How to Play Craps: Rules, Bets, and Strategy

Craps is the loudest table game in any casino — and for good reason. A single shooter's roll affects every player at the table simultaneously, creating a shared drama that no other casino game quite replicates. This page covers the complete ruleset, the full betting menu from Pass Line to hardways, the underlying probabilities that determine which bets are worth making, and the structural tensions that make craps simultaneously one of the best and most confusing games on the floor.

• Definition and Scope
• Core Mechanics and Structure
• Causal Relationships and Drivers
• Classification Boundaries
• Tradeoffs and Tensions
• Common Misconceptions
• Sequence of Play
• Bet Reference Matrix

Definition and Scope

Craps is a dice-based casino game in which players wager on the outcome of a roll — or a series of rolls — of two standard six-sided dice. The game operates on a single centralized table, typically staffed by four casino employees: a boxman who supervises the bankroll, two dealers who manage bets on either side of the table layout, and a stickman who controls the dice and announces results.

The betting structure spans roughly 40 distinct bet types when all proposition and combination wagers are counted. That range is the source of craps's reputation for complexity, but the functional core of the game rests on a much smaller set: the Pass Line, the Don't Pass, the Come, the Don't Come, and the free odds bet attached to each. A player who understands those five bet types has mastered the structure that governs most of the money on the table at any given moment.

Craps belongs to the broader family of casino dice games, and understanding how it fits alongside other dice formats — from sic bo to chuck-a-luck — adds useful context for anyone approaching the genre for the first time.

Core Mechanics and Structure

Every round of craps begins with a come-out roll. Before that roll, players place their primary bets. The come-out roll produces one of three outcomes:

• Natural (7 or 11): Pass Line bets win immediately; Don't Pass bets lose.
• Craps (2, 3, or 12): Pass Line bets lose; Don't Pass bets win on 2 or 3, and push (tie) on 12.
• Point (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10): A white puck is placed on the corresponding number on the layout. The round continues.

Once a point is established, the shooter rolls repeatedly until hitting either the point number again — which wins for Pass Line bettors — or a 7, which loses for Pass Line bettors and ends the shooter's turn. This phase is called the point phase, and it can last for any number of rolls.

The free odds bet, available only after a point is established, is the single most structurally significant feature of the craps table. It carries no house edge at all — the casino pays true mathematical odds on this bet. Most casinos offer odds multiples of 2x, 3x–4x–5x, or 10x depending on the point number. The 3x–4x–5x structure common in Las Vegas properties allows a maximum odds bet of 3x on a point of 4 or 10, 4x on 5 or 9, and 5x on 6 or 8.

The house edge on the Pass Line bet sits at 1.41%, one of the lowest in any casino game. Adding maximum odds reduces the combined effective house edge on the Pass Line plus odds to approximately 0.37% under a 10x odds game — a figure documented by gaming mathematician Michael Shackleford at Wizard of Odds.

Causal Relationships and Drivers

The probabilities in craps are fully determined by the mathematics of two six-sided dice producing 36 possible combinations. The number 7 appears in 6 of those 36 combinations, giving it a 16.67% probability — the highest of any total. The point numbers cluster around it: 6 and 8 each appear in 5 of 36 combinations (13.89%), while 4 and 10 each appear in only 3 of 36 (8.33%).

This distribution directly drives the structure of the payout table. A 4 or 10 pays 2-to-1 on odds because the probability of rolling either before a 7 is exactly 1-in-3. A 6 or 8 pays 6-to-5 because the probability of hitting either before a 7 is 5-in-11.

The dice game probability framework underlying craps is fixed — no betting system changes the underlying combinatorics. The Martingale system, the Iron Cross, and every other pattern-based approach leave the house edge structurally intact because they reorganize bet sizing without affecting the ratio of winning to losing combinations.

Variance, however, does respond to bet selection. Proposition bets — the one-roll center bets on specific totals — carry house edges ranging from 9.09% on "any craps" to 16.67% on "any seven," per Shackleford's published analysis at Wizard of Odds. These bets produce high short-term variance without improving long-run expected value.

