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Welcome to the wonderful and exciting game of Craps AKA Dice. I have spent countless hours at a Craps table—dealing and playing. There’s nothing more exciting that being at a live Craps table when things are heating up. If you play online, that atmosphere is lost, but you gain the advantage of faster play and solo play. It’s a good tradeoff I feel.

Perhaps you are here because the game of Craps looks extremely confusing to you. If so, don’t worry. I will get you off and running in no time. The game of Craps does not need to be so intimidating, because you don’t need to understand all of the possible bets to play and have fun. In fact, many bets are sucker bets anyway.

The game of craps is played with two six-sided dice. These two dice can be rolled to form one of thirty-six possible combinations. Let’s take a look at all the possible combinations (you’ll see why this is important in a moment).

Two: 1-1

Three: 1-2, 2-1

Four: 1-3. 3-1, 2-2

Five: 1-4, 2-3, 3-2, 4-1

Six: 1-5, 2-4, 3-3, 4-2, 5-1

Seven: 1-6, 2-5, 3-4, 4-3, 5-2, 6-1

Eight: 2-6, 3-5, 4-4, 5-3, 6-2

Nine: 3-6, 4-5, 5-4, 6-3

Ten: 4-6, 5-5, 6-4

Eleven: 5-6, 6-5

Twelve: 6-6

This combination layout let’s us see, quickly, that the number seven has the most combinations and what other numbers are more likely to come out. The two and twelve are the hardest numbers to roll. All things being equal, you will roll a two or twelve once per thirty-six rolls.

You may have heard that Craps is a good game to play because the house advantage is low. This is true if you bet on the pass line or don’t pass line. The house advantage on a pass line bet is only 1.41% and the house advantage on the don’t pass line bet is slightly lower at 1.36%. Craps does have many “sucker bets” as well. Basically any bet in the middle of the Craps layout (prop area) is a poor bet—although it can be fun to play and hit them.

Next Section: Craps Layout