you will be paid $155 once and you will lose your $5 bet 35 times for a net loss of $20 to the house. That’s how the casino makes money by offering Craps, and that’s just one example of sucker bets that are all over the Craps table.
What is the Pass Line and Why Bet On It?
Each round of Craps starts with a ‘come-out’ roll. If the come-out roll is 7 or 11, then your bet on the Pass Line is paid even money (ie. if you bet $5, you get paid a winning of $5). If the come-out roll is 2, 3, or 12, then your bet on the Pass Line loses and will be collected by the house.
If the come-out roll is anything other than these five numbers, then it must be either 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10. By looking at the Craps table above, you’ll note that each of these six numbers is allocated a fairly large space to the right of the “Don’t Come Bar”. If the come-out roll is one of these six numbers, an attendant will take a large circle with the word “ON” and place it over that number; for the remainder of this round, that number is referred to as the “Point”. Your $5 on the Pass Line is neither won nor lost…not yet. For the remainder of the round, the same player will continue rolling the two dice until he rolls either 7 or the Point. Anything else, and the player re-rolls them. If 7 is rolled before the Point, you lose your Pass Line bet. If the Point is rolled before 7, you win your Pass Line bet. Once either 7 or the Point is rolled, the attendant removes the “ON” button from that number and a new round starts. Each new round starts with another come-out roll.
As you can see, the number “7” is a key number in Craps. On the come-out roll, you’re hoping a 7 gets rolled. After the come-out roll, you’re hoping a 7 doesn’t get rolled. The significance of the number “7” in Craps is that of all the ways that two dice can land, the number “7” is the most commonly rolled of all individual numbers. There are six ways that two dice can land as 7, and no other number has so many ways it can be rolled.
That means that on any come-out roll, there is an 11% chance that you will lose your Pass Line bet immediately, a 22% chance that you will win your Pass Line bet immediately, and a 67% chance that the Point will be established and the dice will need to be re-rolled until either a “7” or the Point is rolled.
Another Good Bet: Taking the Odds
Once the Point has been established, you are hoping with your Pass Line bet that the Point is rolled before a “7”. An additional bet that you can make once the Point has been established is called the Odds bet. The Odds bet is another bet that the Point will be rolled before “7”. To make this bet, you place it directly behind your Pass Line bet, so that it is not actually in the Pass Line, but just behind it. Where the Pass Line bet is paid even money when you win, the Odds bet is paid more than even money. In fact, the Odds bet is the only fair casino bet there is. By that, I mean that in the way the Odds bets are paid, the casino advantage is 0%. The Odds bet is paid based on its mathematical likelihood.
If the Point is 4 or 10 and is rolled before a “7”, the Odds bets are paid 2:1.
If the Point is 5 or 9 and is rolled before a “7”, the Odds bets are paid 3:2.
If the Point is 6 or 8 and is rolled before a “7”, the Odds bets are paid 6:5.
Again, this is the only bet in a casino where the payout matches the odds. To put this in perspective, it would be like our double Sixes example above given a 35:1 payoff instead of a 31:1 payoff. With the Odds bet, the casino is actually paying you correctly. Why do they do this? Because the prerequisite to making an Odds bet is making a Pass Line bet. You have to have made a Pass Line bet before the come-out roll if you want to make an Odds bet once the Point is established.
Practice Online
With the Internet, you can practice any casino game you want before playing it in a live setting. Casino-On-Net is one online casino that offers Craps for play money or for real money. You can practice there for free until you get a handle on the game. ONE WARNING: Much of the fun of Craps is the live setting. While playing online will help you try this game out, there's nothing better than a Craps table with everybody gathered around it cheering and jeering together. Give it a try the next time you're in a casino. To practice, click here to visit Casino-On-Net.
That’s All You Need to Bet On
Many Craps players only bet on the Pass Line and the Odds. If you wanted to become comfortable with Craps but are not sure where to start, bet only on the Pass Line and the Odds until you catch on to some other bets that you would like to make either for fun or because you feel the house edge is not substantial on them. You might feel a little unexciting compared to the other players who are throwing chips around at all sorts of different bets. Don’t worry about it. If they get lucky, you’ll be sorry you’re betting so conservatively. In all likelihood however, you will watch them gamble a lot of their money away while you give up very little advantage to the house and play only the two smartest bets at the Craps table.
For a full explanation on the rules of Craps, check out our Craps section.
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Craps is one of the loudest games in the casino. By that logic, it’s also one of the most fun games in the casino. Craps is a game where people gather around a large table and bet on dice. The reason it may seem one of the loudest games you’ve ever heard, is because in Craps, players are typically betting on the same things. So, what’s good for one is generally good for everybody, and for that reason, you see the players around a Craps table booing and cheering together.
