Craps For Dummies

I’ve never read a blog post or an article about the game of craps or craps strategy that didn’t mention how exciting the game is.

1. How To Play Craps For Beginners
2. How To Play Craps Beginners
3. Craps For Dummies Book
4. Craps For Beginners

Okay. Now that we have that out of the way.

Anyone can get the knack of this table game by following simple craps for dummies type system. Perhaps you are experienced at a local setting in a land-based casino atmosphere and never played online before. If so, you've arrived exactly where you should be. Free craps allow you to play until the cows come home without losing a single cent of money. Ace-deuce, otherwise known as three craps, is betting on a 3 roll and pays 15:1. Rolling snake eyes (two 1s) or boxcars (two sixes)—the 2 and the 12 bets–each pay 30:1. Answer 11 of 35: Hi everyone! My wife and I are headed to Vegas for the 2nd time, and I'd like to try our luck at the craps table for the 1st time. After studying the rules/strategy and practicing online, I have a few random questions about the game.

• Craps: From Beginner to Expert, Learn 'How to Play Craps' and the Secret Craps Strategy to Win at the Casino - ( Craps Gambling + Craps Game ). Twitch For Dummies. By Tee Morris Jan 14, 2019. 4.5 out of 5 stars 77. Paperback $19.49 $ 19. 49 $24.99 $24.99.
• The Game of Craps – A History. Firstly, let’s get the name out of the way. While today the game is known as craps, a dice game in which players bet on the outcome of each roll, originally the game was known as ‘crapaud’, the French word for ‘toad’. In its early days, craps was played on the floor, no fancy table needed, which meant people had to squat down in order to play – a position that gave them a distinctly toad-like appearance.

The purpose of this post is to introduce you to the 10 most fundamental concepts in craps strategy. This is not a get rich quick scheme. I don’t have any systems to sell you.

My only interest is in helping you save money at the gambling tables and have fun while you’re doing it.

The truth is that craps is a negative expectation game. If you play long enough, you’ll eventually go broke.

But you can get more entertainment for your money if you understand some of the basics of craps strategy.

1- Start Your Craps Career by Sticking with the Most Easily Understood Bets on the Table

The basic bets in craps are the pass and don’t pass bets. These are bets on whether the shooter “succeeds” or not. These are also the best bets on the table. The house edge for each of those bets is, respectively, 1.41% and 1.36%.

Both those bets pay even money, which make them marginally less exciting than some of the other bets. But the payout isn’t what’s important for each bet. It’s the house edge.

That’s a mathematical estimate of how much of each bet you expect to lose on average over the long run. It’s always expressed as a percentage.

If you bet $100 on every roll of the dice and place the pass bet every time, the casino expects your losses to average $1.41 for every bet you place.

This is exceptionally low compared to most bets at most other casino games. In fact, it’s significantly better than most of the other bets at the craps table.

At an average craps table, you’ll see about 100 rolls of the dice per hour. If you lose $1.41 on average for each of them, you’ll see an hourly loss average out to $141.

That sounds awful until you compare it to other games like slot machines, which usually have a house edge of 7% or more, or roulette, which has a house edge of 5.26%.

Most of the time I recommend taking the bet with the lowest house edge, but in craps, I think it’s so much more fun to root for the shooter that it’s worth the 0.05% difference in house edge.

2- Continue Your Craps Career by Placing One of Only 2 Bets in the Casino with a House Edge of 0%

A bet with a house edge of 0% is a bet that will break even in the long run. I only know of 2 bets in the casino with a house edge of 0%:

• 1. The double up bet in video poker
• 2. The odds bet in craps

How To Play Craps For Beginners

When you’ve made a pass or don’t pass bet in craps, you can place a 2^nd bet if and when the shooter sets a point. You win this 2^nd bet if the shooter succeeds if you placed a pass bet, and you win it if the shooter fails if you placed a don’t pass bet.

The tricky thing about the odds bet is that it isn’t labeled on the craps table. You place the bet by putting the additional chips behind your initial pass or don’t pass bet.

