Basic Craps Rules Explained
Craps has a reputation for being complicated. It is not, really. The actual rules of the game would fit on the back of a napkin. The reason it looks complicated is that there are a lot of bets you can make on top of those simple rules, and the table is covered in labels for all of them. Strip away the bets for a minute and the underlying game is straightforward.
This article is about that underlying game. Just the rules. We will get into the bets in their own articles. By the end of this you should know exactly what is happening on every roll, what the dealers are doing, what counts as a winning or losing roll, and the handful of weird situations that trip up new players. If you have not read our overview of what craps is yet, start there and come back. This article assumes you already know what a come out roll is.
Two dice, one shooter, one big idea
Every round of craps starts with one player throwing two dice. That player is the shooter. The dice add up to a number between 2 and 12. That number, and the order it shows up in the round, is the entire game.
The whole round is built around one comparison. Will the shooter roll a specific number before they roll a 7? Sometimes that specific number is whatever they happen to roll first, sometimes it is a number you chose, but the question is always the same. Some target number versus a 7. Whichever shows up first wins or loses your bet, depending on which side you took.
That is the core mechanic. Everything else is just variations on that theme.
The two phases of a round
A round of craps has two phases. They are not always called this in the casino but it helps to think about them as two separate things.
The first phase is the come out roll. This is the opening throw of a new round. The puck on the table, the round black-and-white disc, is sitting on the don't come box with the off side up. That is your visual cue that a come out is about to happen. The shooter throws and one of three things happens.
If the come out is a 7 or 11, that is a natural. Pass line bets win, the round ends right there, and the same shooter throws another come out roll.
If the come out is a 2, 3 or 12, that is craps. Pass line bets lose, the round ends, and the same shooter throws another come out roll. The shooter does not give up the dice for crapping out. They keep rolling.
If the come out is a 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10, that number becomes the point. The puck flips over to the on side and gets placed on top of that number on the layout. The round is now in its second phase.
The second phase is sometimes just called the point cycle. It works differently from the come out. Now the rules of what wins and loses change.
The shooter keeps throwing the dice. Pass line bets win if the shooter rolls the point number again before rolling a 7. Pass line bets lose if a 7 comes first. That is it. Nothing else matters for pass line bets during this phase. A 2, a 3, an 11, a 12, none of those affect the pass line during the point cycle. Only the point itself and the 7 do anything.
If the shooter rolls the point, the round wins, the puck flips back to off, and a new come out happens. Same shooter, fresh round. If the shooter rolls a 7 before hitting the point, that is called sevening out. The round loses. The shooter has to give up the dice. The dice pass to the player on the shooter's left and a new round starts.
That is the entire game. Come out roll, possibly establish a point, try to make the point before sevening out. Repeat until you run out of money or the casino runs out of free drinks.
The crew running the table
If you have only ever played online craps, you can skip most of this section. Online there is no crew, just software. But if you ever play live, knowing who is who at the table makes the whole thing feel a lot less chaotic.
A standard live craps table is staffed by four casino employees, sometimes three on a slow table. There is the boxman, who is the supervisor. He sits at the middle of the table on the casino's side, behind the chip rack, and his job is to watch every bet, every payout and every dice roll. He is also where you turn cash into chips when you first walk up. Just put your money on the table during a moment between rolls and say "change please." He will exchange it for chips.
On either side of the boxman are two dealers. They handle the bets and payouts on their side of the table. Players on the left side of the table deal with the left dealer, players on the right side deal with the right dealer. They are who you talk to when you want to make a place bet, take odds or buy in. They are also the ones moving chips around at speeds that look impossible the first time you see it.
Across from the boxman, on the player side of the table, stands the stickman. He has the long curved stick. His job is to push the dice back to the shooter after each roll, call out the result of the roll for everyone to hear, and run the proposition bets in the middle of the layout. The stickman is also usually the most talkative member of the crew. He is the one calling out yo when an 11 hits or working the table with patter to keep the energy up.
Knowing the difference between these positions matters because it tells you who to talk to. Want to make a pass line bet? Just put it down yourself. Want a place bet on the 8? Tell your dealer, the one on your side. Want to make a hardway bet? That goes through the stickman. Confused about a payout? Talk to your dealer first, escalate to the boxman if you really need to. New players who try to talk to the wrong person get ignored or redirected, and that is when it starts feeling intimidating.
How rolls actually work
For a roll to count in craps, the dice have to do a few things. They have to leave the shooter's hand together. They have to hit the back wall on the far side of the table, which is the foam-covered rail with the pyramid bumps. They have to land flat on the felt. If they do not hit the back wall, technically that roll can be ruled invalid. In practice most casinos give you some slack on your first throw or two, but if you keep short-rolling, the boxman will say something.
If a die flies off the table, that is also not a valid roll. Most casinos use the same die again unless it is damaged, but some superstitious players believe a die that left the table is bad luck and will ask for a new one. Whether you go along with that is up to you. The math says it does not matter. The vibe at the table sometimes says it matters a lot.
If a die lands on top of a chip stack and is leaning, that is called a cocked die. The boxman will rule what number it would be if you knocked the chip out from under it. Sometimes that takes a few seconds.
