The Basics of How To Play Craps: Games Start With A Pass

Craps is an easy game to play. The basics of craps are as follows:

Around the outside of the layout is the “pass line” and above that is the “don’t pass” line.

These two betting options are opposites of each other. In fact, 90-95% of craps players bet the pass line and the others bet the don’t pass line – another name for these players is darksiders. I am sure you get the picture here. Don’t pass players tend to be disliked by pass-line players who are also called right-side players. Each tends to be betting the opposite side of the game.

The shooter is passed five dice and he or she selects two of them.

Yes, each player is given the option of shooting the dice and that is one of the charms of the game. Take those dice and put everything into your own hands – for good or ill! Have a winning craps roll – glorious! Have a losing roll? Yuck, you might feel like slinking away!

Tip: Check out the movie Oceans 13 which gives a great look at how the dice are actually made so they are nearly perfect.

• The game begins with a new shooter rolling the dice.
• This is called the come-out roll and that starts the new shooter’s attempt to take down the house at craps.
• The come-out roll will set up the number that will become the “point.”
• The shooter will have to hit that number before hitting a seven in order to win.
• Hit the 7 and most pass line bets will lose.
• On the come-out roll, a pass-line bet wins if the 7 or 11 rolls, and it loses if a 2, 3 or 12 rolls.
• When the shooter hits the point number, he will continue to roll the dice until he or she loses.

The world record for a dice roll is over 150!

The Numbers in Craps Explained

Since craps is a game of numbers, players should know how these numbers are made.

There are 36 possible combinations of two six-sided dice [6 x 6 = 36). ?Every aspect of craps is a numbered aspect – and you will probably be surprised by how many players do not actually understand the numbers.

Since this is a basics of craps explainer, let’s go through them!

Each pip on the dice is a number. So, a one-pip die is the number one and a six-pips die is the number six. A six-piped die and a one-piped die will equal the number 7; the most powerful number in craps.

The seven can also be made using the 2 pips and 5 pips, the 3 pips and the 4 pips. Remember, you use two dice so there are two dice with 4 pips and two dice with 3 pips.

Dice Combinations In A Craps Game Explained : “The Pyramid of Numbers”

This pyramid shows the possible combinations for each number.

2:  1:1

3:  2:1; 1:2

4:  2:2, 3:1, 1:3

5:  3:2, 2:3, 4:1, 1:4

6:  3:3, 4:2, 2:4; 5:1, 1:5

7:  4:3, 3:4, 5:2, 2:5, 6:1, 1:6

8:  4:4, 5:3, 3:5,6:2, 2:6

9:  5:4, 4:5, 6:3, 3:6

10: 5:5, 6:4, 4:6

11: 6:5, 5:6

12: 6:6

The Dice Odds In Craps Explained

The relationship of a given number to the 7 is important for many craps bets. So, here it is.

At first the numbers might seem intimidating, but in a short while, a very short while, they will be second nature to you.

The Craps Table Explained

Check out the craps table. The layout seems to be a staggering array of symbols, colors, and numbers. Yikes! Could these come from an ancient civilization? Maybe Mesopotamia? Egypt?

Actually, the game comes from the Mississippi River towns and counties of the United States. It used to be called “crabs” and it was played for many generations in the South. Its origin might have been the British game of Hazard. The great writer Geofrey Chaucer mentions it in his epic book The Canterbury Tales which was written in the late 1300s.

In the United States, the game slowly moved its way into the cities of the North and was often called the “alley game” by city players. It still is played in the cities’ alleys. Northerners thought those southerners called the game “craps” as opposed to “crabs”, and that’s what its name became.

World War II brought craps to the forefront of the gaming world as it was one of the two most played games during the war, along with poker. When casinos started to flourish after World War II, craps was the number-one table game in the house.

A Final Note On The Basics of Craps: The Most Exciting Game

Yes, I love to play craps and I also love other games but bar none, craps is the most exciting, stimulating, and also the most disappointing, and groan-inducing game in the house.

Can you win at craps? On some bets the game is so close that any given session might indeed turn out to be a winner for the smart player.

But the title of the game can mean a different thing, a negative thing, with some other bets. It is up to the players to know the difference between good craps bets (such as the Come bet) and bad ones (such as the Field bet).