Since this bet has no house edge, it’s an opportunity to get more money into action without any real long-term risk.

Some writers combine the 2 bets together for purposes of illustrating the total house edge on the 2 bets combined. I don’t see much point in doing that.

I can tell you, though, that the best strategy decision you can make in craps is to take the biggest odds bet that you can, every time it’s available.

The odds bet is part of what causes the crazy streaks of luck in the game, but that’s also part of the charm of craps.

3- Stay Far Away from the Bets in the Center of the Table

Not every bet at the craps table offers good odds. In fact, most of the bets offer lousy odds. I mentioned earlier that you can measure how good a bet on a casino game is by how low the house edge is.

Let’s take a look at the house edge for some of the bets in the middle of the craps table:

The “any 7” bet pays off 4 to 1 if the shooter rolls any total of 7 on the next roll. The odds of winning that bet, though, are 5 to 1. The difference is the house edge.

• Assume you bet $100 on any 7 for 36 rolls. And also assume that you have a perfect distribution for those rolls.
• You’ll win that bet 6 times, but you’ll lose 30 times.
• With a 4 to 1 payout, you’ll win $400 X 6, or $2400.
• But you’ll have lost $100 X $30, or $3000.
• Your net loss is $600.
• Since you placed 36 bets, you can average the amount lost into the number of bets to get your average loss per bet. In this case, it’s $16.67, which is 16.67% of $100.

And that’s just one example.

The house edge on the various bets in the center of the craps table range from 2.78% to 16.67%. None of them are good bets.

Just stick with the pass and don’t pass bets. Skip all the sucker bets in the middle of the table.

4- Steer Clear of Betting Systems Where You Increase and Decrease the Size of Your Bet Based on Previous Outcomes

You’ll sometimes see craps “experts” suggesting that you use some variation of the Martingale System for craps. The Martingale is a betting system used with even money bets at table games. You double the size of your bet after each loss until you win.

SEEMS fool-proof. But it’s not.

Here’s an example of how it might work at the craps table:
You bet $5 (the minimum in this casino) on the pass line bet, and you lose. On your next bet, you bet $10. If you win this time, you’ll recoup your $5 loss on the previous bet and have a $5 profit to show for it.

But if you lose again, you double the size of your last bet again, this time, from $10 to $20. This recoups the $5 you lost and the $10 you lost, and you have a $5 profit.

You can continue this progression as long as your money holds out and as long as your bet stays beneath the table max.

The problem with the Martingale System is that doubling the size of your bets increases your bet size far faster than you’d expect. You might think it’s hard to lose the same bet 8 or 9 times in a row, but it happens more often than you think.

When it does, you see a devastating loss. In fact, that loss will be so devastating that you’ll lose all those tiny profits you made previously.

Here’s what 8 bets in a row look like if you start with $5:

• 1. $5
• 2. $10
• 3. $20
• 4. $40
• 5. $80
• 6. $160
• 7. $320
• 8. $640

A lot of craps tables with a $5 minimum have a $500 maximum bet. If you lose 7 times in a row, you break the system and can’t continue.

Also, if you lose 7 times in a row, you’ll have lost $635 already. To place a $640 bet at this point means you’ll have put $1275 in action over the course of 8 bets.

And if you win that final bet?

You’re only up $5 for the entire session.

Betting systems like the Martingale have no way of overcoming the house edge. They seem like a good idea in the short run, but in the long run, you’ll lose just as much money (or more) using this kind of betting system as you would if you just randomly varied the size of your bets.

5- Don’t Try to Hedge Your Bets Either

You’re hedging your bets when you place a bet intended to offset the losses from another bet.

An example might make it easier to understand:
You place a $10 bet on the pass line. You simultaneously bet $2 on the “any craps” bet. (The any craps bet wins if the shooter rolls a 2, 3, or 12.)

It’s impossible to lose with this bet. If the shooter rolls a 7 or an 11 on the come out roll, you win $10. Sure, you’ll lose the $2 any craps bet, but you’ll have a net win of $8.

