Craps Live
Craps Live is Evolution Gaming’s live dealer craps table that allows you to enjoy all of the excitement and action of the most popular casino dice game with people from around the world. The interface is solid, and the action is serious with lots of social interaction and a smooth style of play.
Casinos with Craps Live
An Introduction to Craps Live
Evolution Gaming’s Craps Live dealer game is one of the very few options to play craps within the live dealer environment. Challenges with the game layout and wide range of betting options has made this a difficult one to play with for a long time, but as they are the innovation kings in this sector, it’s no surprise that they figured out a way to make it work.
What’s great about this game is that it also includes all of the possibilities for massive social interaction that makes craps so popular in brick and mortar casinos as well.
There’s a lot to know about this game, but don’t feel intimidated if you’re just getting started. The rules aren’t nearly as complicated as they seem like they might be base on just watching a little bit of a game of craps unfold, and we’ll walk you through everything that you need to know to get started off on the right foot playing this live dealer dice game.
A Note on Gameplay Complications
We want to make a special note here about the complications involved in this game. More specifically, we want to point out the perceived complications, which are much more serious than what you’ll actually find when you play.
This game is only marginally more complicated than something like roulette. It’s easy to learn how to play if you follow the procedure that we’re going to lay out below, and you can feel right at home with it inside of just a few minutes if you follow this approach.
Gameplay Procedure
One of the main things that people know about craps who have never played is that someone is rolling the dice while everyone else stands around watching. At the online Craps Live tables, you can’t physically roll the dice since you’re not actually there, but instead, a substitute is used so that the dice roll at random on their own. The idea is to simulate the real thing as much as possible while still maintaining the level of randomness that you’d expect.
It’s worth noting, however, that you never have to roll the dice to play, and the person rolling the dice in a brick and mortar game doesn’t actually have any special betting options that the rest of the table does without.
With that said, let’s jump into the gameplay procedure for the main bet that everything in this game is based around: the pass line bet. We’ll base all of our gameplay discussion around this fundamental part of the game.
- For the pass line bet, players start by placing their wager on the pass line on the game layout.
- The first roll of the dice is given (called the come out roll), and if that is a total of 7 or 11, then the pass line bet immediately wins, and the process starts over.
- If the first roll is a total of 2, 3 or 12, then the pass line bet immediately loses, and you start the process again with a fresh wager.
- However, if the first roll is a 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10 (called the place numbers), then that number establishes what’s called the point value, and a special stage of the game begins.
- During this part, the dice are rolled over and over again until one of two things happens: A total of 7 is rolled, or the point value is rolled.
- If the total of 7 is rolled first, the player loses. If the point value is rolled first, the player wins.
- In either case, the wager is resolved, and the process starts over with a new come out roll.
The pass line bet pays even money, so if you wager €5 and win, then you profit €5 on the bet. All of the wagers available at the Craps Live dealer tables are based around the gameplay procedure for the pass line bet listed above, but you aren’t required to make that wager yourself.
Taking Odds
During this second stage, there is a critical betting option that’s probably the most important thing to know about the game as a whole. It requires that you have made a pass line bet, but it allows you to choose between two wagers that have a zero percent house advantage. There are very few casino bets with this level of payout, and it’s important to make because it drops the effective house edge of the entire wager (pass line bet included).
The available odds depend on which place number is rolled as the point value, and it’s listed as follows:
- Point 4 – 2:1
- Point 5 – 3:2
- Point 6 – 6:5
- Point 8 – 6:5
- Point 9 – 3:2
- Point 10 – 2:1
The basic strategy of this game involves using the pass line bet and combining it with taking odds for the appropriate place number when it comes up as the point value. However, this is not the only strategy available in this game, but if you know and understand it, then everything else that this game has to offer will be easier to understand.
Other Available Wagers
Virtually every other wager in this game is some type of variation of the pass line bet and taking odds. For example, there is a don’t pass bet that is essentially the opposite of the pass line bet and wins when the latter loses. Likewise, instead of taking odds, you can lay odds so that you’re wagering that a seven comes before the place number.
With that said, there are two major betting variations that we want to point out that fall outside of the pass line/don’t pass set of wagers. These bets can be made on their own and are not tied to the pass line bet (or don’t pass line bet) at all because they’re centered around the value of the dice on the very next roll, regardless of whether that is a come out roll or a part of the special stage after a point has been established.
