Craps Rules

Craps runs on a single shooter's dice, but almost everyone at the table is betting on the outcome — the game's real complexity isn't in rolling the dice, it's in the layered structure of bets built around two simple questions: does the shooter make their point, and when.

The come-out roll

A round starts with the "come-out roll" — the shooter's first roll of a new round. Rolling a 7 or 11 on the come-out is an immediate win for "pass line" bets; rolling a 2, 3, or 12 ("craps") is an immediate loss for pass line bets. Any other result (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10) doesn't resolve the round at all — that number becomes "the point," and the shooter keeps rolling.

Making the point, or sevening out

Once a point is established, the shooter keeps rolling, and the round is decided by which comes up first: the point number again (pass line bets win, and a new come-out roll starts the next round) or a 7 (pass line bets lose entirely — "sevening out" — and the dice pass to the next shooter). Every other number rolled in between has no direct effect on the pass line bet; the shooter simply keeps rolling until one of those two outcomes lands.

Pass line versus don't pass

The "pass line" bet, described above, wins on come-out 7/11 and loses on come-out 2/3/12, then tracks the point. The "don't pass" bet is essentially its mirror image — it loses on come-out 7/11 and wins on come-out 2/3 (12 is typically a push, not a loss, for don't pass, a specific carve-out built into the bet's house edge), then wins if a 7 comes before the point repeats. Because these two bets are near-opposites, most tables genuinely allow players to bet either side at the same table simultaneously.

Odds bets

Once a point is established, players with a pass or don't pass bet can add a separate "odds" bet, wagering that the point will (or won't) repeat before a 7, paid out at true mathematical odds rather than the house-favoring odds built into the base pass/don't pass bet. This is one of the only bets on a casino floor with zero built-in house edge, which is why experienced craps players often bet the table minimum on the base line and the maximum a table allows on odds.

Other common bets

Beyond the line bets, a working craps table carries a wide menu of side bets made on individual rolls or specific numbers: "field" bets that win on a single roll landing on certain numbers, "place" bets that a specific number will repeat before a 7 on any roll rather than just during the point phase, and one-roll "proposition" bets on a specific exact outcome of the very next roll. These carry meaningfully worse odds for the player than the line and odds bets, and a table's full bet menu can look overwhelming to a new player even though the pass-line mechanics above are the entire foundation everything else is layered on top of.

Strategy: what actually changes your odds

Because the dice themselves are random and can't be influenced by strategy, the entire skill in craps lies in which bets you choose and how you size them — favoring the pass/don't pass line plus odds, and avoiding the high-house-edge proposition bets, is the standard way experienced players keep their expected losses as low as the game's structure allows. No betting system changes the underlying probability of any individual roll.

Origins: from an English dice game to the American casino floor

Craps descends from a much older English game called Hazard, itself tracing back through centuries of dice gambling with disputed and only partially documented roots. The specific American form of craps, with its pass-line and come-out structure, developed largely in the early 20th-century United States, and it's strongly associated with dice games played by American soldiers and in New Orleans gambling circles before spreading into the standardized casino version played today.

Table etiquette: why the shooter has to keep a hand on the dice

Casino craps tables enforce a few procedural rules purely to keep the game honest and the dice verifiable — the shooter must roll with one hand, and the dice have to hit the far wall of the table to count as a legitimate roll, both specifically to prevent a controlled, non-random throw. A roll that fails to reach the wall is typically redone rather than accepted, even if the numbers shown would otherwise have resolved a bet.

Questions that come up mid-game

Can a new player join a round already in progress, after a point has already been established? Yes — a player can join the table and place pass or don't pass bets mid-round in many casinos, though some house rules restrict a fresh pass line bet once a point is already set, requiring the new player to wait for the next come-out roll instead.

Does the shooter have to keep rolling until they seven out, or can they choose to stop earlier? The shooter keeps the dice and continues rolling every round until they seven out; there's no option to voluntarily hand the dice to the next player before that happens.