The Pass Line Bet: The Main Bet in Craps

The pass line bet is a bet on the shooter winning the round. You're betting with the shooter, not against them. When the shooter does well, you win; when the shooter loses, you lose. Everyone betting the pass line is on the same team.

You make it by putting your chips on the long curved strip along the outer edge of the player area marked "Pass Line." You can only make this bet during the come out roll, when the puck shows off. Once a point is established and the puck flips on, you can't make a fresh pass line bet for that round; you wait for the next come out. It's a self-service bet: you drop your own chips during a moment between rolls, and when it wins, you collect your winnings yourself.

The pass line plays in two phases. On the come out roll, it wins on a 7 or 11 (naturals), paying even money, with the bet staying on the line for the next come out. It loses on a 2, 3 or 12 (craps), and the dealer sweeps your chips, though the same shooter keeps the dice.

If the come out is a 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10, that number becomes the point. The dealer flips the puck on and your bet is now riding on the point. The shooter keeps throwing, and your bet wins if the point comes up again before a 7, and loses if a 7 comes first. Once a point is set, the only two numbers that affect your bet are the point and the 7. Every other roll does nothing; the bet just sits there waiting until one of those two numbers shows up.

The pass line pays even money, also called 1 to 1. Bet $5, win $5. Bet $25, win $25. There's no fractional math, no commission, no dealer doing weird things with chips, which makes it the easiest bet to manage and track. The payout never changes regardless of how the bet wins: a 7 on the come out, an 11 on the come out, or making the point of 8 all pay even money. Compare that to the free odds bet behind the pass line, which pays differently based on the point.

The pass line has a house edge of about 1.41 percent, the casino's expected long-term profit on the bet. For every $100 you put through it over a long enough time, the casino expects to keep about $1.41. That's one of the lowest edges in the casino. Slots run 5 to 15 percent or worse, roulette runs 5.26 percent on American wheels, and even blackjack only beats the pass line with perfect basic strategy and favorable rules.

So how does the casino make money on such a small edge? Volume. A table with five players each making $10 pass line bets puts hundreds of dollars in action every few minutes, and multiplied across every table in every casino, 1.41 percent adds up. Where does that number come from? If you do all the math, the pass line wins 244 times out of every 495 resolved bets and loses 251 times. That tiny gap, 7 fewer wins than losses out of nearly 500 bets, is where the 1.41 percent edge lives. The casino isn't crushing you; it's taking a small slice, small enough that a single session can easily go either way.

The pass line bet is actually two different bets stitched together. On the come out roll alone, it's favorable to the player: 8 ways to win (7s and 11s) versus only 4 ways to lose (2s, 3s and 12s). The other 24 combinations set a point and move the bet into the next phase.

Once you're in the point cycle, the math flips. Now you're trying to roll a specific number before a 7, and the 7 has 6 ways to come up versus 3, 4 or 5 for your point. So the dice favor a 7 over your point on every roll. The casino's edge is what's left after the come out advantage and the point disadvantage mostly cancel each other out. The come out gives you a head start; the point cycle takes most of it back. The slim difference is the casino's profit. It's the closest you get in a casino to a fair game without it actually being one.

Once a point is established, you cannot remove or reduce the pass line bet. This is called a contract bet, and your money is locked in until the round ends. The reason is that the come out is more favorable to you than the point cycle; if the casino let you pull your bet after the come out, you'd only leave it in for the part where you have the advantage and yank it the moment the math turned. So once the point is on, your money stays.

This rule doesn't apply to free odds, which you can take down any time. But the basic pass line bet is locked. In practice, don't place a pass line bet you can't afford to see all the way through. If you bet $50 and a point gets set, that $50 is committed. This is also why some people bet only their pass line "unit" amount, leaving room to add free odds without overcommitting.

Find a table with an open spot and wait for a moment between rolls, with the puck on off. If you're buying in, drop your cash on the felt in front of you and say "change please." Don't put money directly on the pass line, and don't hand cash to the dealer. Once you have chips, place one on the pass line in front of you, closest to where you're standing.

Now wait. The shooter throws. If you win on the come out, the dealer pushes winnings next to your bet and you pick them up; the original chip stays. If you lose, the dealer sweeps it and you can drop another for the next come out. If a point gets set, your chip stays and the round plays out, and the next thing to do is take free odds, covered in the free odds article. Spoiler: you do want to take odds, always. Online, it's even simpler: click your chip denomination, click the pass line, done. We compare the formats in online vs live craps.

Most live tables post a minimum on a placard. Five and ten dollar minimums are most common, with $25 or higher on busy Vegas Strip nights and $3 tables at some smaller and downtown spots. Bet the minimum, or close to it, when starting out. The math on a $5 pass line bet is exactly the same as on a $50 bet; the only thing that changes is how much you can win or lose. New players who start big tend to chase, get tilted, and run through bankrolls in 20 minutes. Bet small, stay long, get comfortable. If the minimum is more than you wanted to spend, walk away; there are other tables, or you can play online for a buck a hand. The way to bet smarter isn't to bet bigger on the line, but to add free odds behind it.

The smart play is always to follow the pass line with free odds once a point is established. Free odds is the only bet in the casino with zero house edge, and it's only available to players who already have a pass line bet down. The casino doesn't advertise it or label it on the table, because it can't win money on it, but it exists and you should always take it.

The combination of a pass line bet and full free odds reduces the overall house edge below 0.5 percent in most casinos, the lowest edge on any combination of bets in the building. Our full article on the free odds bet walks through how it works and how much to take. The pass line plus free odds is what serious players consider the foundational play; everything else (place bets, come bets, hardways, the field) is decoration on top of this core.

• Don't try to pull your bet down after a point is set. You can't anyway because of the contract rule, but new players sometimes try when they see the math turn. The point disadvantage is what you're paying for with the come out advantage.
• Don't chase a cold table by increasing your bets. The dice don't owe you and have no memory. Increasing bets to win back losses is the fastest way to go broke. More in common craps mistakes and bankroll management.
• Don't skip free odds. The pass line alone is fine; with free odds it's much better. Make a habit of taking odds every time a point gets set.
• Don't wander into place bets, hardways, and prop bets out of boredom. Boredom kills more bankrolls than bad luck. If you want more action, add a come bet for a second number, not the prop bets in the middle.

Strip away the math and the jargon and the pass line is just this: you're betting the shooter is going to win the round. They win by hitting a 7 or 11 right away, or by setting a point and then making it before a 7. You win when they win, you lose when they lose, and the casino takes a small cut. If you can hold that idea in your head, you have everything you need to play craps.

The pass line will be the bet you make most often, by a wide margin, for as long as you play. It's worth really understanding before adding any other bets. Once it feels natural, the next layer is free odds, which doubles down during the part of the round where the casino has the edge, and does so at zero cost.