Getting to the bottom of "Is craps the best odds?" comes down to two dice. Craps is a dice game played at a casino table, and the rules look harder than they are. What decides every bet is how two dice land, so the whole game works from one small table of combinations. Knowing that table explains what each wager pays, why some bets carry a far bigger house edge than others, and how to play without slowing the game for the rest of the table.
Table etiquette keeps a busy game moving. Anyone who wants to shoot craps waits for the dice to come round, then throws them with one hand so both hit the far wall. Chips go down before the stickman calls for the roll, never while the dice are in the air, and winnings stay on the layout until the dealer pushes them across. Handing money straight to a dealer is avoided; it goes on the table instead.
Craps payouts vary more than in almost any other casino game, and so does the house edge. Pass and come bets pay even money with an edge a little over one percent, among the best odds on the casino floor. Odds placed behind the line pay at true chance and carry no edge at all. The horn bet, split across two, three, eleven and twelve, pays large multiples but keeps an edge above twelve percent.
Two dice give thirty six combinations, and they are not equally likely. Seven turns up in six of them, six and eight in five each, while two and twelve have one apiece. Every payout on the layout follows from those counts. The first roll of a round, the come out, pays the pass line on seven or eleven and loses it on two, three or twelve, which is why the pass line is where most players start betting.
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