You see, when things are riding high and a craps shooter is hitting numbers and points, the table generally explodes with just about each roll of the dice. When shooter after shooter sevens-out early in his or her roll, which usually means a bad time for just about everyone, the groans can be heard from just about everywhere in the casino.

Those groans are the yodels of the despondent players.

If you are a casino fan, you know what I’m speaking about. You’ve heard it and perhaps seen it, but now you’ve read our craps for beginners guide, hopefully you can avoid it yourself!

Now you’ve mastered the basics of craps, check out these articles about how to play craps and craps strategy.

That edge is usually achieved in either of two ways.

1. The Casino Can Win More Decisions

The first way is that the casino can win more decisions, such as the pass line and come bets in craps, where the house wins 251 decisions and the player wins 244 decisions, a 1.41% house edge.

Or the casino offers you the game of blackjack where the house wins approximately 48 decisions and the casino wins approximately 44 decisions, with approximately 8 decisions a push (tie).

To keep the game somewhat close, the casino offers special hands (such as doubling down, splitting pairs, and paying more on a winning blackjack than just one-to-one), which gives the house about a 0.5% edge.

2. The Casino Can Short-Change Payoffs

Another way is that the casino can short-change the payoffs it gives for a bet. In American roulette, hitting a number occurs once every 38 times and should pay 37-1 on a winner, but the casino only pays 35-1. Bingo! A 5.26% edge has just been created for the house.

You can see with those manipulations of the betting results, the player is behind the eight ball. Even with perfect strategies, the player cannot become a long term (or maybe short-term or medium-term) winner. So, it seems the player cannot beat the casino.

Slot machines are a little different but they win more decisions and they do not give out the same amount of money as is put in by the player. That short fall of money gives the casino rather large edges over the payer … oops, I mean, the player. Once again, the player cannot beat the casino at slots.

And there you have it – the casino always wins. Maybe not today or tonight, but yes, the games are structured for the casinos to be the favorites and so it goes, right?

Right? Right? Nope.

How Can You Beat The Casino?

You see, even with the casinos’ manipulation, some players can still win. Yes, they can beat the house.

The first way is truly simple. The players get lucky today or tonight and they retire, thereby joining a very, very small club of quick quitters, who now can call themselves long-term winners. I know one of those, my mother! I don’t know any others.

Or, and here comes the BIG bomb my friends, they learn one or more of the advantage-play methods that can actually give the player the edge over the house and that means the long-term edge.

Let me go from bottom to top here:

Pai Gow Poker

You can get a tiny itsy-bitsy edge by over-betting in some cases against everyone at the table when you play as the bank. In some games you can play the bank enough times to reduce the house edge to almost nothing. Pai Gow Poker is a great game in my estimation. Give it a try.

Advantage Play Slot Machines

Don’t get too excited about these. They may not exist anymore. My good friend Jerry “Stickman” did the computer analysis on them and whamo! We made some money on them. I wrote about them in my book Slots Conquest and it appears most have gone the way of the Dodo Bird. You could, at times, get a decent edge over the house on what were known as banking machines. I think the book is still a fun read but I can’t really promise you any loot.

Advantage-Play Video Poker

There was a time when you could find many of these machines all over the country, but not today. There are still some but you must know the exact strategies to play them. The video-poker masters and mavens may know where they are. They aren’t really in my current purview.

Card Counting at Blackjack

Most casino players have heard of this method of play and a small percentage of players have tried their hand at it. Some of these players have become good, some have become really good, and some have become experts in figuring out when they have the edge and when the casino has the edge – and what to do about those edges.

Obviously, these players are not applauded by the casinos; they are like world championship eaters coming to your Sunday buffet in order to eat the restaurant out of house and home. You will not be on the top comping list if you show the casinos what you can do – to them!

Card counting was introduced to the casinos by Edward O. Thorp in the mid-1960s when he published his revolutionary blackjack book Beat the Dealer. After that book, blackjack zoomed to the top as the favorite table-game in the casino, replacing craps and roulette.

It is still the number one table game.

Dice Control (Dice Influence) at Craps

Craps dice control has existed in many forms for many decades. The individual that brought it to the fore in today’s casino world was the late Captain of craps, an Atlantic City legend. I’ve written several books about him and his ideas about craps and casino playing in general.

The Captain, the Arm and Jimmy P. were the three dice controllers that I met in the early 1990s. The Arm was the most amazing dice controller I ever saw.

