Craps
Craps looks like the hardest game in the casino and is one of the simplest to bet well. Two dice, 36 ways for them to land, and a layout where the cheapest bet and the most expensive bet sit a few inches apart. The whole game is knowing which is which.
Thirty-six ways
Everything on a craps table comes from two six-sided dice. There are 36 ways for them to land, and the totals are not equally likely, because more combinations make a 7 than anything else.
| Total | Ways | Chance |
|---|---|---|
| 2 or 12 | 1 each | 2.78% each |
| 3 or 11 | 2 each | 5.56% each |
| 4 or 10 | 3 each | 8.33% each |
| 5 or 9 | 4 each | 11.11% each |
| 6 or 8 | 5 each | 13.89% each |
| 7 | 6 | 16.67% |
Learn that table and you can price every bet on the felt yourself. The house edge on any bet is the gap between what it pays and what that table says it should pay, and once you see it that way the layout stops being confusing. It's a price list, the same as a betting board, and some of the prices are terrible.
The pass line
The first roll of a round is the come-out. If you bet the pass line, a 7 or 11 on the come-out wins even money and a 2, 3 or 12 loses. Any other total (4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10) becomes the point, and now the shooter keeps rolling until he either makes the point again, which wins, or rolls a 7, which loses.
Work it through all 36 ways and the pass line wins 244 times in 495 and loses 251. That gap of 7 in 495 is the house edge: 1.41 percent. The don't pass is the mirror bet, except that a 12 on the come-out is a tie instead of a win for you, and that one change is the house's edge on that side, 1.36 percent. The come and don't come bets work exactly like pass and don't pass, started on any roll after the come-out, and cost the same.
Some players won't bet the don't because it means rooting against the table. I never cared. It's the cheaper bet by a hair, and the dice don't know who you're cheering for.
The odds bet
Once a point is set, you can put money behind your pass line bet. This is the odds bet, and it pays at true odds: 2 to 1 on a 4 or 10, 3 to 2 on a 5 or 9, 6 to 5 on a 6 or 8. Check it against the table above. A 4 can be made 3 ways and a 7 can be rolled 6 ways, so 2 to 1 is exactly fair. The house has no edge on it at all.
It is the only bet in the building priced with no cut, and it isn't printed on the layout. You have to know to ask.
The casino limits how much you can take, usually as a multiple of your line bet, and the multiple varies from table to table. Here is what it does to the edge on the money you have out. With 2x odds, for every dollar on the line you put an average of $1.33 behind it (you only get to take odds when a point is set, which is 24 rolls in 36), so the 1.41 cents you lose per line dollar is spread over $2.33, and the edge falls to about 0.61 percent. At 3x, 4x and 5x odds on the 4 and 10, the 5 and 9 and the 6 and 8, it falls to about 0.37 percent.
Be clear about what that means. Your expected loss in dollars doesn't drop. It stays at 1.41 cents for every dollar on the pass line, whatever you put behind it. What drops is the cost per dollar at risk, and the swings get much bigger. So I'd keep the line bet small and take the odds, rather than betting the line big and skipping them. Same expected cost, a fairer price on everything above the minimum.
The rest of the layout
The place bets let you pick a number and skip the come-out. Placing the 6 or 8 pays 7 to 6, and true odds are 6 to 5, which leaves the house 1.52 percent. That's a fair price, close to the pass line. Placing the 5 or 9 at 7 to 5 costs 4 percent, and the 4 or 10 at 9 to 5 costs 6.67 percent. The further out you go, the more you pay.
The field is a one-roll bet on 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 or 12. It looks like it covers most of the board, but it leaves out 5, 6, 7 and 8, which between them are 20 of the 36 ways. Where the 2 and 12 each pay double, the house keeps 5.56 percent. Where the 12 pays triple, it's 2.78. Read the felt before you bet it, because the casino prints the payout right there.
Then there's the middle of the table, the proposition bets, and this is where the casino makes its money on craps. The prices:
| Bet | Pays | House edge |
|---|---|---|
| Any seven | 4 to 1 | 16.67% |
| Any craps (2, 3 or 12) | 7 to 1 | 11.11% |
| Yo (11) | 15 to 1 | 11.11% |
| Hard 4 or hard 10 | 7 to 1 | 11.11% |
| Hard 6 or hard 8 | 9 to 1 | 9.09% |
Take the any seven. A 7 comes 6 times in 36, so a fair price is 5 to 1. The casino pays 4 to 1, and the difference is a sixth of every dollar you bet on it. (The stickman calls those bets loud and often, and now you know why.) I'd treat the middle of the table the way I treat a seven-team parlay: it's there because it holds, and the one who loves it is the house.
How to sit at the table
The good game is short to describe. Bet the pass line or the don't pass, take the odds behind it up to what you can afford, maybe place the 6 and 8, and leave the center of the table alone. That keeps your cost at about 1.5 percent or less on everything you bet, which is about as cheap as gambling gets anywhere.
None of it is a winning game. Every bet with a cut loses over time, and the odds bet is fair, which means it breaks even on average and swings in both directions. No betting system changes that, for the same reasons the Martingale fails on a ballgame. The house edge across the casino is laid out on the house edge page, and the other games are in the casino guide.
Craps is fast. The dice keep coming and several bets work on every roll, so the money moves quicker than it feels. Decide what the session can cost before you buy in, and walk when it's gone. The responsible gambling page has how I'd set that number.
Whether you can play craps at all, in a casino or online, depends on where you live.