Craps rules explained: how the casino dice game works

Craps looks complicated at a busy casino table, but the core is simple. One player, the "shooter", rolls two dice, and the outcome decides whether the bets on the table win or lose. The game has two phases: the opening roll and, if that doesn't produce an immediate decision, the point phase. Understand those two phases and you understand craps.

What is craps?

Craps is a casino game in which players bet on the outcome of a roll of two dice. What counts each time is the sum of the two dice, so a number between 2 and 12. At any given moment one player is the shooter and rolls the dice; the other players can bet along on the same rolls. To understand the rules you need nothing more than this explanation and two dice, for example the online dice roller set to two.

The come-out roll (opening roll)

A round always starts with the come-out roll: the shooter's first roll. What happens next depends entirely on the sum:

• 7 or 11 (a "natural"): the Pass Line wins immediately and the round is settled right away.
• 2, 3, or 12 ("craps"): the Pass Line loses immediately. Hence the name of the game.
• 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10: this number becomes the point. The round isn't decided yet and moves on to the second phase.

The point phase

Once a point is established, the goal changes. The shooter now keeps rolling until one of two things happens:

1. The point is rolled again: the shooter rolls the same number one more time. The Pass Line wins and a new come-out roll begins.
2. A 7 is rolled: this is called "seven out". The Pass Line loses, the turn is over, and the dice pass to the next shooter.

All other rolls during this phase mean nothing for the Pass Line; the shooter rolls again. So it's a race between the point and the 7, and that keeps every roll tense.

The best-known bets

Many betting options revolve around these two phases. We'll cover the best-known ones briefly, as description only. This is not an encouragement to bet.

• Pass Line: the basic bet we described above. Wins on a 7 or 11 on the come-out, loses on craps, and then follows the point against the 7.
• Don't Pass: nearly the opposite of the Pass Line. Wins on 2 or 3 on the come-out, loses on 7 or 11. One number (usually the 12, sometimes the 2) is a "push" (a tie; your bet stays put), so that this doesn't become an advantage bet.
• Come and Don't Come: the same logic as Pass and Don't Pass, but you use them to join mid-round. The very next roll then acts as your personal come-out.
• Odds: an extra bet you may place behind a Pass or Come bet once there's a point. It's unusual because it pays with no house edge: exactly 0%, paid at the true odds of the point repeating before a 7.
• Field: a bet on one single roll, which wins on 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, or 12 and loses on 5, 6, 7, or 8.
• Place bets: here you bet that a specific number (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10) is rolled before a 7 comes.

What each of those pays is printed on the felt, in the form "9 to 5" or "2:1", meaning you keep your stake and collect nine for every five you bet. These are the payouts you'll find at nearly every US table:

The Field is the one line where tables differ, so read the felt before you play. Every winning number except the 2 and the 12 pays even money, and those two pay more, but how much more is a house decision. The classic layout pays 2:1 on both; many tables today pay 2:1 on one of them and 3:1 on the other, most often 3:1 on the 12. Which of the two counts as "standard" today depends on who you ask, so go by the number printed in front of you. The difference matters: the second version roughly halves what the Field costs you over time.

The house edge, bet by bet

Every bet on the table carries a built-in margin for the casino, and the gap between the cheapest and the most expensive is wide. The two line bets are among the best bets in the building:

• Pass Line: about 1.41%. Over the long run the house keeps roughly $1.41 of every $100 wagered and resolved.
• Don't Pass: about 1.36%, a shade better, because that pushed 12 on the come-out removes one losing outcome. Counted only over bets that actually resolve, ignoring the pushes, it works out at about 1.40%.
• Odds: 0%. The only bet in craps with no house edge. That's also why you can't make it on its own: it only exists behind a Pass or Come bet you already have.
• Field: about 5.6% or about 2.8%, depending on which of the two pay tables above the table uses.
• Place bets: roughly 1.5% on the 6 and 8, rising steeply on the other numbers; the 4 and 10 are several times more expensive than the 6 and 8.
• The one-roll proposition bets in the middle of the table are the priciest of all, which is why they're also the loudest.

None of this predicts a single roll. The dice have no memory, a low house edge is not a winning system, and every one of these numbers only describes what the arithmetic does across thousands of rolls. If you want to see where they come from, our page on the odds of every roll with two dice works through the 36 combinations.

Reading the craps table

The layout looks dense mainly because it's printed twice: the two ends of the table are mirror images, so two dealers can serve two crowds at once. Learn one half and you've learned the table. Working from the players' edge inward:

• The Pass Line: the long band running along the outer edge, right where you stand. Don't Pass is the narrower bar just inside it.
• Come and Don't Come: the wide box marked COME sits inside the line, with the small Don't Come box tucked into the corner. This is where you join a round that's already under way.
• The Field: the strip of numbers (2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12) between the Come box and the Pass Line. It's a one-roll bet, which is why it sits within every player's reach.
• The place numbers: the row of boxes along the top: 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, with the 6 and 9 usually spelled out as SIX and NINE so they can't be misread upside down. The dealer marks the point by moving a puck onto one of these boxes, and stacks place bets in front of them.
• The proposition box: the crowded center section, shared by both ends of the table, holding the one-roll and hardway bets. It belongs to the stickman, the dealer who pushes the dice around with a stick.

The practical rule that follows from the geography: you place chips yourself on the Pass Line, the Field, and the Come box, because you can reach them. Anything in the center you call out and hand to the stickman instead of reaching across the table.

Why the 7 is so central

It's no coincidence that the 7 is the pivot of craps: it's the most likely sum with two dice. There are six different ways to roll a 7 (1-6, 2-5, 3-4, and their reverses), compared with just one way for the 2 and one for the 12. Of the 36 possible combinations, six produce a 7. That's a chance of 6 in 36, or 1 in 6.

That's why a 7 on the come-out roll is so often good news for the Pass Line, and why it's such a real danger during the point phase: of all the numbers, the 7 comes up most often. To run the numbers yourself, read our explanation of the odds of every roll with two dice.

Origins and street craps

Craps descends from an older English dice game called "hazard" and took its modern form in the United States. Besides the casino version with a table and official bets, there is also "street craps": an informal street version where players roll against each other, often against a wall, with no casino as the counterparty. The core rules (natural, craps, and the point) are the same in both versions. What changes is that the other players cover the bets themselves. Street dice has its own classics beyond craps, too: Cee-lo, played with three dice and settled on the spot between a banker and the players, is the best-known of them in the United States.

Responsible play

Craps is and remains a game of chance with a house edge: in the long run the casino statistically has the upper hand, and no "system" changes anything about that. Gambling for money is for adults only, and the legal age varies by state: 21 in most US casino jurisdictions, though a handful of states and tribal casinos set it lower. Always play in moderation, never bet more than you can afford to lose, and treat it as entertainment, not as a way to make money.