Classification Boundaries

Craps bets fall into four structural categories:

Line bets are the primary win/lose wagers placed before the come-out roll: Pass Line and Don't Pass. These bets persist through both the come-out phase and the point phase.

Come bets function as a second Pass Line placed during the point phase. After a Come bet is placed, the next roll functions as a private come-out roll for that bet. Come bets move to individual point numbers and win or lose independently of the shooter's point.

Place bets allow a player to bet directly on a specific number (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10) without going through the Come structure. They can be turned on or off at will, but they carry a slightly higher house edge than Come bets with full odds.

Proposition bets are one-roll or hardway bets handled by the stickman. Hardways bets require the point to be rolled as a pair (hard 4 = 2+2) before a 7 or an easy version of the number appears. These are persistent bets. One-roll propositions — including 2 ("aces"), 12 ("boxcars"), and 11 ("yo") — resolve on the very next roll.

Tradeoffs and Tensions

The most genuine tension in craps strategy sits between volatility and edge. The Pass Line plus maximum odds carries the lowest house edge of any structured bet sequence in the casino, but it requires a larger total bet commitment (line bet plus odds). A player using 3-4-5x odds on a $10 Pass Line bet risks up to $60 per resolved bet on a point of 6 or 8, while a player making only the flat Pass Line bet risks $10.

Come bettors with full odds often have 3 or 4 numbers working simultaneously, meaning a single roll of 7 can wipe out all of them at once. This is mathematically sound — the odds are fair — but psychologically brutal in practice. It is the craps experience that beginners rarely anticipate.

Don't Pass bettors face the inverse problem. The Don't Pass bet carries a house edge of 1.36% — marginally lower than the Pass Line's 1.41% — but Don't Pass bettors are playing against the shooter and, implicitly, against the energy of everyone else at the table. The social friction is real enough that "dark side" betting carries its own etiquette conventions, documented across dice game etiquette resources.

The dice game strategy literature generally converges on a single practical recommendation: minimize proposition bets and maximize odds on line bets. The tradeoff is that this approach requires a larger bankroll buffer to survive the variance — a direct consideration for anyone applying dice game bankroll management principles.

Common Misconceptions

"The shooter controls outcomes through dice setting." Dice influencing — the practice of setting the dice in a specific orientation before throwing — has been marketed aggressively in some gambling circles. The physics literature does not support the claim that consistent bias is achievable under casino conditions, where the dice must travel at least the length of the table and strike a pyramidal-textured back wall. The American Casino Guide and gaming regulators treat dice setting as entertainment rather than viable strategy.

"A hot shooter changes the odds." Each roll of two fair dice is an independent event. The probability of rolling a 7 is always 6-in-36 regardless of how many rolls have preceded it. The gambler's fallacy — the intuition that past results influence future independent events — is particularly powerful at the craps table because social energy amplifies the feeling of momentum.

"All number bets are equivalent." Place bets on 6 and 8 carry a house edge of 1.52%. Place bets on 5 and 9 carry a house edge of 4.00%. Place bets on 4 and 10 carry a house edge of 6.67%. These are not interchangeable — the dice game odds and house edge structure varies sharply by number, and treating all place bets as equal is a meaningful and common error.

"Big 6 and Big 8 are good bets." The Big 6 and Big 8 bets, printed in large type at the corners of some layouts, pay even money on a number that a Place bet on 6 or 8 would pay at 7-to-6. The house edge on Big 6/8 is 9.09%, versus 1.52% for the equivalent Place bet. These bets exist almost entirely for players who do not know the alternative.

Sequence of Play

The following sequence describes the structural phases of a craps round as they occur at the table:

Reference Table or Matrix

Craps Bet Reference Matrix

House edge figures sourced from Wizard of Odds (Michael Shackleford), a widely cited reference in gaming mathematics.

The full range of dice game rules across casino formats — from craps to sic bo — illustrates how dramatically house edge can vary depending on bet selection rather than game choice. For broader context on how chance-based recreation fits into American leisure culture, the how-recreation-works-conceptual-overview framework is a useful structural reference. An index of all dice game topics covered across this resource is available at the main index.