Games · Craps · How to play & odds
How to play craps — and the real odds
Craps has the loudest table and the longest list of bets, which makes it look impossible. It isn't: a handful of bets do all the work, and one of them — free odds — is the only wager in the casino with zero house edge. This guide covers how the game flows, what each bet really costs, and how to play it cheaply — with the numbers computed by our own reviewed engine.
What this guide covers
We'll start with how a round actually flows (the come-out and the point), walk through the core bets and what each pays, then get to the one idea that makes craps worth learning: free odds, and how adding them drags your effective edge toward zero. Every figure comes from our analytic solver, not a rule of thumb.
1. How craps works
One player (the "shooter") rolls two dice; everyone bets on the outcome. A round has two phases:
- The come-out roll. The first roll. A 7 or 11 wins even money for the pass line; 2, 3, or 12 ("craps") loses it; any other number — 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10 — becomes the point, and a marker (the "puck") flips to ON.
- The point phase. The shooter keeps rolling until they either roll the point again (the pass line wins) or roll a 7 first (a "seven-out" — the pass line loses and the dice pass to the next shooter).
That's the whole engine. The don't pass bet is the mirror image — it wins when a 7 comes before the point — and come / don't come bets work exactly like pass/don't but can be started on any roll after a point is set, traveling to their own number. You can watch all of this play out, one roll at a time, on our free table with "Explain this roll" turned on.
2. The core bets & payouts
Here's the core menu, with the win chance and house edge computed from our engine:
| Bet | Pays | Win chance | House edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pass Line / Come — the basic line bet — with the dice | 1:1 | 49.29% | 1.41% |
| Don't Pass / Don't Come — against the dice (12 is barred) | 1:1 | 47.93% | 1.36% |
| Free Odds — behind a line/come bet — true odds | true | — | 0.00% |
| Place 6 / 8 — bet a number rolls before a 7 | 7:6 | 45.45% | 1.52% |
| Place 5 / 9 — bet a number rolls before a 7 | 7:5 | 40.00% | 4.00% |
| Place 4 / 10 — bet a number rolls before a 7 | 9:5 | 33.33% | 6.67% |
| Field — one-roll bet on 2 3 4 9 10 11 12 | 1:1 * | 44.44% | 5.56% |
* The field pays even money on 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 and double on 2 and 12 (some tables pay triple on 12, which lowers the edge to 2.78%). "House edge" is per wager — the don't side includes the bar-12 push.
3. Free odds — the only 0% bet
Once a point is established, you can put an additional bet "behind" your pass line called free odds. It pays true odds — exactly the real probability — so it has a house edge of 0%. The catch: you can only make it after a point is set, and only as a multiple of your line bet (the "3-4-5×" cap is the modern standard: 3× on 4/10, 4× on 5/9, 5× on 6/8).
Because the odds portion is free, blending it with your line bet lowers the combined edge on everything you wager. A pass line alone is 1.41%; backed with 3-4-5× odds the combined edge on total action drops to about 0.37%, and at a 10× table to roughly 0.18%. There's nothing else like it in the building:
| Bet | Pays | Win chance | House edge (per wager) | Loss / $100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Don't Pass / Don't Comebar 12 — 12 pushes | 1:1 | 47.93% | $1.36 | |
| Pass Line / Comethe line bet | 1:1 | 49.29% | $1.41 | |
| Place 6 / 8rolls before a 7 | 7:6 | 45.45% | $1.52 | |
| Place 5 / 9rolls before a 7 | 7:5 | 40.00% | $4.00 | |
| Fieldone-roll: 2 3 4 9 10 11 12 | 1:1 · 2&12 dbl | 44.44% | $5.56 | |
| Place 4 / 10rolls before a 7 | 9:5 | 33.33% | $6.67 | |
| Free odds (take / lay)true odds behind a line/come bet | true | — | $0.00 |
The odds effect — free odds drag your edge toward zero
A pass line alone is 1.41%. Free odds pay true odds (0% edge), so backing the line spreads that same expected loss over far more action — the combined edge on everything you wager falls fast:
Edge on total action (flat bet + the odds you'd wager once a point is set). With 3-4-5× odds the pass line's effective edge is just 0.37% — the cheapest action in the casino. Try it live in the Play and Simulate tabs.