The Captain’s group was 22 high rollers who played Atlantic City for all it was worth. None are alive today. I miss them.

The Captain taught me everything I know about the casinos. He was my mentor and I hope he is playing craps in heaven with the Arm and Jimmy P. and his full Crew of high rollers.

A Final Thought

Okay, the casinos do have some players who are long-term winners, not a lot, but enough that they are out there as symbols to the rest of us casino players that some people can do the almost impossible – beat the almost unbeatable casinos!

All the best in and out of the casinos!

For similar articles, check out How Casinos Make Money On Poker and What Games Have The Best (And Worst) Odds?

Frank Scoblete’s books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books, libraries, and bookstores.

How many people played casino games at online casinos? A lot. I got that statistic from a friend of mine after his blackjack session in his living room. He’s a decent source too.

But why do people gamble when the casino has the edge at every game they offer?

Is it really the desire to win money? Maybe. Maybe not. After all, a good job or a good parttime job or both will bring in definite money, whereas casino playing will certainly not.

Is it really the beauty and/or gaudiness of casinos? Uh, maybe.

Maybe it was stepping into another world where you and your money are appreciated for being there? Could be.

Perhaps it is the joy of losing money? Nah, I doubt it. Nobody likes to lose, do they?

Okay, okay, so what the heck is it? Why do so many people become casino players?

Why Do People Gamble At Casinos?

1. The Fun

A few years ago, I was in Las Vegas at one of the premier casinos and I was heading into the high-roller room after a huge sale of one of my latest books.

There was a blackjack table across the room filled with (can you believe this?) NBA players! Five of them. Laughing and moaning and slapping each other “five!” and torturing the one player who seemed to be losing every hand.

I knew I didn’t want to sit next to them, but sitting across the room gave me the advantage of being able to watch them and enjoy their shenanigans. They were the center of attention of everyone playing in the high-roller room and those curious who were passing by it on the outside.

These guys were well-known players, a couple of them were big stars (actually, they were all pretty big), and they were playing and whooping and hollering throughout their contest with the casino. They didn’t need any of the money they won and they didn’t sweat the money they lost.

They just had a ton of fun playing. A ton of fun.

2. The Competition

I used to like to play games too. I played basketball (I was on a team that beat Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s team in 8^th grade) and baseball (I tried out for a major league team – and failed miserably) and I even boxed for a few years until someone convinced me by beating in my head in to “stop that you idiot! You aren’t the white Muhammad Ali.”

I loved playing games. I really did. Competition was thrilling. The casino is thrilling too. It’s a great contest between me and a powerful opponent. I pit myself against…wait a second. Hmmm, could that be it?

Could that be it, I wondered, could it? Could that explain why my Big Aunt Mary and my Little Uncle Jim loved going to the casinos? They enjoyed the competition? They enjoyed putting themselves on the line? It was them or the casinos. A battle to the finish. Was that it? Competition? You versus me. Me versus you.

Muhammad Ali versus Smoking Joe Frazier.

Sure, Big Aunt Mary enjoyed the comped meals but she could eat at home (and boy did she ever eat at home); no, it was the competition of playing the slots. Those machines were her opponents. The machine was the opponent.

Little Uncle Jim played craps and loved it. Just loved it. I’m guessing he got comped meals too. However, I doubt if he was allowed to eat much of them as Big Aunt Mary always seemed ravenous. (Marriage can be weirder than casinos, can’t it?) Still, he loved going to the casinos. Just loved it.

Those NBA players were having a ball, win or lose; it was the game that mattered. Playing the game. The game mattered.

Okay, I think that my thesis is correct. I do.

Yes, I think all the attendant stuff involved with casinos is helpful, even joyful, and also somewhat disappointing at times, but the competition is the key to it all.

Indeed, I love the shows, the restaurants, the gyms, and pools in which to exercise. I enjoy nice hotel rooms. I even enjoy naps in nice hotel rooms.

But I love the games. I truly love to compete against the games. I love to beat the games. I love to watch other people playing the games too. What excitement is going through their bodies? Their minds? If you actually win some money, well, that’s like winning a trophy. I think those NBA players knew that. I think they did.

If I am correct, casino gambling will be around for a long, long time. You might even say that it is a form of “athletics” for non-athletes too.

And that’s why people play those games…competition.

Frank Scoblete’s books are available from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books, libraries and bookstores.

