How to play crapless craps, and what "never losing the come-out" costs
Crapless craps (also dealt as "Never Ever Craps") removes the sting every new craps player hates: rolling a 2, 3 or 12 on the come-out and losing instantly. At the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood it runs on a ten-box layout where every number from 2 to 12 except 7 can become the point. The catch never appears on the felt: the 11 that wins on the spot at a regular table doesn't win here.
The rules in one pass
- Bet the pass line before the come-out roll. (There is no don't pass, crapless tables don't offer one.)
- On the come-out, only a 7 wins, paying even money. Nothing loses.
- Any other total (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12) becomes the point.
- Roll the point again before a 7 and the pass line wins even money; a 7 first loses it.
- Once a point is on, you can add come bets (same rules as the pass line), free odds behind your line or come bets, place bets on any of the ten numbers, the field, and the center-table props.
The new points are long shots, priced accordingly
A point of 2 or 12 has exactly one way to roll against six ways to roll a 7, so you'll make it 1 time in 7. A 3 or 11 gets made 1 time in 4. That's why the free odds behind them pay so well (6:1 on the 2 and 12, 3:1 on the 3 and 11) at true odds, meaning exactly 0% house edge, same as regular craps odds. The Hard Rock Hollywood table posts a 1-2-3-4-5× ladder: 1× odds behind a 2/12 point, up to 5× behind a 6/8. With the full ladder taken, your line-plus-odds package costs 1.33% of total action.
Place bets on the new numbers are another story: place 2/12 pays 11:2 (a 7.14% edge) and place 3/11 pays 11:4 (6.25%), prop-bet pricing wearing a place-bet label. The familiar numbers keep their familiar prices, and that produces the strangest fact about this game:
The props are the same sucker bets on both layouts
Hardways (hard 6/8 pay 9:1, 9.09%; hard 4/10 pay 7:1, 11.11%), any craps (7:1, 11.11%), and the horn numbers (aces and boxcars 30:1, 13.89%; ace-deuce and yo 15:1, 11.11%) are identical in both versions of the game: loud, fun, and the most expensive real estate on the table. Hard Rock also deals crapless-only bonus bets ("Little Ones", "Big Ones" at 30:1 and "Boom or Bust" at 150:1) that our simulator doesn't model yet; no published analysis prices them below the props above, so treat them the same way.
Every bet, priced
What "you can't lose on the come-out" actually costs
Crapless trades the come-out losses on 2, 3 and 12 and the instant win on 11 for four extra long-shot points. Losing that 11 is the expensive part: the pass line goes from 1.41% at a regular table to 5.38% here, 3.8× worse. Both figures are computed by our solvers, side by side.
| Bet | Pays | House edge (per wager) | Loss / $100 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Place 6 / 8 | 7:6 | $1.52 | |
| Place 5 / 9 | 7:5 | $4.00 | |
| Pass line / Come | 1:1 | $5.38 | |
| Field | 1:1 · 2&12 dbl | $5.56 | |
| Place 3 / 11 | 11:4 | $6.25 | |
| Place 4 / 10 | 9:5 | $6.67 | |
| Place 2 / 12 | 11:2 | $7.14 | |
| Hard 6 / 8 | 9:1 | $9.09 | |
| Hard 4 / 10 | 7:1 | $11.11 | |
| Any craps | 7:1 | $11.11 | |
| Horn 3 / 11 (ace-deuce, yo) | 15:1 | $11.11 | |
| Horn 2 / 12 (aces, boxcars) | 30:1 | $13.89 | |
| Free odds behind the line6:1 on 2/12 · 3:1 on 3/11 · true odds throughout | true | $0.00 |
The odds effect still works, it just starts from a worse place
Free odds pay true odds here too, including 6:1 on the 2 and 12. Backing the line spreads the same expected loss over more action:
Edge on total action. With the posted 1-2-3-4-5× ladder the line-plus-odds package runs 1.33%: respectable, but still 3.5× the ~0.37% a regular pass line with 3-4-5× odds costs. The cheap version of craps is regular craps.
So should you play it?
If the come-out losses genuinely ruin craps for you, crapless with place 6/8 and full odds behind a line bet is a defensible way to play, those bets cost 1.52% and 1.33% respectively. But understand the arithmetic: the protection you're buying costs about $4 more per $100 of pass-line action than the "scarier" regular table thirty feet away. Try both on our crapless simulator and the regular craps simulator, and watch the difference converge in the Simulate tabs: no bankroll required.