The field's two variants
- 2 & 12 both pay 2:1 (common)5.56%
- 12 pays 3:1 (better tables)2.78%
The field looks friendly — it wins on seven of eleven totals — but it loses on 5, 6, 7, 8, which are the most common rolls. Even the better 3:1 version trails the line bets.
Why place 6/8 beats place 4/10
- Place 6 / 8 — pays 7:61.52%
- Place 5 / 9 — pays 7:54.00%
- Place 4 / 10 — pays 9:56.67%
6 and 8 are the easiest numbers to roll before a 7, so their place bet is priced closest to fair. The 4 and 10 are the hardest — and the casino's 9:5 payout shorts them the most.
4. Why the center bets cost more
The bets shouted across the table are the expensive ones. Place 4 and 10 cost 6.67%; the field, which looks friendly because it wins on seven different totals, still costs 5.56% — because it loses on 5, 6, 7, and 8, which are the most common rolls. The not-yet-modeled proposition bets in the center (hardways, any-seven, horn) are worse still, several above 11%.
The pattern is simple: the more exciting and the bigger the advertised payout, the more it usually costs you. The cheap bets are the boring ones — the line with odds, and place 6/8 at 1.52%. See it ranked in the table above, and watch a small edge grind a bankroll down in the interactive house-edge model.
5. “Working” and “off”
Not every bet is live on every roll. By default, on a new come-out roll your place bets and your come odds are off — they can't win or lose — while your flat pass/come bets stay working. This is a casino convention (and it's why a come-out 7 can lose your come bet but merely return its odds). Our engine applies it exactly. (Whether odds work on the come-out is one of the things that varies by table.)
6. Bankroll & variance
Craps swings hard — a hot shooter can string together many numbers, and a quick seven-out can wipe a felt full of bets in one roll. Free odds in particular add variance without adding edge: your average result is the same, but the ups and downs get bigger. That's fine if it's entertainment and your bets are small relative to your bankroll; it's dangerous if you're chasing.
No betting system beats the dice — they have no memory, and "due" numbers aren't due. The only real edge-management is bet selection (line + odds, maybe place 6/8) and bankroll management (small bets, hard limits). Watch the math play out on our Simulate tab.
7. Next steps
How this simulation works
- Rules modeled
- Two-die craps with the come-out → point state machine. Core bets: Pass / Don't Pass (bar 12), Come / Don't Come, Free Odds (take and lay), Place (4,5,6,8,9,10), and the Field. Free-odds cap default 3-4-5×; field default pays 2:1 on both 2 and 12. Stakes are whole dollars with the traditional bet units.
- Assumptions
- Two fair, independent dice. Win chance is the probability the bet wins on a resolution. House edge is per initial wager (the don't side includes the bar-12 push). Free odds are true odds (0%); the combined line+odds figure is measured on total action. Come odds and place bets are off on the come-out by default.
- Mathematical basis
- Every odd and edge is computed at build time by our craps analytic solver (exact bigint rationals — one-roll enumeration for the field, per-resolution ratios for place bets, the come-out distribution plus a per-point geometric series for line/come bets, true odds for free odds), the displayed source of truth. Reference edges: pass/come 1.41%, don't 1.36%, place 6/8 1.52% · 5/9 4.00% · 4/10 6.67%, field 5.56% (2:1) / 2.78% (3:1 on 12), free odds 0%, pass + 3-4-5× ≈ 0.37% on total action.
- Engine version
- craps engine 1.0
- Validation
- Unit-tested (every bet's edge, the per-initial-wager vs per-resolution distinction, the full come-out→point lifecycle with come bets traveling independently, the working/off matrix, place stay-up, the stake-aware combined-odds identity across every cap, invariants, seeded reproducibility, SE-scaled convergence).
- Last reviewed
- Independently reviewed for math and code correctness; every reported finding was addressed and regression-tested.