For similar articles from Frank, check out his post on how casinos make money.

• The “Pass Line” Bet is one of the simplest and most popular wagers in craps games in casinos, offering a low house edge and the best odds in craps.
• The “Come” Bet is another common wager that works like the Pass Line bet but can be made any time after the point has been established.
• “Don’t Pass” and “Don’t Come” Bets offer similar low house edges, but win when the shooter fails to make their point.
• The “Place 6” and “Place 8” Bets allow players to pick these specific numbers, having some of the lowest house advantages in the game.
• “Free Odds” Bets are additional wagers behind the pass line, don’t pass line, come, or don’t come bets, they have no house edge and can significantly increase potential payouts.

Your chances of winning at an online craps game largely depend on the types of bets you make. Happily, craps has some of the very best bets in the casino. Combine that with a good casino promotion and you can make some real bank.

Smart players using an optimal craps strategy rely on the Don’t Pass and Don’t Come bets. With a house edge of only 1.36%, these are the best craps bets you can make.

Sadly, there are far more rotten bets in craps – dozens of them. Bets with a house edge of between 5% (like the Field bet) to the high teens. Aside from a stroke of luck from the gods of chance, no one survives craps making these horrible bets very often.

The Best Craps Bets

If you watch a game of craps, you will note that just about every player makes more than one craps bet. Indeed, three or four or even more bets are thrown onto the table by fevered craps players. Such betting is the equivalent of putting one’s head in a noose and jumping off a balcony. The results will usually be deadly.

I’ve got good news and bad news here. The good news is that the good craps bets are indeed good. The bad news is that all the other craps bets are bad, very bad, and even worse than that. Do not make a bad bet if you want to win at craps. Easy advice to hear; hard advice for craps players to follow for some reason.

Tip: On the Don’t Pass and the Don’t Come, you are betting against the point or the number and for the 7 during the the game.

Tip: On these four bets, you are betting with the point or with the 6 and/or the 8 against the 7.

Please note that I have made the losses out of $100 wagered. A $10 wager will be losses that are one tenth the amount. Also note that you do not lose in steady increments. You’ll win some bets, lose some bets, and so on, but in the course of your craps affairs, this is what the math says you can expect to be down betting this way. Betting “place bets” on the 6 and or 8 is usually done in increments of $6.

Image Credit: Shutterstock AI

The Optimal Craps Strategy: Make “Odds Bets”

Now, one of the best bets in craps that the casinos allow you to make once you have a Pass Line or Don’t Pass wager on the board. This option is called “odds.” It can also be used on the Come and Don’t Come bets when they are on a number. It is a vitally good bet and a great part of an optimal craps strategy.

The Pass and the Come players are betting with the shooter to hit anything but a 7. A winning wager is paid at even money. Of course, when you put that Pass bet up or Come bet up, you can win even-money when 7 or 11 hits (you lose if a 2, 3 or 12 rolls). You have four more ways to win than you have to lose when you wager like this.

Once these bets are on numbers, then the odds shift in favor of the casino. However, the casino will allow you to put more money into the game using a bet called the odds.

This bet has no house edge whatsoever.

How To Place Your Odds Bet

On the Pass Line, you put your craps odds bet behind your Pass bet; on the Come bet, you place the odds on the layout and the dealer will put that money on your Come bet.

The odds bet will pay the exact correct odds of a bet. If you put odds behind a point of 4, a win will pay off those odds at two to one. On a 10, it is also two to one, on the 6 or 8, the odds will pay $6 to $5 and on the 5 or 9, the odds will pay three to two.

Tip: These odds are based on how often the number hits in relation to how often a 7 will hit.

On the Don’t Pass or Don’t Come, the odds are figured based on how often the 7 rolls. So, for a 4 or 10, you put up twice as much money because the 7 will come up six times to the three times either a 4 or a 10 shows. Same with the other numbers. This means you have the long-end of the bet – in short, you bet more to win less.

The best way to handle these “right” bets is to have as much as you can in a craps odds bet and a smaller bet on the Pass or Come portion of the bet.

Odds bets can usually come in 2X (two times odds) to 3X, 4X, 5X, 10X or higher.

Okay, you now know the very best bets in craps. That’s right. The above bets are it. All the other craps bets are not worth making.

Title Image Credit: Juan Roballo/Shutterstock