Average Number Of Rolls In Craps Rating: 6,3/10 7657 votes

from The Wizard of Odds

What are bet types? Which craps strategy to choose? Where to find bonus? Learn how to play craps at online casinos with CrapsGeeks! From ROLL to WIN. This page is a dictionary and glossary of terms for craps bets, jargon and slang words used in craps games.

This following information graciously provided by the Wizard of Odds, the most recognized authority on casino gaming and table
odds on the Net. The Wizard is a member of the Casino.com Hall of Fame, an adjunct
professor of gaming math at The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and makes his living
consulting for land and Internet casinos and casino game developers.

Crapless Craps

by the Wizard of Odds

In my ten commandments of gambling I advise that you avoid gimmicks and this is
an illustrated example. The Stratosphere Casino in Vegas and some casinos in Mississippi
proudly boast of “crapless craps,” a craps variant in which the player can not lose
a pass bet on the come out roll. If any number other than a 7 is rolled on the come
out roll it becomes the point. What you are giving up is the sure winner of 11 on
the come out roll. To the mathematically challenged it may seem a good deal, that
you are only giving up 1 sure winner for 3 sure losers. The catch is that the probability
of hitting a point of 2 or 12 is only 1/7, and the probability of hitting a point
of 3 or 11 is only 1/4. So the player is not gaining much on the 2, 3, and 12 since
they will likely lose anyway, but is giving up a sure winner on 11 for only a 1/4
chance of winning. Overall the house edge on the pass bet in crapless craps is 373/6930
=~ 5.382%, compared to 1.41% in a real craps game.

Crapless craps does offer free odds of 6:1 on the 2 and 12, and 3:1 on the 3 and
11. The following table shows the combined house edge by combining the pass line
and the odds:

Combined house edge on
pass and buying odds
in crapless craps
1X odds2.936%
2X odds2.018%
3X odds1.538%
5X odds1.042%

You can also make place bets on the 2, 3, 11, and 12. The 2 and 12 pay 11:2 with
a house edge of 7.143%. The 3 and 11 pay 11:4 with a house edge of 6.250%. There
is no don’t pass bet in this game.

Crapless Craps Story from The Bone Man

One night while standing on a dead craps table, graveyard shift at the Stratosphere,
Las Vegas, a customer came up and asked us if we could move over and open the Crapless
Craps table.

The boxman and night shift manager said sure, no problem, so the crew closed down
the regulation table and opened up Crapless Craps.

The player bought in for $500 and pretty soon at about 4:30 am other players started
joining in on the action.

The Player began his wagering by making $25 Pass Line and Come Bets and started
off conservative. His streak began early and pretty soon he started pressing by
placing maximum odds on his Pass Line and on all Come Bets. Pretty soon, with the
help of some hot rolls, he had filled all the numbers – 2,3,4,5,6,8,9,10,11 and
12 taking maximum odds.

By 7:30am or so he cashed out for $30,000.

As I was ready to take my scheduled 20-minute break at 7:40am I heard the boxman
say to the night shift manager, “Gee, maybe we shouldn’t have opened up Crapless
Craps for that guy.”

Well… Duh.

I would have liked to have seen the look on the player’s face though, when he tried
to cash in his chips and the cage asked him to fill out the tax form!

Point of Trivia

On a regular craps table when you refer to “Outside Numbers” you are referencing
the 5,9,4 and 10. But on a Crapsless Craps table, because the 3,11,2 and 12 are
also “Point Numbers” and boxes for these numbers are on the layout… the 3,11,2
and 12 are called “The Extreme Outside”. But the chances are that if you ever call
a combination bet to “Place the Extreme Outside” the dealer probably won’t even
know what you are talking about.

The game of craps in California casinos doesn’t use dice. This might be confusing to some of my readers, so I thought I’d write a blog post about California craps games.

This post examines how craps in California is played and why the odds aren’t really any different — even though they’re using a different mechanism to arrive at the outcomes.

Also, if you love “shooting dice,” you might want to play craps in a different state.

You can play craps online for free, no matter which state you live in. And when you play for real money, you’ll get a 350% deposit bonus on your first deposit. WildVegasCasino.

Craps in California Is Played with Playing Cards, Not Dice

In some states, it’s illegal to use certain devices for gambling purposes. Until recently, Oklahoma didn’t allow spinning wheels or dice, but it did allow cards. They’ve recently changed their laws regarding that, so now you can shoot dice and play roulette in Oklahoma just like everywhere else.

But California still doesn’t allow casinos to use dice.

They still want to offer craps, though, so they use a deck of cards as a workaround.

You can use a deck of cards to duplicate the odds in a craps game in 2 different ways:

The more intuitive way for most players to understand is to have the ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of one suit represent one of the 2 dice, and to have the same set of cards for another suit represent the 2nd of those 2 dice.

You still have the same probability for each of the 2 “dice” this way — each number comes up 1 out of 6 times.

You also have the same bell curve that you’d see when rolling a pair of dice.

The other way is to have a deck consisting of 36 cards, each of which represents a possible outcome of a die roll. This is the method that the Winstar used until recently.

Why Are There 36 Possible Outcomes in California Craps?

There are 36 possible outcomes in craps of all kinds, not just in California craps. Understanding that is the key to understanding how craps probability works.

You only have 11 possible totals in craps:

  1. 2
  2. 3
  3. 4
  4. 5
  5. 6
  6. 7
  7. 8
  8. 9
  9. 10
  10. 11
  11. 12

But some totals can happen in multiple ways.

