The Come Out Roll and the Point

The come out roll is the first roll of any new round, the opening throw, the kickoff. You can always tell when one is coming because the puck is on the off side, sitting in the don't come area or a corner near the place boxes.

The come out happens at three points in a session: the very beginning, when a brand new shooter starts their first roll; after a point hits, when the same shooter starts a new round; and after a shooter sevens out, when a new shooter has the dice. The come out matters because it's the only time during a round when 7 is a good thing for pass line bettors. Roll a 7 here and the table cheers. Roll a 7 a few minutes later, after a point is set, and the table groans. Same number, two different results. That's the whole drama of craps in a nutshell.

When the shooter throws on the come out, exactly one of three things happens, and all 11 possible totals fall into one of these three buckets.

Here's something most people don't realize: the come out roll is actually weighted in the pass line bettor's favor. There are more ways to roll a natural than craps. Of the 36 combinations on two dice, 6 are 7s and 2 are 11s, for 8 winning combinations. Only 1 is a 2, 2 are 3s, and 1 is a 12, for 4 losing combinations.

So on the come out alone, pass line bettors win twice as often as they lose, eight wins versus four losses. If the come out was the entire game, the pass line would have a massive player edge and the casino would lose money on it. The casino's edge comes back during the point cycle, where the math flips. But don't get spooked when somebody craps out on the come out; the come out itself is one of the most player-friendly moments in the entire casino.

When the come out is a 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10, the dealer flips the puck on and the whole table knows the round is in its second phase. Several things change at once.

• The rules of winning flip. The 7 is no longer good; it's the worst thing that can happen. The 11, 2, 3 and 12 stop mattering. The only two numbers that affect a pass line bet now are the point (good) and the 7 (bad).
• You can make a free odds bet. Not allowed during the come out, but the moment a point is set you can put up to 3x to 5x your pass line bet behind it as odds. Free odds have zero house edge and are one of the best bets in the casino. Full details in the free odds bet article.
• Place bets switch on by default. They're typically off during the come out, just sitting there, and switch to active on every roll once a point is set.
• The come box becomes more useful. A chip in the come box during the point cycle makes a come bet, which works like a pass line bet whose "come out" is the next roll. Save the come bet article for after you understand points.
• You can't pull down your pass line bet. Once a point is on, that money is locked in. It's a contract bet, because the math has switched from slightly favorable to slightly unfavorable for you, and the casino won't let you take it off when the edge is theirs.

Once a point is set, the shooter keeps throwing, and every roll is a chance to win or lose the round. If the shooter rolls the point again, that's making the point: pass line bets win even money, free odds pay true odds, the puck flips back to off, and the same shooter starts a new come out. If the shooter rolls a 7, that's sevening out: pass line and free odds bets lose, most other bets lose too, the puck flips off, and the dice pass to the next player.

If the shooter rolls anything else, nothing happens to your pass line bet. The 11 you'd have loved on the come out is now meaningless, as is the 2 you'd have hated. Even another number that isn't the point does nothing. The shooter just throws again. That's the rhythm of the point cycle: throw, throw, throw, until either the point hits or a 7 ends the round.

During the come out, you wanted a 7. During the point cycle, you don't. And no point number is more likely to come up than a 7, which can be rolled six ways out of 36, more than any other number. Full breakdown in our dice probability article.

So during the point cycle, the 7 is more likely than your point. If your point is 4 or 10, you have three ways to make it versus six for the 7, so it hits one out of three times. If your point is 5 or 9, four ways versus six, about 40 percent. If your point is 6 or 8, five ways versus six, about 45 percent. None are coin flips; the 7 is always favored. This is why the casino lets pass line bets win so easily on the come out: they get their edge back during the point cycle. The full bet, taken together, has a house edge of about 1.4 percent, because the player advantage on the come out and the casino advantage on the point cycle nearly, but not quite, cancel out.

A long roll is when a single shooter goes on a streak of making points without sevening out, setting and making point after point. The longer it goes, the more excited the table gets, because every pass line bettor keeps winning. Long rolls are rare; most shooters seven out within a few minutes, with an average roll around seven to nine throws.

But every once in a while somebody catches fire. Stanley Fujitake famously rolled for over three hours at the California Hotel and Casino in 1989, and Patricia DeMauro rolled for over four hours at the Borgata in 2009. These are once-in-a-generation rolls, but smaller hot streaks happen often, and they're the moments craps players live for. Mathematically a long roll is just luck, with nothing to do with the shooter's technique or mojo. It's just dice doing what dice do, though good luck telling that to the table mid-streak.

Sevening out is the official end of a shooter's turn. The 7 only has this power during the point cycle. On the come out it's a winner; once a point is set, it's a loser. When a shooter sevens out, the dealer settles every losing bet and pays the winners that came with the 7 (like don't pass bets), the puck flips off, and the dice pass to the player on the shooter's left.

If you don't want to shoot when the dice come to you, just say "pass" or wave them off and the stickman moves them on. Plenty of players never shoot; there's no requirement that you do. We cover the full experience in our article on being the shooter.

Place bets are off by default during the come out roll of a new round. Off means they don't win or lose, they just sit there inactive. So if you have a place bet on the 6 and the shooter rolls a 6 on the come out, you don't win it. This catches people every time: they watch their number get rolled, expect to get paid, and the dealer just sits there. The reason is that during the come out you're typically rooting for a 7 to win your pass line bet, and the casino assumes you don't want your place bets losing to that same 7.

You can override it by telling the dealer "place bets working." Some experienced players do this when they aren't betting the pass line, since they have nothing to lose to a 7. This rule applies to most numbered bets, not just place bets: hardways and hop bets are off on the come out by default too. More in the place bets article.

For a beginner, the best strategy is the simplest. On the come out roll, have a pass line bet down. That's it. Once a point is established, take free odds behind it for as much as you can comfortably afford within the table limit. Then either watch the round play out or, if you want a second bet running, drop a chip in the come box.

That's your basic play: pass line on come out, free odds when a point is set, optional come bet for a second number. You can play craps your entire life and never need more. The math on this combination is some of the best in the casino, and it keeps you out of all the high-edge garbage in the middle of the table. More sophisticated play exists, but you don't need any of it as a new player. Start simple, stay simple. The next article gets into the dice probability behind all of this.