Place Bets and Place to Lose
The place bets and place to lose are wagers for or against place numbers being rolled. You can actually choose the numbers themselves instead of being tied to what the point value is, and different players can wager on different place numbers at the same time.
Place wagers win if the number you choose is rolled, and they lose on a seven. Likewise, place to lose wagers win on a seven and lose on the number that’s wagered on. All other rolled values are a push.
Along these lines, you can have the following place bets, all with house edges of less than 2 percent:
- Place 4 (or 10) – 9:5
- Place 5 (or 9) – 7:5
- Place 6 (or 8) – 7:6
You also have the following place to lose bets, all of which have a house edge of less than 1 percent:
- Place to Lose 4 (or 10) – 5:11
- Place to Lose 5 (or 9) – 5:8
- Place to Lose 6 (or 8) – 4:5
For example, a wager of €5 on a place 4 would profit €9 on a win. Likewise, a wager of €8 on a place to lose 5 would profit €5 on a win.
There are other wagers that play out similarly. For example, the Buy and Lay wagers are actually the exact same as the Place and Place to Lose wagers, respectively, with slightly different payouts.
Proposition Bets
Proposition bets at the Craps Live dealer tables are a variety of wagers that are placed on different types of bets that just have to do with the outcome of the next roll.
You’ll notice that there are a ton of different wagers available, and it can be tricky to keep up with them all or to feel like you have to learn each of them. The good news is that you don’t have to in order to enjoy this game. The bad news is that even if you wanted to learn them, it wouldn’t be worth it because they have such a high house edge compared to what else is available.
Here are just a couple of what are known as proposition bets that are available in this game, their payouts and house advantage. What you’ll see is that they are all particularly harsh when it comes to what you can expect:
- Any Seven (4:1) – 16.7 percent house edge
- Any Craps (7:1) – 11.1 percent house edge
There’s a theme to these wagers and many others like it: You’re better off sticking to the pass line bet, the don’t pass line bet, odds and the place/buy wagers. They all have very low house advantage levels, lower than some players can get in strategy-focused games like blackjack and video poker, and they offer enough variety that you can switch things up without feeling like you’re getting bored.
The Social Element and Betting Interaction
Something really great about all of Evolution Gaming’s live dealer tables is the level of social interaction that they allow that you don’t normally see when it comes to traditional online casino games. Social interaction is one of the most important parts of the online Craps Live tables because they’re what the brick and mortar version of the game is based on.
There’s a really important reason why: The shooter, the person whose turn it is to roll the dice, is always forced to make a pass line bet when you play in person. Along these lines, many at the table will play this bet as well, so they all get to win or lose together accordingly. In fact, it’s to the point that playing against the crowd is often seen as a sort of a social faux pas.
Now of course, you don’t have to worry about that kind of social pressure at the Evolution Gaming Craps Live online tables, but you do get to participate in the social aspects through the chat function, so that means that you can join in celebration with everyone who is together with the pass line. Alternatively, you can root against the crowd with the don’t pass option. It really just depends on how you want to play it because each of those options have very similar payout rates and levels of house advantage.
Strategy for Live Dealer Craps Live
Something interesting happens with this game where there are a whole lot of types of bets available, to the point that some are the exact same bet with different names and payouts, but there’s actually a very narrow set of available wagers that are decent in terms of overall payout rate that could form a solid strategy.
There are two ways you can approach strategy in this game. The first is if you want to play sets of rolls based around the come out roll. For this approach, we recommend sticking with the pass line bet followed by maximizing your available bets on the odds when that second stage comes around. This will give a house edge in the range of 1.1 percent.
Another approach is if you want to simply play on a per-roll basis with bets like the place and place to lose. In this case, your best options include place 6/8 with a house edge of just 0.5 percent, place to lose 6/8 with a house edge of just 0.6 percent, and place to lose 5/9 with a house advantage of only about 0.7 percent. These are by far the best live dealer table game wagers you can find anywhere.
Overview
The Craps Live tables from Evolution Gaming combine all of the advantages of online and brick and mortar craps with none of the disadvantages. This includes great betting options, a beautiful layout and fun interaction with other players from across the globe.
For players who are new to craps, we strongly recommend sticking to the pass line bet for a few rounds so that you can see that there’s nothing to be intimidated about. The gameplay is much less complicated than what it can seem like on the outside looking in, and it can quickly become a new favorite as soon as you put a few minutes worth of wagers in and understand what’s going on.
FAQ
Which online casinos have Craps Live?
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