An overview of Craps

Craps is an extremely popular dice game that players are drawn to as soon as they enter a casino. It is quite easy to spot a Craps table from a mile away as the atmosphere will be loud and you can almost taste the excitement the moment you walk into a casino. One reason it is so popular is because it is a hands-on game which makes it even more fun to play.

How Did Craps Come About?

Amazingly dice games have been around for over 2,000 years and craps evolved from a dice game known as Hazard. There are many stories as to how Hazard evolved into Craps and one popular story is that it started out as Arab dice game that made its way all the way over to France where it was called Hasard. This game then crossed the sea over to England and was renamed as Hazard. The French warmed to this new title of the game and brought it with them to Canada where they settled in a place called Nova Scotia.

The English soon arrived and kicked out the French who then made their way to New Orleans. It is there where Craps was truly born as the French began fine-tuning the rules to make it more fair for players. Craps then took the gambling world by storm as it made its way onto riverboats and all the way out to the west. Many variations of this game started to pop up around America but the most popular one was Street Craps. This type of Craps involved rolling dice against a backstop such as a curb on a road or a stoop. Street Craps became huge during World War II as soldiers would play it using an army blanket. It was so popular that soldiers even developed their own unique way of rolling the dice called the “army blanket roll”!

A Craps Table Layout

To play Craps in a casino, you need to make bets using chips on a specific craps table that features a table cloth usually of green felt that will display the various betting possibilities for players. These tables can vary in design, display, and payouts depending on the casino you go to.

Craps tables generally have the shape of a bathtub and long sides running from left to right. One side of the table will always belong to the casino and this is where they will store the chips and stack them 20 high. On most Craps tables, there is space for up to 8 players to place bets from each side. The inside walls of the tub of a Craps table are usually covered with a rubber-like substance so that dice will bounce off them smoothly.

Casinos usually have 4 people who will oversee games played on a Craps table and these include a boxman, a stickman, and 2 dealers. The boxman will manage the chips and supervise the games. The stickman takes and pays the bets in the centre of the table while the two dealers collect and pay bets to players around their half of the Craps table. Casino Craps games are run with military precision in stark contrast to the street versions of Craps where there is no marked table or attentive staff to run the game smoothly.

If you plan on playing this game then we would recommend playing it inside a casino that way you know you will be treated fairly and the payouts will be way more profitable that what you would win in a street version of Craps.