How a round works
#A round opens with the come-out roll of two dice. A 7 or 11 wins the pass line immediately, a 2, 3 or 12 loses it, and any other total, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10, becomes the point. From then on the shooter rolls until either the point repeats, and the pass line wins, or a 7 arrives first, and it loses.
Everything else on the layout is a side bet on top of that skeleton. The vocabulary is the most intimidating in the casino and the structure underneath is one bet with decorations, most of which are safely ignorable.
Deriving the pass line's price
#Two dice produce 36 equally likely combinations, and every craps probability follows from counting them: six ways to roll a 7, five ways for a 6 or an 8, four for a 5 or 9, three for a 4 or 10. Working the pass line through those counts, the immediate wins and losses of the come-out plus each point's race against the 7, sums to a winning probability of 244 in 495, about 49.29%.
The bet pays even money, so its expectation is 49.29% won minus 50.71% lost: about minus 1.41%. That is the whole famous number, and it makes the pass line one of the cheapest standing wagers in any casino. The mirror bet, don't pass, wins when the pass line loses except that a come-out 12 is a push rather than a win, a clip that leaves it at about 1.36%, marginally cheaper and socially lonelier.
The odds bet, the only fair wager in the house
#Once a point is set, a pass-line bettor may back the bet with odds, an additional wager that the point repeats before a 7. It pays true odds: 2 to 1 on a point of 4 or 10, where the 7's six combinations face the point's three; 3 to 2 on 5 or 9; 6 to 5 on 6 or 8. Payout equal to true odds means an expectation of exactly zero, the only such bet in the casino.
The catch is placement: odds are only available behind a pass or don't pass bet that already paid its edge, and tables cap them at a multiple of that bet. Loading the maximum odds behind a minimal pass line dilutes the combined cost of the money on the table without ever erasing it. The house allows a fair bet precisely because it can only be reached through an unfair one.
The middle of the table, priced
#The proposition bets in the table's centre resolve in one roll and pay far below true odds. Any seven is the cleanest example, derivable in a line: a 7 arrives six ways in 36, one chance in six, and the bet pays 4 to 1. Five losses of one unit against one win of four, across six rolls, is a shortfall of one unit in six: a house edge of 16.7%, more than ten times the pass line a hand's width away.
The hardways, the horn and the field fill the same range between roughly 2.8% and 16.7%, and the croupier's patter promotes exactly the expensive end. The geography rule generalises across this site: the further a wager sits from the game's core bet, the more it costs, and craps merely paints the map on the felt.
Questions, answered
Is the odds bet really free money?
It carries no house edge, which is unique, and it is not a source of profit: its expectation is exactly zero, and it is only accessible behind a pass or don't pass bet that already paid its 1.4%. Odds dilute the average cost of your total stake; nothing at the table turns it positive.
Why does craps feel so complicated?
The vocabulary, not the game. One bet, the pass line, with a two-phase resolution is the whole core, and it is among the casino's cheapest. Most of the layout exists to sell the expensive middle, and ignoring it entirely is a complete strategy.
Can a skilled shooter control the dice?
On a physical table, controlled shooting is a folklore claim without demonstrated results under scrutiny, and casinos requiring dice to hit the back wall exists to keep it that way. Online, the roll is a certified RNG draw and the question dissolves entirely.
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