A Guide to Craps

When considering an explanation for how to play craps, we had to face a harsh truth: we have absolutely no idea. There, now all our cards are on the table, so to speak.

From an early age craps seemed like one of the easier casino games out there. This fallacy was based on far too many viewings of movies and television shows where everyone was smiling, laughing and blowing on dice before rolling a Jessie James, whatever that means. We’ll look it up and get back to you in a second.

This ritual appeared to be carried out with about as much effort as it took a player to reach for the White Russian they had hidden on the ledge beneath the table. These were typically served in a low ball glass if we remember correctly. Craps is also the latest activity we have found far less easy to grasp than James Bond would have us believe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V31rpJXbse4

By the way, we looked up “Jesse James” and it refers to a roll of a four and a five. The term commemorates Jesse James who was killed with a Colt .45 on April 3^rd 1882 by Robert Ford. Don’t worry, that’s the end of today’s lesson on memorable figures from the Wild West.

Here’s the deal – we can’t offer any full-proof methods or strategies. What we can offer instead is a starter guide for the greenest of you (there’s no shame, you’re just like us). Here are three things we have found helpful in our quest to learn how to play craps.

1)      Know your terminology: Pass Line, Come, don’t pass bar, the Field, Hard Way and Big 6-Big 8. We’re usually so focused on the people rolling the dice that we forget to look at all the action on the table. All those terms we mentioned indicate areas on a craps table where you can place a bet. Understanding what each of these means is half the battle to coming out on top.

2)      Know your strategies: Turns out that people have devoted a substantial amount of time to working out various strategies to increase your payout at the craps table. There are the more familiar strategies such as the “Iron Cross” or “3 Point Molly”. But you’ll also find people who have devised their own, such as using an escalating bet strategy while repeatedly putting money on “Any Craps”. Fortunately, many of them share their advice online – like this guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pWuHHn3Nwc

3)      Practice Online if You Can: This isn’t the olden days of the 1990s. If you have any real interest in improving your craps game then you should take advantage of the resources at your disposal. Playing online is less intimidating and you can see the whole table, without anyone else staring you down as you strategically spread your betting around the board (but that’s another lesson for us to learn the hard way).

We hope to share other lessons that we learn on how to play craps, assuming we progress to sitting down at an actual table at some point in the near future. If you have any questions or have any tips for players new to craps, let us know in the comments below.