If the shooter rolls a 2, 3 or 12 on the come out roll, you win $14 (7 to 1). Sure, you’ll have lost the $10 pass line bet, but you’ll have a net win of $4.

This seems like a no-brainer strategy. The problem is that it doesn’t account for when the shooter rolls a point.

How often does this happen?

• You have 36 possible outcomes in a come out roll.
• 4 of those possible outcomes are any craps. (1,1; 1,2; 2,1; 6,6).
• 8 of those possible outcomes win the pass line bet (1,6; 2,5; 3,4; 4,3; 5,2; 6,1; 5,6; 6,5).
• That’s 12 possible outcomes where you’re guaranteed a profit.
• But on the other 24 outcomes (2 out of 3 times), the shooter will set a point. In each of those cases, the “any craps” bet loses right out of the gate. You still face the house edge when the shooter tries to roll the point.

The hedge bet doesn’t change your odds of winning. It only looks that way.

Almost all craps betting systems involve raising and lowering your bets based on when you’re winning or losing. But they also often involve systems for hedging your bets.

Don’t bother unless you think it sounds like a fun way to place bets. Even then, the house edge on the any craps bet is higher than you should be willing to pay.

6- Play Craps for the Lowest Stakes that Remain Interesting for You

You can calculate how much an hour of gambling at a given game will cost (on average) by multiplying the house edge by the number of bets per hour. You multiply that by the average size of your bet to get your expected hourly loss.

In the short run, this number is meaningless. It’s just a long-term expectation, and your results will vary from that mathematical expectation. But the longer you play, the closer you’ll eventually come to seeing the mathematical expectation become a reality.

This means that in the long run, you’ll lose twice as much money betting $10 per roll as you would if you were betting $5 per roll. The bigger your bet size, the more expected loss is.

I have just as much fun at the craps table betting $5 as I do betting $10 or $20, but you might have more money than I do. (I am, after all, only a poor gambling blogger.)

Years ago, I read a great book called Poker Night by John Vorhaus. He wrote about how to choose the stakes for your poker game. If you’re playing for such low stakes that winning or losing doesn’t matter to you at all, poker is an exercise in boredom.

He suggest playing in a game based on your “gulp limit.” That’s the amount of money that would make you swallow really hard if you lost your wallet with that amount in it.

That’s the size of your starting bankroll—your gulp limit. You can back-calculate the stakes you want to play for by dividing that bankroll by 10 or 20.

If your gulp limit is $200, you should be playing for $10 or $20 per roll.

7- Find the Casinos Who Offer You the Biggest Odds Bet Multiples

Since the odds bet offsets the house edge on the pass line and don’t pass line bet in proportion to how much you wager on it, the more you bet on it, the better off you are. But casinos have a maximum bet size for the odds bet based on a multiple of your original pass or don’t pass bet.

If you’re betting $5 per roll, the most you can bet on the odds bet is $10. If you’re betting $1000 per roll (you high roller, you), you can bet $2000 on the odds bet.

You can find casinos in Las Vegas which allow you to take 10X or even 15X odds, but 2X is more common. You should look for casinos which offer bigger limits on the odds bet.

Some casinos have 3x 4X 5X odds bet maximums. In these casinos, you can bet 3X your original bet if the point is 4 or 10, 4X your original bet if the point is 5 or 9, and 5X your original bet if the point is 6 or 8.

This is meant to simplify payouts for the craps dealers. Those bets pay off at 2 to 1, 3 to 2, and 6 to 5, respectively.

If you make the pass line bet with the maximum odds bet at a 3X 4X 5X table, the payout is always 7 to 1 on your total action. This makes it easier for the dealer.

Still, you’re better off finding a casino that allows you to bet more than that on the odds bet.

My suggestion for the best place to play craps in Las Vegas is the Casino Royale. It’s on the Strip, and it features some of the lowest betting minimums and highest possible odds bets in Las Vegas. You can bet $2 per roll of the dice in craps, and you can place an odds bet of up to 100X, or $200.

