How to Play Craps for Beginners: A Guide By An Expert

Ask any craps player what the most exciting game in the casino is and, surprise, surprise, they'll inform you craps. Craps is the most exciting and thrilling game in the house and to get you rolling dice in a flash, we'll be discussing the basics of playing craps. Take this as your how to play craps for dummies guide and you can check out casino ratings on bookmakers.biz!

The Basics of How To Play Craps: Games Start With A Pass

Craps is extremely easy to play. The basics of craps are as follows:

On the perimeter of the layout is the "pass line" and placed straight above it is the "don't pass" line.

These two bets are opposite of each other. Honestly speaking, 90-95% of craps players bet the pass line and the remaining ones play the don't pass line – the other term used for these players is darksiders. I am sure you get the point here. Don't pass players tend to be despised by pass-line players who are also called right-side players. Both will be betting the opposite side of the game.

The shooter is dealt five dice and he or she picks two of them.

Yes, each player is allowed a decision to shoot the dice and that is one of the attractions of the game. Take those dice and make it your own hands – better or worse! Have a winning craps roll – terrific! Have a loser's roll? Yuck, you might want to slip out!

• The game begins when a new shooter throws the dice.
• That's known as the come-out roll and that opens the new shooter's attempt to blast the house at craps.
• The come-out roll will establish what number will become the "point."
• The shooter needs to roll the number before rolling a seven in order to be a winner.
• Throw the 7 and most pass line bets will lose.
• On the come-out roll, a pass-line bet wins if a 7 or an 11 is rolled, and loses if a 2, 3 or a 12 is rolled.
• After the shooter sets up a point number, he will continue to roll until he loses.

The record for rolling a single die is over 150!

The Numbers in Craps Explained

Since craps is a game of numbers, players will want to learn about how the numbers are built.

There are 36 possible combinations of two six-sided dice [6 x 6 = 36).  Each element of craps is a numbered element – and you will probably be surprised at how many players never even know the numbers.

Since this is an overview of the fundamentals of craps, let's take them through!

Each pip on the dice constitutes a number. Thus, a die with a single pip is the number one and a die containing six pips is the number six. A die with one pip and a die with six pips will total the number 7; the most powerful number in craps.

The seven may also be rolled with the 2 pips and the 5 pips, the 3 pips and the 4 pips. Remember you roll two dice so you have two 4-pip dice and two 3-pip dice.

The Craps Table Explained

Take a look at the craps table. The layout seems to be a confusing mess of symbols, colors, and numbers. Yikes! Could these be from an ancient civilization? Maybe Mesopotamia? Egypt?

Actually, the game is of Mississippi River towns and counties of America's origin. It was also called "crabs" and was played by a number of generations in the South. Its origins may possibly have been the British game of Hazard. The renowned author Geofrey Chaucer mentions it in his epic novel The Canterbury Tales composed in the late 1300s.

It slowly spread to the North's cities in America and was simply known to city players as the "alley game". It is still being played in the cities' alleys. Southerners thought that the Northerners called the game "craps" instead of "crabs", and that is what it finally became known as.

World War II made craps a household name in the world of gaming because it was one of the two top games played during the war period, after poker. When the casinos started booming post-World War II, craps was the number-one casino table game.

A Final Note On The Basics of Craps: The Most Exciting Game

Yes, I like to play craps and I also like other games but barring none, craps is the most stimulating, thrilling, and also the most discouraging, and groan-inducing game in the house.

Can you win at craps? On some bets the game is so close that a particular session might well be a winner for the shrewd player.

But the name of the game can be other, i.e., something bad, with some other bets. It is up to the players to know the difference between good craps bets (such as the Come bet) and bad ones (such as the Field bet).

You know, when the good times are rolling and a craps shooter is hitting numbers and points, the table typically goes wild with nearly every roll of the dice. When one after another shooter sevens-out near the beginning of his or her roll, which typically signifies bad times for nearly everyone, the groaning may be heard from nearly everywhere in the casino.