How to Gamble with Dice (On the Streets or in the Casino)

Learning how to gamble with dice means becoming part of a long and storied tradition.

People have been gambling with dice for at least 4,000 years. The image of dice is as tied to the gambling industry as any other single thing. When you think of dice, you think of gambling, and vice versa.

This post explains the ways people gamble with dice. It also offers a history of dice and how they came to be such important gambling props.

The History of Dice

The modern version of dice would be recognizable to the first people that used them.

While the ancient Egyptians didn’t use white cubes with black dots, they did use cube-like props with different values on their different faces. Most likely, these were made from animal bones or in rare cases ivory or other precious stones.

The first recorded mention of dice occurred before the time of the Pharaohs. The ancient Sanskrit spiritual text The Mahabharata mentions multi-sided gambling props. This implies that the ancient forebears of modern Indians were using dice (or dice-like props) long before Egypt organized into fiefdoms.

The reason dice are marked with spots instead of numbers is that dice have been with us since long before the Arabic numeral system we use every day.

Over the next couple of millennia, various cultures around the world innovated the use of dice for games of chance. By the time Galileo performed a mathematical analysis of dice around the year 1600, dice were deeply embedded in gambling culture, though mostly in uncodified games unique to every place where they were played.

It wasn’t until the 19^th century that dice games familiar to modern players expanded from the ports of New Orleans to the gambling halls of the big coastal cities.

How to Gamble with Dice (The Basics of Gambling with Dice)

A single die has six sides. They’re numbered with dots. One side has one dot, another side has two dots, etc., all the way up to six. A die’s spots are arranged in a specific way so that the total of each opposing side is always 7. That means the single-dot face is always opposite the six-dot face, and the two-dot face is always opposite the five-dot face, etc.

Gambling with dice generally means betting on the outcome of the roll of two dice. Because the rules are so open-ended, gambling with dice can be simple or complex.

Street dice or street craps is among the oldest and simplest games of chance there is. Casino craps, on the other hand, is one of the more complicated casino table games.

Both games involve rolling and shooting dice. The differences between the two games are all about rules and context.

Street dice (or street craps) only requires two dice, a flat surface, and a backstop. You can easily play street craps between just two people. There’s a section below describing the rules of street craps in more detail. But there are only a couple of ways to bet, and there’s no complicated set of rules or patterns to memorize.

Casino craps likewise requires two dice, a flat surface, and a backstop. However, it also requires a specific type of betting surface as well as several employees to manage the game and bets. The rules of the game require some study beforehand, and it will take a few live sessions before you feel comfortable playing. Casino craps is also designed to draw a crowd; a game of craps between just one player and the dealer is hardly craps at all.

How to Bet on Dice

Dice are simple game props that lend themselves to use in a lot of different ways. At their simplest, they were made of animal knucklebones, tossed out as a form of divination, or used for crude games of chance around a campfire.

Dice used in dice games are rolled. That means they’re tossed onto a playing surface so that they tumble over and over and eventually land with one face showing up. Most dice games require that the dice “bounce,” and generally require that the dice strike a specific part of the playing surface so that a random result occurs.

You don’t have to go to a casino to bet on dice. You can set up a simple dice game at home between yourself and a friend.

Here’s how you could set it up:

Give each person betting a die, and whoever rolls a higher number wins the bet. This is as simple as it gets. If you have more dice, you can have the players roll two at a time for a little more variety in the results.

You can make this more complicated by degrees. Bystanders could bet on the game without rolling dice. You could set up a betting market, whereby bystanders pay you $0.10 for every $1 they bet on the game. Players could create more complicated rules, in the style of craps.

Below are sections describing the more formalized methods of betting using dice.

How to Play Casino Craps

A round of craps starts when the shooter receives the dice from a casino employee known as the stickman.

The shooter’s first roll is called the come-out roll. After placing a bet on the Pass line, the shooter makes the come-out roll. It’s an important moment – bettors can back the shooter (by betting with him on the Pass line) or fade the shooter (by betting on the Don’t Pass line).

The shooter then rolls the dice down the table so that they bounce off the back wall.

If the shooter rolls a 2, 3, or 12, the roll is “craps,” and the round of play is over. This means the shooter and anyone who bet with him have lost and anyone who bet against him has won.

If the shooter rolls a 7 or 11, he and everyone who bet with him win.

If the shooter rolls a 1, 4-6, or 8-10, that number becomes the point. The shooter and his backers are now hoping that this point number comes up again before the number 7. When this happens, the shooter and all other Pass line bettors win. If the 7 comes up before the point number, the shooter and all his backers lose.

There’s a huge variety of other ways to wager. This, and the presence of lots of casino staff and a fixed set of rules, is what sets formal casino craps apart from informal street dice.

If you’re going to play casino craps, try to find a casino that offers 10X odds or 100X odds craps. If you don’t know what that means, you can click on the link to get a detailed explanation.

How to Play Street Dice

It’s fair to think of street dice as a simplified form of craps. But it’s also different from craps in some important ways. There’s no banker, no trademark betting surface, no casino security, and a simplified set of bets.

Street dice rules are informal, and they vary from game to game.

Here’s how it works in general:

The shooter wins on a roll of 7 or 11 and loses on a roll of 2, 3, or 12. If the shooter rolls a 1, 4-6, or 8-10, the point is set. That’s a number that establishes another winning and losing roll for the shooter. If the shooter rolls the point again before rolling a 7, he wins. If he rolls a 7 before the point, he loses. That means a round of street dice is over when either a 7 or the established point comes up.

Bystanders are an important part of street dice. They can make two bets – pass and don’t pass. Side wagers on things like how many times the shooter will roll are also common.

Know that in most US jurisdictions, street dice is considered illegal gambling. If you’re concerned about the legality of a game of dice you’re going to play, check your state’s gambling law. In many cases, playing the game in private makes it essentially legal.

Other Dice Games You Can Gamble On

It’s tempting to think that craps is the only dice game you can gamble on, but you have other options, too.

Sic bo, for example, is an Asian gambling game played with 3 dice instead of the 2 dice used in craps. It has a betting layout of its own, but it resembles the betting layout for roulette more than it does the betting layout in craps.

Backgammon is a popular board game that people often bet on. It’s not purely a dice game, but you can’t play backgammon without the dice.

Chuck a luck is popular in Australia, and I haven’t seen it played in the United States. That doesn’t mean you can’t play it here; it just means I haven’t seen it. Like sic bo, chuck a luck uses 3 dice instead of 2, and it has its own payout structure.

Poker dice combines the game of poker with dice. Since it’s based on a game with 5 card hands, poker dice uses 5 dice. I haven’t seen poker dice in a casino, but I have buddies who used to always want to play poker dice on poker night.

Conclusion

This post explains how to gamble with dice and gives some of the history behind one of the world’s favorite gambling props.

Gambling with dice isn’t just a long-standing tradition, but it’s also a lot of fun. Live craps is considered one of the most exciting games on the casino floor. The game draws a crowd for a reason.

Street dice is popular because it’s easy to play, as much fun as formal casino craps, but accessible to anyone with a couple of six-sided dice and a curb or brick wall to roll them against.