Craps


Craps is a dice game in which players bet on the outcomes of the roll of a pair of dice. Players can wager money against each other or against a bank. Because it requires little equipment, "street craps" can be played in informal settings. While shooting craps, players may use slang terminology to place bets and actions.

History

Craps developed in the United States from a simplification of the western European game of Hazard, also spelled Hazzard or Hasard. The origins of Hazard are obscure and may date to the Crusades; a detailed description of Hazard was provided by Edmond Hoyle in Hoyle's Games, Improved. At approximately the same time, "Krabs" was documented as a French variation on Hazard.
In aristocratic London, crabs was the epithet for the sum combinations of two and three for two rolled dice, which in Hazard are instant-losing numbers for the first dice roll, regardless of the shooter's selected main number. The name craps is derived from the corruption of this term crabs to creps and then craps.
According to some accounts, Hazard was brought from London to New Orleans in approximately 1805 by the returning Bernard Xavier Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville, the young gambler and scion of a family of wealthy landowners in colonial Louisiana. Hazard allows the dice shooter to choose any number from five to nine as their "main" number; in a pamphlet published in 1933, Edward Tinker claimed that Marigny simplified the game by making the main always seven, which is the mathematically optimal choice, i.e., the choice with the lowest disadvantage for the shooter. However, more recent research indicates that Marigny played an unmodified version of Hazard, which had been played in America since at least the 1600s. Instead, John Scarne credits anonymous Black American inventors with simplifying and streamlining Hazard, increasing the pace of the game and adding a variety of wagers.
Regardless of who deserves credit for simplifying Hazard, the game initially was called Pass from the French word pas, and was popularized by the underclass starting in the early 19th century. Field hands taught their friends and deckhands, who carried the new game up the Mississippi River and its tributaries, although the game was never popular amongst the riverboat gamblers. Marigny gave the name Rue de Craps to a street in his new subdivision in New Orleans; in that city, craps experienced a resurgence of popularity in the late 1830s, but was not played in gaming houses until the 1890s. Budd Theobald credits the cultural exchange between attendants and railroad passengers on Pullman cars for popularizing the game, which eventually spread throughout America by the 1910s, when it was described as "the gambling game of " in Foster's Complete Hoyle.
The craps numbers of 2, 3, and 12 are similarly derived from Hazard. If the main is seven, then the two-dice sum of twelve is added to the crabs as a losing number on the first dice roll. This condition is retained in the simplified game called Pass. All three losing numbers on the first roll of Pass are jointly called the craps numbers. The central game Pass gradually has been supplemented over the decades by many companion games and wagers which can be played simultaneously with Pass; these are now collectively known as craps.
Early versions of bank craps played in casinos made money either by charging a commission to shooters or offering short odds on the various wagers, primarily on the "Pass line" bet for the shooter to win against the house. In approximately 1907, a dicemaker named John H. Winn in Philadelphia introduced a layout which featured a space to wager on "Don't Pass" in addition to "Pass". Virtually all modern casinos use his innovation, which incentivizes casinos to use fair dice. As introduced by Winn, "Don't Pass" bets were taken with a 5 percent commission to ensure the house retained an edge in running the game; this was replaced by the Bar-3 push for "Don't Pass", and later by the Bar-12 push.
Craps exploded in popularity during World War II, which brought most young American men of every social class into the military. The street version of craps was popular among service members who often played it using a blanket as a shooting surface. Their military memories led to craps becoming the dominant casino game in postwar Las Vegas and the Caribbean.
After 1960, a few casinos in Europe, Australia, and Macau began offering craps, and, after 2004, online casinos extended the game's spread globally. Craps has been featured in a number of newer casinos, including the idea of expanding into formerly unavailable locals on the coastline.