The shooter is supposed to throw with one hand. You can pick the dice up with one hand or two, but when you actually throw them, only one hand can be on them. This is to prevent palming or switching dice, which used to be a common cheating method back in the day. The casino still cares about it.
The roll of the dice and what each number means
Two dice can land in 36 different combinations. Some totals come up more often than others because there are more ways to make them. A 7, for example, can be rolled six different ways. A 2 can only be rolled one way, with two ones. We have a whole article on dice probability for beginners that breaks this down with a chart, but the rough version is that 7 is the most common roll, followed by 6 and 8, then 5 and 9, then 4 and 10, then 3 and 11, and finally 2 and 12.
This matters more than it might seem. The whole game of craps is built around the fact that 7 is the most likely roll. Every bet on the table is priced based on how likely a given number is compared to 7. Once you understand why 7 shows up so often, the rest of the game's quirks start making sense.
The handful of rules that trip up new players
A few specific rules cause more confusion at the table than anything else. Worth covering them up front.
First, a 12 on the come out roll is a loss for pass line bets but a push for don't pass bets. A push means you neither win nor lose, your bet just stays where it is. This rule exists because if both pass and don't pass won or lost on a 12, one of them would have a real edge over the casino. The push on 12 is how the casino keeps the math working in its favor for both sides. Sometimes you will see a casino that bars the 2 instead of the 12 on don't pass. Either way, one of those numbers is a push, and you can tell which by looking at the layout. It will say "Bar 12" or "Bar 2" in the don't pass area.
Second, place bets and most other bets you make during the point cycle are normally turned off for the come out roll of the next round. Off means they do not win or lose, they just sit there. This is called working or not working. You can ask your dealer to turn your place bets on if you want them in action during the come out. The default is off because most place bettors do not want to lose to a 7 on the come out, even though they would win to it on a pass line bet. It seems contradictory until you remember that during the come out, a 7 is good for the pass line and bad for place bets. The default off setting protects place bettors from a result that is helping their pass line bet at the same time.
Third, you cannot remove or reduce a pass line bet once a point has been established. The pass line is a contract bet. Once that point is on, your money is committed until either the point hits or the shooter sevens out. You can add to it, technically you can take odds behind it, but you cannot pull it down. Don't pass bets work in reverse. You can pull a don't pass bet down or reduce it any time after a point is set. The reason is that once a point is established, the don't pass bettor has the better of the deal mathematically, so the casino lets them give up that edge if they want to. Most people who know what they are doing leave their don't pass alone.
Fourth, you have to handle the dice with one hand only and the dice are not allowed to leave the table area. Drop one on the floor, the boxman is going to want to inspect it. Throw too softly and the stickman is going to remind you to hit the back wall. None of this is a big deal but it surprises people the first time it happens.
Fifth, do not say the word seven at a craps table during a point cycle. Just do not. The other players will glare at you. The dealers will pretend they did not hear you. Is it superstition? Yes, completely. Does that make it any less real? Not at a craps table. We get into more etiquette like this in our craps etiquette article.
How a typical round actually plays out
Let me walk you through a normal round so you can see all of this in action.
The puck is off. A new shooter has the dice. You put $10 on the pass line. The dealers cap off late bets. The stickman pushes the dice to the shooter. The shooter throws. They land on the felt and the stickman calls out "eight, easy eight, the point is eight." The puck flips to on and gets placed on the 8 box.
The shooter throws again. It comes up 5. Nothing happens to the pass line bet. The stickman calls out "five, no field five." The 5 in this round is meaningless to a pass line bettor. The dice come back and the shooter throws again. This time it is a 9. Same deal, no effect on the pass line. The shooter throws again. It is a 7. That is a sevening out. Pass line bets lose. The dealers sweep the chips off the layout. The dice get passed to the next shooter.
Or, the shooter could have thrown an 8 on that fourth roll instead of a 7. In that case the pass line wins, you get paid even money, the puck flips back to off and the same shooter starts a new come out roll.
That is what every round looks like. Some rounds last one roll. Some rounds last 30 minutes. There is no time limit and no maximum number of rolls. The shooter just keeps going until they either make their point and start over or seven out and pass the dice. The whole table rises and falls with that rhythm.
What happens between rolls
A live table moves slower than people expect. After each roll, the dealers have to settle every bet that won or lost on that throw. They pay winners. They take losers. They move come bets to their numbers. They turn place bets on or off. All of this takes time. On a busy table you might wait a minute or more between rolls.
This is when you make new bets, change existing bets or just take a sip of your drink and watch what is happening. The stickman will call last bets when the dealers are just about done settling, and you have a few seconds after that to get your chips down. Once the stickman pushes the dice back to the shooter, no more bets. New bets after the dice are out get pushed back at you, and new players sometimes find that embarrassing.
Online craps moves faster because there is no crew settling bets. The software does it instantly. That is one of the bigger differences between the two formats and we cover it in online vs live craps.
That is really it
Two dice. A shooter. A come out. A point. Make the point or roll a 7. Repeat.
The complications come from the bets, not from the rules. Once you have these mechanics down, the rest of learning craps is just learning what bets to make and what bets to avoid. Start with the pass line. Add free odds when you are comfortable. Branch out from there.
The next article in this guide takes you on a tour of the craps table layout itself, so you can read the felt without feeling like you are looking at a foreign language.
Read next: The Craps Table Layout, Explained