The Two Stages of a Craps Game Step by Step

Published: November 13, 2014

Craps is known for being an overly-complicated game with a lot of different options for betting, and this is particularly intimidating to players. It's even more intimidating for players who are used to playing slots which are some of the easiest games to learn how to play. What's really interesting about this dynamic is that the game can be broken down into two simple stages with one of the most basic bets, and everything else just follows that bet. We're going to show you what these two stages are, the bet you need to know that drives the rest of the game, and how to make the most of your plays.

The pass line bet is the key bet you should know in craps. The way this bet works is that a new shooter makes his pass line bet and then rolls his first roll which is called the come out roll. The come out roll is the first stage of the game, and the pass line bet wins if the roll is a total of seven or 11. If the roll happens to come 2, 3 or 12, then the pass line bet loses. There are six other totals that can come up: 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10. On any of these six numbers, you advance to the second stage of the game.

In the second stage, you have to know the number called the point value which was the total of the dice rolled in the first stage (either 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10). The shooter will roll the dice over and over during this second stage until one of two things happens. If the shooter rolls the point value again, then the pass line bet wins. However, if the shooter rolls a seven, then the pass line bet loses. When either the point or a seven comes up, the second stage of the game is over and it restarts in the first stage with another come out roll.

On the most basic level, a bet placed on the pass line bet has a house advantage of about 1.41 percent. This isn't bad at all considering most slots have house advantages in the range of 2-4 percent. What's more is that you can learn how to bet what's known as the odds during the second stage of the game to push the house advantage down even further.