Bank craps

Bank craps or casino craps is played by one or more players betting against the casino rather than each other. Both the players and the dealers stand around a large rectangular craps table. Sitting is discouraged by most casinos unless a player has medical reasons for requiring a seat.
The basic flow of a single game is:

  1. The shooter wagers to pass and then makes an initial come-out roll with two six-sided dice.

    1. If the come-out roll is 7 or 11, that is a natural and the shooter has a pass ; the game is over.
    2. If the come-out roll is 2, 3, or 12, that is a crap and the shooter has a missout ; the game is over.
    3. If the come-out roll is any other number, that value becomes the shooter's point.
  2. If a point has been set, the shooter continues to roll until either:

    1. A subsequent roll matches the point and the shooter has a pass ; or
    2. A subsequent roll is 7 and the shooter has a missout.
  3. Once a point is set and a missout occurs, the dice are passed to the person on the shooter's left, who becomes the new shooter.

Craps table

Players use casino chips rather than cash to bet on the Craps "layout", a fabric surface which displays the various bets. The bets vary somewhat among casinos in availability, locations, and payouts. The tables roughly resemble bathtubs and come in various sizes. In some locations, chips may be called checks, tokens, or plaques.
Against one long side is the casino's table bank: as many as two thousand casino chips in stacks of 20. The opposite long side is usually a long mirror. The U-shaped ends of the table have duplicate layouts and standing room for approximately eight players. In the center of the layout is an additional group of side bets which are used by players from both ends. The vertical walls at each end are usually covered with a rubberized target surface covered with small pyramid shapes to randomize the dice which strike them. The top edges of the table walls have one or two horizontal grooves in which players may store their reserve chips.
The table is run by up to four casino employees: a boxman seated behind the casino's bank, who manages the chips, supervises the dealers, and handles "coloring up" players ; two base dealers who stand to either side of the boxman and collect and pay bets to players around their half of the table; and a stickman who stands directly across the table from the boxman, takes and pays the bets in the center of the table, announces the results of each roll, and moves the dice across the layout with an elongated wooden stick.
Some smaller casinos have introduced "mini-craps" tables which are operated with only two dealers; rather than being two essentially identical sides and the center area, a single set of major bets is presented, split by the center bets. Responsibility of the dealers is adjusted: while the stickman continues to handle the center bets, it is the base dealer who handles all other bets.
By contrast, in "street craps", there is no marked table and often the game is played with no back-stop against which the dice are to hit. Despite the name "street craps", this game is often played in houses, usually on an un-carpeted garage or kitchen floor. The wagers are made in cash, never in chips, and are usually thrown down onto the ground or floor by the players. There are no attendants, and so the progress of the game, fairness of the throws, and the way that the payouts are made for winning bets are self-policed by the players.

Dice

The dice used at casinos for craps and many other games are sometimes called perfect or gambling house dice. These are generally made from translucent extruded cellulose, with perfectly square edges each in length, with pips drilled deep and filled with opaque paint matching the density of cellulose, which ensures the dice remain balanced. The dice are buffed and polished to a high glossy finish after the pips are set, and the edges usually are left sharp, also called square or razor edge. To discourage cheating and dice substitution, each die carries a serial number and the casino's logo or name. New Jersey specifies the maximum size of the die is on a side.
Under New Jersey regulations, the shooter selects two dice from a set of at least five.

Rules of play

Each casino may set which bets are offered and different payouts for them, though a core set of bets and payouts is typical. Players take turns rolling two dice and whoever is throwing the dice is called the "shooter". Players can bet on the various options by placing chips directly on the appropriately-marked sections of the layout, or asking the base dealer or stickman to do so, depending on which bet is being made.
While acting as the shooter, a player must have a bet on either the "Pass" or the "Don't Pass" line or both. "Pass" and "Don't Pass" are sometimes called "Win" and "Lose", "Do" and "Don't", or "Right" and "Wrong". The game is played in rounds and these "Pass" and "Don't Pass" bets are betting on the outcome of a single round. The shooter is presented with multiple dice by the "stickman", and must choose two for the round. The remaining dice are returned to the stickman's bowl and are not used.
Each round has two phases: "come-out" and "point". Dice are passed to the left.