How to Play Craps: Pass Line, Odds and Bets

Craps is a dice game played on two dice. A round starts with a "come-out" roll: a total of 7 or 11 wins for the pass line, 2, 3 or 12 loses, and anything else becomes the "point", which the shooter must roll again before a 7 to win. You bet on whether that happens. This guide explains the rules in plain language, gives the exact odds of the line bets, and shows how the four bets in Cashout Arcade's version are priced compared with a casino table.

The table in 60 seconds

• Two dice are rolled. The total runs from 2 to 12, and some totals are more likely because more dice combinations make them. There are 36 combinations; a 7 can be made 6 ways, so it is rolled 1 time in 6. A 2 or a 12 can only be made 1 way, so each is rolled 1 time in 36.
• At a casino table the dice go round the table, and the person rolling is the shooter. Anyone can bet on the same roll.
• Bets are placed on the layout. The big two, pass line and don't pass, are bets on the shooter's whole sequence of rolls. Others, like the field and any seven, are decided by the next roll alone.

The come-out roll and the point

Every round starts with a come-out roll. For a pass line bet:

• 7 or 11 wins immediately (8 of 36 combinations, 22.2%).
• 2, 3 or 12 loses immediately ("craps", 4 of 36, 11.1%).
• 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10 sets the point. The dice keep rolling until either the point repeats (pass wins) or a 7 appears (pass loses). Other totals do not matter.

A don't pass bet is the mirror image: it wins on 2 or 3, loses on 7 or 11, and when the point is set it wins if a 7 comes before the point repeats. The one exception is a come-out 12, which does not win for don't pass but ties (a "push"), so the stake is returned. That one exception is what gives the casino its edge on don't pass.

Exact odds of pass and don't pass

Once a point is set, the chance it is repeated before a 7 depends on the ways to make it against the 6 ways to make a 7:

Add them up: 22.22% + 2 x 2.78% + 2 x 4.44% + 2 x 6.31% = 49.29%, which is exactly 244/495. So the pass line wins 244 times in 495 (49.29%) and loses 251 times in 495. Don't pass wins 949 times in 1,980 (47.93%), loses 976 in 1,980 (49.29%, the same as pass wins) and ties 55 in 1,980 (1/36, the come-out 12).

Those fractions give the casino's exact edges, which match the Wizard of Odds craps table: the pass line has a 7/495 = 1.414% edge and don't pass has 27/1,980 = 1.364% edge when ties count as money bet. A line-bet round lasts on average about 3.4 rolls.

The casino bets that we do not offer

A casino craps table has dozens of bets. Two are worth knowing even though Cashout Arcade does not have them:

• Free odds. After a point is set you may add a second bet that pays at true odds, with no house edge: 0% according to the same Wizard of Odds table. Casinos cap the odds bet as a multiple of the line bet.
• Come and don't come. The same as pass and don't pass, but made after the come-out.

Cashout Arcade's craps skips these and the many "proposition" bets. It has four, and each is a single bet that is resolved in one round.

The four bets in Cashout Arcade

For every bet the payout is built to return exactly 97% on average (a 3% edge), so these are our prices, not a casino's. Payouts include your stake.

Why the Field pays unevenly: in the casino version, a 2 pays double and a 12 pays triple (or double) while the other winning totals pay even money. Ours keeps that shape and scales every payout so the whole bet returns 97%.

The most interesting comparison is that in the casino the line bets are much cheaper than the field or any-seven bets, but in Cashout Arcade they are all the same price. At our table the choice of bet changes how often you win and how much, not what it costs. The house edge guide has the full ranking for a casino table.

A sample round

Here is a pass bet of 100 coins from start to finish:

1. Come-out roll: 3 + 3 = 6. That is not 7, 11 or craps, so the point is 6.
2. Roll: 5 + 3 = 8. It is not the point and not a 7, so the dice are rolled again.
3. Roll: 6 + 1 = 7. A 7 before the point: the pass bet loses 100 coins.

Had the third roll been another 6, you would have received 196.78 coins (1.9678x). In Cashout Arcade, a pass or don't pass bet is settled in one round: the server rolls the whole sequence, come-out and any point rolls, and pays the result.

What 100 rounds of each bet looks like

The four bets share a 3% price but have very different shapes. This simulation plays 100,000 sessions of 100 rounds at a flat 1-coin stake (the any-seven row and the line bets use the exact probabilities and payouts above):

Pass and don't pass behave almost the same: roughly even-money bets with tight, bell-shaped results. Any seven is the same cost but twice as swingy: it wins one round in six and pays 5.82x, so the typical session wanders much further either way. If you want sessions that last longer, the line bets are the calmer choice; if you want the occasional spike, any seven delivers it at no extra cost in this game (in a casino it would cost 16.7% of the stake).

Terms in one place

Responsible play

Craps is fast and social in a casino, and the choice of bets can make it feel like there is something to master. There is not: every bet here has the same 3% price, and every roll is independent. Dice have no memory, so a run of sevens does not make the next roll safer or less safe. Decide on a time limit before you play and stop when it stops being fun.

You can play the four bets in the Craps game. For the wider picture of how streaks and "due" numbers mislead, read the streaks guide.