The cumulative house edge on a pass line bet taking maximum odds drops to just 0.02%. You won’t find a bet (or combination of bets) anywhere in any casino in the world with such a low house edge—unless you’re a card counter or an expert video poker player. (Those professions are outside the scope of this post, though—sorry.)

8- Consider Learning How to Set and Control the Dice

The idea behind dice setting and dice control is that a skilled shooter can affect the probability of getting a certain total on the dice. If skill comes into play when you’re rolling the dice, craps becomes a game more like darts than roulette.

I’m skeptical of this possibility, but I’ve seen gambling writers and experts I respect who lend the idea some credence. Even if it’s possible, I don’t think it’s practical for most gamblers to try this. Here’s why:

To be able to control the dice, you’d need to practice. You can’t practice for free in a casino, so you’d need to build or buy a casino-equivalent craps table to put in your garage or basement.

Then you’d need to practice for an insane number of repetitions to have any degree of statistical certainty that your skill is in fact affecting your outcomes. Anyone can look like they have skill by getting lucky on a dozen throws of the dice in a row. You’ll need to record your results until you have confidence in your statistical results.

That’s a lot of work for something you might turn out not to be good at. It’s also a lot of work on something that might not even be possible.

I don’t know of any casinos changing their rules or game conditions to combat dice setters. So I’m skeptical of how big a problem it is.

9- Try Playing Free Craps Games Online

I shouldn’t have to go into a lot of detail about this tip for it to make sense. If you’re playing craps without risking any money, you can’t lose any money. Online casinos offer play money games where you don’t risk a thing. At a lot of these casinos, you don’t even have to register an account.

10- See if You Can Find Some Buddies to Play “Street Craps” With

Street craps is the game played in an alleyway or someone’s house. You’ll see people playing street craps in a lot of old movies.

The most important difference between street craps and casino craps is the lack of betting options. In street craps, you only have the 2 betting options—pass and don’t pass. The rules for these bets work the same as they would if you were playing in a casino.

You’re just betting against the other players.

Conclusion

I can’t imagine a game in the casino more fun than craps. Luckily, it also offers some of the best odds in the casino—IF you place the right bets. Once you learn the basics of the game, it’s easy to do well at craps at least part of the time. Just stick with the bets which have a low house edge.

The rest of what you need to know about craps strategy can be boiled down to avoiding bad strategies. The bad bets at the craps table are awful. There’s never a reason to place a bet on something as silly as “hard eight,” even though PT Anderson made a great movie with that title.

Craps is a notoriously streaky game. This is good news and bad news. It means you can have big winning streaks. Sadly, it also means you can have fast losing streaks, too.

And the losing streaks are marginally more common than the winning streaks. That’s how a game with a negative expectation for the player works. Play long enough, and you’ll lose all your money.

But you can sure have some fun and walk away a winner from the craps table once in a while.

Craps might seem like one of the most intimidating games in the casino. The chips fly in every direction. Players bark bets–often in a language of their own–at the dealers. It’s fast and overwhelming for a beginner. And the roars. Who can miss the roars?

So how do you play craps? Whether online, or in person, understanding the rules and basic strategy of this wildly entertaining and exciting table game will quickly transform you from a novice to the one leading the cheers you won’t find anywhere else in the casino.

In this craps 101 rules and strategy primer, we will simplify the complex and varied wagers that can be a lot to digest.

Craps wagers are divided into line bets, single-roll bets and multi-roll bets. So how do you get started?

Line Bets

Line bets are the simplest bets in craps, all paying even money. These bets are the pass, don’t pass, come, and don’t come.

The pass bet is placed before the come-out roll and is rooting for the shooter to win. If a 7 or 11 is rolled on the come-out roll, the pass line wins. If the shooter rolls a 2, 3, or 12 come out, the pass line loses. Once the come-out roll lands on 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10, that number is the point. The pass bet wins if the shooter rolls that same number again before rolling a 7. If the shooter rolls 7 before the point, the pass bet loses.

