Dice Game Terminology: A Complete Glossary
Dice games carry their own distinct vocabulary — a shorthand built up over centuries of play at kitchen tables, casino floors, and street corners. Knowing the terminology isn't just pedantic housekeeping; it's the difference between following a game and actually playing it well. This glossary covers the essential terms across casino dice games, tabletop formats, and street play, with particular attention to how the same word can mean different things in different contexts.
Definition and scope
Dice game terminology refers to the standardized and colloquial vocabulary used to describe game mechanics, physical equipment, betting structures, outcomes, and player roles. The scope is broader than most players expect. A single term like "natural" means a 7 or 11 on the come-out roll in craps — an immediate winner for pass-line bettors — but in Sic Bo and other Asian dice formats, the same word carries no conventional meaning at all.
The glossary below draws from 3 primary game families: casino dice games (dominated by craps), street dice formats (primarily street craps and its regional variants), and tabletop games (Yahtzee, Farkle, Bunco, and role-playing game formats). Terms that cross all three families are noted as universal; those specific to one context are labeled accordingly.
Core universal terms:
- Die / Dice — A die (singular) is a small throwable object with marked faces, typically cubic with 6 sides. The plural is dice. A standard casino die measures exactly 3/4 inch (19.05 mm) per side, compared to the smaller 5/8-inch dice common in tabletop board games.
- Roll / Throw — The act of releasing dice so they tumble freely and produce a random result. "Throw" is more common in street and casino vernacular; "roll" dominates tabletop contexts.
- Pip — The individual dot on a die face. A standard six-sided die has 21 total pips arranged so opposite faces always sum to 7.
- Result / Outcome — The numerical value shown after a roll, determined by the face(s) landing upward.
- House edge — The mathematical advantage a casino holds over the player, expressed as a percentage of each bet. In craps, the pass-line bet carries a house edge of approximately 1.41% (Wizard of Odds, Craps House Edge Analysis), making it one of the more favorable bets in any casino game.
How it works
Terminology functions as compressed communication — players and dealers shorthand complex betting structures and procedural rules into single words or short phrases. In craps, for example, the entire game flow can be narrated with fewer than 20 terms.
Craps-specific glossary (12 essential terms):
- Come-out roll — The first roll of a new game round, determining whether a point is established or the round ends immediately.
- Point — Any of the numbers 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10 rolled on the come-out. Once established, the shooter must roll the point again before rolling a 7 to win.
- Natural — A 7 or 11 on the come-out roll; an automatic win for pass-line bettors.
- Craps out — Rolling a 2, 3, or 12 on the come-out; an automatic loss for pass-line bettors.
- Seven out — Rolling a 7 after a point has been established; ends the shooter's turn and loses pass-line bets.
- Shooter — The player currently throwing the dice.
- Boxcars — Slang for rolling a 12 (two sixes). Also called "midnight."
- Snake eyes — A roll of 2 (two ones).
- Hard way — Rolling a pair to hit a point (e.g., two 3s to make 6). A hard 6 pays 9:1 at most casinos.
- Pass line — The fundamental bet in craps, placed before the come-out roll.
- Don't pass — A bet against the shooter, effectively betting on a seven-out after a point is set.
- Odds bet — A secondary bet placed behind a pass or don't-pass bet, which carries zero house edge — the only true even-money bet in a casino.
Tabletop-specific terms:
- Scoring category — In Yahtzee, one of 13 designated slots where a roll result is recorded.
- Bust / Farkle — In Farkle, rolling without any scoring dice, losing all unbanked points for that turn.
- Bank — To lock in accumulated points before rolling again, ending a turn voluntarily.
- Reroll — Rolling some or all dice a second or third time in the same turn, permitted in most tabletop formats.
Common scenarios
The term "full house" illustrates how context transforms meaning. In Yahtzee, a full house is three of a kind plus a pair, worth a flat 25 points. In poker-adjacent dice games, a full house ranks identically to its card-game counterpart but may pay at variable odds. The dice-game-scoring-systems page maps these variations in detail.
Street craps introduces additional vocabulary not found in casino play. "Book" refers to the person covering bets (acting as the house); "fade" means to cover part or all of the shooter's main bet. These terms rarely appear in regulated casino environments.
Decision boundaries
Two terms define where player choice meets mechanical outcome: push and press.
A push occurs when a bet neither wins nor loses — in craps, rolling a 12 on the come-out is a push for don't-pass bettors (rather than a loss). A press is the player decision to double a winning bet rather than collect it, increasing exposure in exchange for larger upside.
Knowing the difference between a descriptive term (what happened) and a prescriptive term (what a player chooses to do) keeps rules interpretation clean. When dice-game-rule-disputes arise at the table, the disagreement is almost always rooted in a terminological misunderstanding rather than genuine rules ambiguity.
For broader context on how these terms developed and why certain regional variants use different vocabulary, the history-of-dice-games page and dice-game-variations-by-region are the natural companions to this glossary. The full foundation of the subject — including game families and formats — is covered on the Dice Game Authority home page.