The Objective of Craps

Many people believe that Craps is too complicated and steer clear of it, if they simply took a few moments to learn the rules they would learn that it’s just as simple as blackjack or roulette!

Craps can be played by multiple players against the casino.  The aim of the game here is to predict the outcome of the roll of two dice.  The player who rolls the dice is called the “shooter” and rolls the dice to determine the outcome of bets placed.  Players can bet on various options by placing their chips on the appropriate sections of the table.

When acting as the “shooter” players must bet on the “Pass Line” or “Don’t Pass line”.  The game is played in rounds and the “Pass” and “Don’t Pass” bets are betting on the outcome of the round.  The shooter is sometimes replaced at the end of a round or when they lose with a seven.  The dice are then moved clockwise around the table to the next player.

Each round has two phases: “Come out” and “point”.  To start the player makes a “come out” roll with the dice, if the player hits 2, 3 or 12 it loses and is called Craps, hence the name of the game!  Anyone who has bet on the pass line in this situation loses.  A “Come out” roll of 7 or 11, called a “natural” and results in a payout for all “pass line” bets.  The other possible numbers are 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10, if one of these numbers is rolled the “point” is established.  This is the number which must be rolled again before a 7 is rolled.  The dealer then flips a counter to the “ON” side and moves it to the “point” number.  This signals the second phase of the round.  If the shooter rolls a 7 before repeating the point number the pass line loses and the round ends.

The Craps table and rolling the dice

Players make bets with chips as in many other casino games, bets are placed on sections of the table as shown below:

The Craps Table

You can make multiple bets on the Craps table before the dice are rolled.  A table showing all of the outcomes of the rolls are below:

Craps Dice Outcomes

Note the differences between “Easy” and “Hard” numbers, Hard numbers are doubles, of which “Snake Eyes” (1-1) and “Midnight” (6-6) are both doubles.

Wikipedia makes a much better job of explaining the types of bets than I can in this short guide and so I will post you there to find out more.  Alternatively to get past the confusion check out the bet365 Casino, under “Table Games” find Craps and then “Free Play”, this way you can make all the mistakes you like before playing with your own bankroll.