Scenario 1: You place $10 on the pass line. The shooter rolls 7. You win $10, and you keep the same amount on the pass. The shooter rolls 12, and you lose $10 (now you’re even). You reup $10 on the pass and the shooter rolls 6, which is now the point. The shooter rolls 11, 5, 8 and 3 in consecutive rolls, but you had no action on any of those. The next roll is a 6, so you win $10 on your $10 pass bet.

Once you get the hang of the pass bet, you’re home free, and the game starts to slow down and make sense. Just betting the pass line is enough to get comfortable at the table and relish in the excitement. But of course, there are so many more options.

You can be a “wrong bettor” and wager on the don’t pass line, playing against the shooter (and with the house). The don’t pass bet is the opposite of the pass line, in that if a 7 or 11 rolled on the come-out roll the bet loses, and if a 2, 3, or 12 comes out the bet wins. Once the point is established, the don’t pass wins if 7 is rolled before the point.

Pro tip: Be warned that playing the don’t pass may earn you the evil eye in the casino, as you’re betting against most of the other players at the table.

The come bet is the same thing as playing the pass line, except it is placed after the come-out roll. You’ll basically establish your own point and the rules remain the same–you must roll your point before a 7.

Lastly, you guessed it, the don’t come is the opposite of the come bet. The bettor wagers against the shooter on the don’t come bet.

Single-roll Bets

Single-roll bets are placed at any time, for one turn. Examples of single-roll bets are any craps (2,3, or 12), which pays 7:1, and any 7, which pays 4:1.

Pro tip: Even though any 7 is a wildly popular craps wager, it’s generally considered a sucker bet because of the high house edge, and should probably be avoided.

Another bet in craps is the field where the bettor wagers on the shooter rolling a 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, or 12. Field bets only pay out 4:1 1:1 but include multiple combinations and gives the player better chances of winning.

More specific rolls in craps can yield much higher payouts if the player is ambitions enough.

The yo bet refers to the 11 and pays out 15:1. A new player may be confused when they hear the common cry of C and E, but it simply stands for craps plus 11, effectively two bets in one. An eleven bet pays out at 15:1 and the craps half of the bet pays out 3:1.

Ace-deuce, otherwise known as three craps, is betting on a 3 roll and pays 15:1. Rolling snake eyes (two 1s) or boxcars (two sixes)—the 2 and the 12 bets–each pay 30:1. There’s also a combination bet–the high-low--that pays 15:1 on either 2 or 12.

Last of the single roll bets is the horn which is a combination of the 2, 3, 11 and 12, which pay the same as if you bet them separately.

Pro tip: The most dizzying time at the table is prior to the come-out roll, where many of these single-roll bets are shouted out and chips are tossed. Plays like the horn-high yo (horn bet, plus a little extra on the 11) and the high-low yo (2, 12, 11) prove there’s virtually no limit to the combination of bets you can place.

Multi-roll Bets

Multi-roll bets are wagers that stand until either your number is called, or the shooter rolls 7.

How To Play Craps Beginners

Big 6and Big 8 are very simple. You’re betting that the dealer will roll 6 or 8 (whichever you’re playing) before rolling a 7. It pays 1:1. Hard way bets are placed on the double combination of the dice (for example, 4-4 is hard 8). Hard way 4 and 10 pay at 7:1, and hard way 6 and 8 both pay out at 9:1.

Place betsare placed on any number—4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10–and their odds differ based on how many combinations can equal the number wagered. Place bets on 6 and 8 pay out at 7:6; the 5 and 9 pay out 7:5; the 4 and 10 pay 9:5.

Craps For Dummies Book

Summing up

Craps For Beginners

Learning craps can be difficult, but certainly not impossible. Even a novice can get a handle on the game with some effort and repetition starting with the simpler bets and then expanding. Learning and practicing in an online casino is a great way to get comfortable with the rules. Now that you know the basics, go get rolling, and don’t crap out.