For example, a total of 2 can only happen in one way — you have to roll a 1 on the first die and also roll a 1 on the 2nd die.

That’s also true for rolling a 12 — you have to roll a 6 on each die, and there’s only one way to do that.

But look at the probability of rolling a 3. You have 2 ways you can get an outcome of 3:

You can roll a 1 and a 2 OR you can roll a 2 and a 1.

It might not be immediately or intuitively obvious why that’s 2 different ways of accomplishing this, but that’s why you have a bell curve in craps.

The least likely totals are 2 and 12.

The totals of 3 and 11 are the next least likely outcomes.

Then 4 and 10.

And then 5 and 9.

Then 6 and 8.

Finally, the most common outcome is 7 — you have the following ways of getting a 7 on a roll of two dice:

  1. 1, 6
  2. 2, 5
  3. 3, 4
  4. 4, 3
  5. 5, 2
  6. 6, 1

No other combination of dice has that many possibilities.

An Example of California Craps at the Pala Casino

The Pala Casino uses a deck of 36 cards, each one of which is mapped to a combination of 2 dice. The craps dealer deals 2 cards, one in a blue box and one in a red box.

The shooter still gets to roll dice in this version. One of the dice is blue, the other, red.

The blue die has a 2 and a 3 on it — and no other numbers.

The red die has a 1 and a 4 on it — and no other numbers.

The die with the higher number determines which card determines the outcome of the throw.

It’s funny how the casino still uses dice, but they’ve added the cards to randomize the outcome for legal reasons. The Pala Casino’s version of craps probably “feels” more like craps than other versions.

You could, in fact, just draw a card from either of those decks and have an outcome in line with the probabilities involved in craps.

But that would make the gameplay so fast that it wouldn’t feel much like craps at all.

Craps at the Viejas Casino

When you play craps at the Viejas Casino, NO dice are used for any reason. This version of craps isn’t even played at a craps table. Instead, it’s played at a table that looks more like a blackjack table.

This version of craps uses 264 playing cards numbered 1 through 6 dealt from a continuous shuffling machine. The cards get put back into the shuffler after every roll.

But there’s a catch with the Viegas Casino craps:

Some of cards remain in the shuffle’s chute after each deal, so multiple rolls are dealt at one time.

What does this mean, probability-wise?

It slightly changes the odds by removing some of the possible outcomes. You just don’t know which outcomes have been removed.

The don’t pass bet becomes a better bet than it already is, so if you ever play at the Viejas Casino, stick with being a wrong bettor.

Why Are California Casinos Like This?

My daughters sometimes ask me, “Dad, why are you like this?”

They’re usually frustrated with me, and I get that. I’m frustrating, as people who are from a different generation often are.

But why are California casinos the way they are?

California passed a constitutional amendment in 2000 legalizing gambling on American Indian land. Each tribe negotiates its own arrangement (a “compact”) with the state government regarding what games and activities they can offer.

Some types of gambling are more acceptable than others.

California law is specific about one thing, though:

Average Number Of Rolls In Craps Before 7 Out

Craps

You can’t determine game results using dice. This would seem to eliminate craps because this law applies to Indian casinos.

The only way California casinos can offer craps at all is to modify their versions of the game to use playing cards instead of just dice. Even in casinos that allow the players to throw the dice, the outcome of the dice only determines which cards get drawn.

It’s a weird loophole. Casinos can use dice to determine part of the outcome, but the playing cards are like a buffer that keeps the dice from determining the final outcome.

Can You Count Cards in California Craps?

The first question that springs to my mind when I find out about card-game-based craps is whether I can get an edge at the game by counting cards.

This would be possible if you didn’t face a casino that shuffles the deck after every “roll of the dice.”

The way card counting works in blackjack is by keeping track of which cards have been dealt in a general way — high versus low. Aces and 10s in blackjack are considered high cards, and they’re better for the player. When a lot of them have already been played relative to the lower valued cards, you should bet the minimum.

But when a lot of low cards have been played when compared to the high cards, it’s time to raise your bets.

In other words, you don’t keep up with specific cards that have been played or that are left in the deck.

Average Number Of Rolls Per Hour In Craps

Theoretically, if you found a casino that didn’t shuffle the deck every time a card got played, you might be able to get an edge by betting one way or the other.

Imagine, if you will, a huge deck of cards where most of the cards that resulted in a 7 were already gone from the deck.

Would you know which bet would offer you an advantage in that situation?

That’s what I thought.

What’s the House Edge for Craps in California?

In Oklahoma, the casinos charge an ante for playing table games. That ante increases the house edge dramatically, but it’s based on how much you’re betting on each round. Usually, the bigger your bets are, the less of an effect the ante has on the house edge.

As far as I know, though, California craps doesn’t require an ante.

Since the odds of getting all the various results at a craps game in California are the same as they would be if you were rolling 2 dice, the house edge is the same, too.

In other words, stick with the pass, don’t pass, come, don’t come, and odds bets. All those bets have a house edge of less than 1.5%.

And you also want to avoid the prop bets that are also available in card-game-based craps. Stick with the simple, boring bets because those are the bets offering the best odds for the player.

In fact, the house edge on many of these proposition bets at the craps table is in excess of 10% and closes in on 20% in some instances.

You don’t need to play games with such lousy odds, ever — in California, online, or anywhere else.

Finally

I hope I answered all your questions about craps in California. If I left anything out, or if you have something you’d like to add, I’d love to hear from you in the comments section.

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