What is Craps? A Plain English Overview

Craps is a dice game. Two dice, six sides each. There's no deck of cards, no spinning wheel, no slot machine, no algorithm working against you in the background. Just two pieces of red plastic with white dots on them.

One person at the table is the shooter, the one who throws the dice. Everyone else around the table, including the shooter, bets on what's going to happen when those dice land. That's the entire game in one sentence: people bet, dice get thrown, bets win or lose, dice get thrown again.

This makes craps fundamentally different from a lot of other casino games. The casino isn't really playing against you the way a blackjack dealer is. There's no opponent across the table trying to beat you. The dice do whatever the dice do, and the casino just sets the payouts so that, over time, it makes a small profit on most bets. It's you against the dice, and the dice against the math.

Other players aren't your enemies either. The big bet almost everyone makes, the pass line, wins or loses based on what the shooter does. So when the shooter wins, the whole table usually wins together, and when the shooter loses, the whole table loses together. That's why strangers are high-fiving each other and groaning together. They're all in the same boat.

You don't need any history to play craps, so skip this if you don't care. But a quick origin story helps explain why the game has so much weird slang. Craps descends from an older English game called hazard, which has been around since at least the 1700s. Hazard came across the Atlantic with British colonists, got picked up and simplified by gamblers in New Orleans in the 1800s, and slowly turned into the version we play today. The name "craps" most likely comes from a French word for the lowest roll in hazard, crapaud, meaning toad. Players would say they crapped out, and the name stuck to the whole game.

Soldiers in both World Wars spread craps everywhere because it was easy to play on a blanket with two dice and a pocketful of nickels. By the time Las Vegas got going in the 1950s and 60s, craps was already one of the most popular gambling games in the country. That's why the language sounds so old: boxcars, snake eyes, yo, hardways. A lot of these terms have been around for over a century, passed down from people who learned the game at military bases in the 1940s.

When the shooter throws the dice for the first time in a round, that throw is the come out roll, and a few things can happen. If the shooter throws a 7 or 11, that's a natural and most bettors win immediately, with a brand new come out roll to follow. If the shooter throws a 2, 3 or 12, that's craps and most bettors lose immediately, though the shooter keeps the dice and rolls again.

If the shooter throws any other number (4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10), that number becomes the point. A puck on the table flips to the "on" side and sits on top of that number. Now the shooter keeps rolling, but the goal has changed: roll that point number again before rolling a 7. If the point comes first, the round wins and a new come out roll happens. If a 7 comes first, the round loses, the dice pass to the next player, and a new come out starts with a new shooter.

That's the rhythm of craps. Come out roll, establish a point, try to make the point before sevening out, then do it all again. Once you see that pattern, the rest of the game starts making sense.

The basic bet, the one almost everyone is making, is the pass line bet. You put your chips on the pass line and you're betting the shooter wins the round. If the come out is a 7 or 11 you win; if it's craps you lose; if a point is established you're rooting for the shooter to hit it before a 7.

The pass line pays even money, so a winning $10 bet returns your $10 plus $10 more. The house edge is around 1.4 percent, meaning for every $100 you put through it the casino expects to take about $1.40 over the long run. Compare that to slots, where the edge is often 5 to 10 percent or worse, and you can see why craps has a reputation as a smart gambler's game.

There are dozens of other bets, and we cover the ones worth knowing in their own articles. The big two to learn after the pass line are the free odds bet, the only bet in the casino with zero house edge, and the come bet, basically a pass line bet you can make on any roll. There are also bets to avoid, like most of the propositions in the middle of the table.

The pace is one reason. Craps moves slower than most people expect, with a minute or more between rolls while dealers pay winners and players make new bets. That gives you plenty of time to think, talk, and watch, which is why the social vibe is so strong.

The other reason is that you're not making one bet and waiting to find out if you won. You can have multiple bets going at once, on different numbers, all living or dying on the same dice. A single roll can make you a winner on one bet and a loser on another at the same time. And on a hot table, when a shooter makes point after point, you can win a lot in a hurry. Long rolls are rare. Most last three or four throws and end on a 7. But when somebody catches fire and rolls for 20 minutes, the cheering gets loud. That's the magic of craps, and the moment everyone is waiting for.

If you like dice, like a social atmosphere, and want a game with some of the best odds in the casino, yes. Craps is one of the few casino games where a basic strategy gives you a fair shot at coming out ahead in any given session. Over the long run the house still wins, as with every casino game, but the gap is small enough that you can have a real night.

If you hate the noise and crowds and want to play at your own pace, you might prefer the online version, which has the same rules and odds without the shouting. We cover the differences in our article on online vs live craps.

If you've never played, the best move is to learn the basic rules first, then the few bets that matter, then play for small money and let the rest come to you. Nobody learns craps in one sitting. Treat the first few sessions as tuition: bet small, watch, and ask the dealers questions during slow moments. The next article covers the basic rules of craps in more detail. And set a budget before you play, because the dice don't care about your rent. Read our article on bankroll management before you put any real money on the table.