First of all, if you are new to Craps, you may want to read over our Craps Rules article. Not only do we discuss all the basics of Craps, but we go into detail about the two most basic and standard forms of betting in craps, which is Pass or Don’t Pass, and Come or Don’t Come.

If you feel you are knowledgeable enough about craps to handle all the various other kinds of Craps betting, then feel free to read on. We recommend you play along as you read as you will get a better understanding. You can play for free at Bovada.

First of all we will briefly cover the two most basic forms of crap betting:

Pass Line and Don’t Pass Bets:

Pass lines are one of the two standard bets in craps. You are betting on the roll of the dice from the shooter, and whether or not he will make his point. If you bet the pass line and the shooter rolls a 7 or 11 you win. If the shooter rolls a 2, 3 or 12 you lose. If you bet the don’t pass line, then you win if a 2 or 3 is rolled, tie if a 12 is rolled, and lose if a 7 or eleven is rolled.

Come and Don’t Come Bets:

A come bet is almost exactly the same as a pass bet. The only difference is that a come bet can only be plased when the shooter has to roll the dice again. You then place a come bet or a don’t come bet. On the next roll, if you placed a come bet you win if a seven or eleven is rolled, lose if a two, three or twelve is rolled. If any other number comes up, your bet is placed into a numbered box, where you are now betting that the dice will land on the number that is in the numbered box before a seven comes out.

A Don’t Come Bet is just the opposite. You win your craps bet if the shooter rolls a two or a three, and it is declared a push if a twelve is rolled. If the shooter rolls a seven or eleven you lose, and any other number sees your bet move into that same numbered box, except your bet here is that a seven will come up before the number in the box you are in comes up.

Alright, now we’ve got the simple bets out of the way, let’s get into Craps Odds Bets and all the other betting aspects of Craps that make it such an exciting and fun game to play.

Craps Odds Bets:

Odds bets are the most popular bets in Craps for one reason – there is no house advantage. Yep that is correct – Craps is the one casino game where the house does not have an advantage, as the gambler when making an odds bet, gets true odds.

Odds bets can only be placed after a pass line bet, come bet, don’t pass bet or don’t come bet has been made, and a point has been established for one of the bets. You can place up to double your original bet, or put the odds on your come bet.

The most common odds bet, and the one that gives you the most chance of winning, is of course a bet that the dice will roll a seven. Why a seven? Because a seven can be rolled six different ways, ie: with a 6 and a 1, or a 4 and a 3.

Craps Odds Bets – Don’t Come or Don’t Pass:

While you can bet on the odds of a number appearing, you can also lay the odds, which is that you are betting that a number won’t come up. When you bet on don’t pass or don’t come, you are looking for a 7 to roll before the point. By laying odds, it gets you paid at the true odds as well, however you have to bet more money because the odds are in your favour obviously that a 7 will roll before the point.

So for example – if the point is 4, and you placed a $100 don’t pass bet and a $200 odds bet and the shooter throws a 7, you win 100 for the don’t pass bet and $100 for the odds bet. All players that bet the don’t side are able to lay an amount that they’d win with full odds.

Place Bets:

Place bets are very similar to come bets. The only difference is you don’t have to place a bet in either the come or pass bar first, like you do with odds bets. So you can place a bet on a certain number, like a 4, and you only need the shooter to roll a 4 before a 7 to win. Place bets are only available for the possible point numbers, like 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10. Generally the bets on 4, 5, 9 and 10 must be made in $5 increments, and any place bets on 6 or 8 are made in $6 increments. This is due to the odds of those numbers coming up.

Buy Bets:

Buy bets are very similar to place bet, however you have to pay a 5 percent vig, or commission, to get the true odds. You are able to buy any of the point numbers however you should only purchase the 4 or the 10. If you use a buy bet on 5, 6, 8 or 9 you are raising the house advantage. So unless you have psychic abilities, only use the 4 or the 10 when doing a buy bet.

Lay Bets:

Whew, almost done. Okay – lay bets in craps. This is the opposite of a buy bet, and it’s also different from laying odds. When you use a lay bet, you are basically hoping that a seven will roll BEFORE the number you made the lay bet on.

Unlike buy bet, it is fine to lay a bet on five, six, eight or nine. Like a buy bet however, you do have to pay a vig or commission on each lay bet, and there are usually different increments that you have to bet depending on the number. For example, the majority of casinos have the rule where you must lay a minimum of $3 on a 5 or 9, while a minimum of $40 on a 4 or 10.

Big 6 or Big 8 Bets

If you look at a craps table, you will see a section in the corner with a big red 6 and a big red 8. This is either called the Big 6 or Big 8. This is the same as betting on a 6 or a 8. The only difference is you get paid even money, rather than 7 to 6 odds. These bets should basically be avoided at all costs, due to a house advantage of almost 10%.

Field Bet:

A field bet is a bet that on the next throw of the dice, one of the following numbers will roll: 2,3,4,9,10,11 and 12. You will lose if a 5, 6, 7 or 8 is rolled.

When you bet the field, if you win you will get even money back. The house advantage on a field bet is 5.5 percent.

Whew. Okay, we’ve covered a lot of bets. We still haven’t covered Proposition bets but that really deserves a whole section of its own.

Now take your newly found Crap skills, and hit up Bovada and use that bonus to figure out this wonderful game. Good luck!

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