Craps - Laying it on the dice - that`s what Craps is all about. This game has an ancient and illustrious history indeed; its origins date back to ancient Rome where everyone from Emperors to small children found themselves immersed in every fateful roll of the dice.

Dice have been around for centuries but Craps as today is a relatively young game, having been around for about a hundred years. Craps descended from the English game Hazard, which was introduced to America by English settlers, but soon found a hold in New Orleans where the French gave it the charming moniker “Craps”. The game play today was fine tuned by a fellow called John H. Winn, and it has spread around the world, played in casinos and living rooms alike.

Craps does at times seem like a rather complicated game to pick up, but it is in fact rather easy once you get the hang of things. Casino Craps involves playing against the house, and essentially whoever is “shooting”, i.e. throwing the dice, continues to shoot until they loose. The game begins with the “come out” roll, where the shooter rolls the two dice. If the shooter rolls a 7 or 11, they win, if they roll 2,3 or 12 they have gotten Craps and lost. If the shooter rolls any other number then they get a point and must try to get another before they roll a 7. If they do this, that`s a win and they keep rolling, if not, they lose and the dice are handed to the next player.

See? Nice and simple. To make it complicated, you can learn various strategies that involve probabilities. These strategies are based on the odds of certain numbers coming up more than others. Essentially, the number 7 is the most often rolled number, because there are more ways that two dice can add up to 7 than any other number. The further away from 7 the number is, the less likely it is to be rolled.

Craps can get rather complicated once you get into the finer points of the game, but starting out simply and easing into it remembering the basic premise of odds will help you enjoy the game a lot more than you may have been able to before. Craps is an exceptionally fun game, with those around the table often sharing a special sort of camaraderie. Getting started is simple too... it’s just a roll of the dice.