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On the same craps table, within reach of the same hand, sit a bet with a house edge of 0.00% and a bet with a house edge of 16.67%. Nothing on the layout tells you which is which. In fact the good one is not printed on the layout at all — there is no box for it, no label, no minimum sign. You have to know it exists and place it yourself.
That is the real subject of craps odds, and it is why the game rewards reading a table like this one more than almost any other on the floor.
Table of Contents
Everything comes from 36 outcomes
Two dice produce 36 equally likely combinations. Every craps number, every payout and every house edge in this article is derived from how many of those 36 make each total.
| Total | Ways to roll | Chance |
|---|---|---|
| 2 or 12 | 1 each | 2.78% |
| 3 or 11 | 2 each | 5.56% |
| 4 or 10 | 3 each | 8.33% |
| 5 or 9 | 4 each | 11.11% |
| 6 or 8 | 5 each | 13.89% |
| 7 | 6 | 16.67% |
Seven is the most likely total because it is the only one that can be made from every face on the first die. That single fact explains the entire structure of the game: seven wins for you on the come-out roll and beats you afterwards, and every bet on the table is priced around it.
The line bets: where you start
The come-out roll settles immediately on 7 or 11 (a win, 8 ways of 36) and on 2, 3 or 12 (a loss, 4 ways). Anything else becomes the point, and from then on you are racing that number against the seven.
- Pass line — 1.41% house edge. The standard bet, and the one the table is built around.
- Don’t pass — 1.36%. Marginally better, because betting against the shooter is mathematically the stronger side; the casino claws back the difference by pushing on 12 instead of paying it.
Both are among the cheapest bets in any casino. Neither is the one this article is about.
The odds bet: 0.00%, and unmarked
Once a point is established you may back your line bet with an additional wager known as free odds. It pays true odds — 2:1 on a point of 4 or 10, 3:2 on 5 or 9, 6:5 on 6 or 8 — which is exactly the real probability of the point arriving before a seven.
The house edge on that money is zero. Not low. Zero. It is the only wager in a casino where the operator takes nothing, and it exists because the casino has already taken its margin on the line bet you had to make first to unlock it.
There is no box for it on the felt. You place the chips behind your line bet, and the amount you may place is capped — most tables allow “3-4-5x”, meaning three times your line bet on a point of 4 or 10, four times on 5 or 9, five times on 6 or 8.
Taking the maximum matters more than any other decision in the game. A pass line bet alone carries a 1.41% edge; the same bet backed with full 3-4-5x odds carries a combined edge of roughly 0.37% across everything you have staked. You have not changed your chance of winning — you have quadrupled the money riding at a fair price, and diluted the house’s cut to about a quarter of what it was.
Every other bet, ranked
The rest of the table spans a factor of twelve. Same dice, same felt, same dealer.
| Bet | Pays | House edge |
|---|---|---|
| Free odds (behind the line) | true odds | 0.00% |
| Don’t pass / don’t come | 1:1 | 1.36% |
| Pass line / come | 1:1 | 1.41% |
| Place 6 or 8 | 7:6 | 1.52% |
| Place 5 or 9 | 7:5 | 4.00% |
| Field (2 and 12 at 2:1) | 1:1 / 2:1 | 5.56% |
| Place 4 or 10 | 9:5 | 6.67% |
| Big 6 / Big 8 | 1:1 | 9.09% |
| Hard 6 / Hard 8 | 9:1 | 9.09% |
| Hard 4 / Hard 10 | 7:1 | 11.11% |
| Any craps | 7:1 | 11.11% |
| Any seven | 4:1 | 16.67% |
Two entries deserve a second look. Big 6 and Big 8 pay even money for a 6 or 8 before a seven — the identical proposition to a place bet on 6 or 8, which pays 7:6. Same event, same risk, 9.09% instead of 1.52%, and the Big 6 box is printed in the corner in large friendly letters. It is the clearest example on any casino floor of the layout being a marketing surface rather than a menu.
And any seven, at 16.67%, is a bet on the most likely number in the game — which is precisely why it pays so badly. Popularity and price move together.
Sic Bo: the same dice, a wider spread
Sic Bo uses three dice and 216 combinations, and it repeats the pattern in sharper form. Big or Small — betting the total lands in 11–17 or 4–10, triples excluded — carries a 2.78% edge. Backing one specific triple at 180:1 carries 16.20%. Six times the price, one table, and the expensive bet is the one with the poster.
We list Sic Bo from BGaming and Sic Bo Macau, plus Craps from Play’n GO Asia.
Why we publish no RTP for craps
Across our whole catalogue, 34 of 161 games carry a published return figure, with a median of 96.95%. Craps and Sic Bo carry none, and that is deliberate rather than an omission.
A single return figure describes a game where you have one bet to make. Craps is not that game: the number ranges from 100% to 83.3% depending on where your chips land, so any average would describe a player who does not exist. The same argument applies to video poker, where the return lives in the paytable rather than the title.
The exception in our dice category proves the rule. Rocket Dice from BGaming publishes 99.00% — joint second-highest in our entire catalogue, behind only two blackjack titles at 99.23% — because it is a one-wager game. One bet, one number, and the number means something.
Eight of the 31 casinos we review declare a dice section at all. If you are choosing between them, the licence and the complaint record matter far more than the felt: our crypto casino comparison checks each operator against the regulator’s own register and publishes its unresolved-complaint count. And if you are clearing a bonus while you play, check the game weighting first — table games often count 10% or nothing, which we cover in wagering requirements.
The one edge you cannot pick around
Craps rewards knowing which bet to make more than almost any game on the floor: 1.41% on the pass line, 16.67% on the proposition bets, and the difference is entirely your choice. That control is the whole point of everything above.
There is one number you cannot improve by choosing a better bet, because it is not on the table. It is whether the balance reaches you afterwards — the withdrawal that sits pending for three weeks, the account frozen at payout, the win voided under a bonus clause.
On Keyhouse that number is not something you have to judge: your balance stays in your own wallet, so the round settles as it ends and there is no cashier between you and the money. Play the odds bet, and keep the part the odds don’t cover.
The one-line version
Make the smallest line bet the table allows, back it with the maximum odds, and ignore everything printed in the middle of the layout. That is the whole strategy, and it moves you from 1.41% to roughly 0.37% without any skill, system or judgement — which is more than can be said for any betting progression ever sold.
What it does not do is make the game profitable. A house edge of 0.37% is still a house edge, and the long run belongs to the maths, not to the shooter. Set your limits before you deposit: see responsible gambling.
House edge figures are the published mathematics of standard craps and Sic Bo layouts and can be recalculated from the 36 and 216 dice combinations. Catalogue figures — five dice games, 34 of 161 games with a published RTP, median 96.95%, eight of 31 casinos offering dice — measured on this site on 15 August 2026.
