What Dale covers
Dale Rourke is the pen name of the craps.us writer who covers the casino floor. He writes about how a live craps table runs, from the crew and the dealer calls to etiquette and tipping, and he maintains the directory of land casinos with craps tables, including the map, the state pages and the guide to playing craps in Las Vegas.
His guides are written for someone walking up to a table for the first time: where to stand, how to buy chips, when to put a bet down and what the stickman is saying. He also covers the variants a player is likely to meet, including bubble craps, crapless craps and the card-based craps found in California.
How Dale works
A casino goes into the directory only when its own website, or its state gaming regulator, confirms that it runs a craps table. Table minimums, odds limits and crapless or bubble games are listed only when the casino publishes them, and every entry carries the date it was checked. Tables change often, so each listing encourages readers to call ahead.
He re-checks the directory against casinos’ own sites on a schedule and whenever a reader reports a change. A casino that closes its pit, reopens after a renovation or moves to electronic-only craps is updated rather than left as it was. The aim is a list short enough to trust rather than long enough to impress.
Dale writes about the social side of the game too, because it is part of why people play. Superstitions, the language of the rail and the unwritten rules about when to throw a chip are covered with the same care as payouts, since breaking one at a busy table is the fastest way to find out they exist.
What is in Dale's directory
The casino directory Dale maintains lists 381 casinos with craps tables across 36 states. It has a map, a filter by state and craps type, and a page for each state, and the Las Vegas page sorts more than 50 craps pits by area. A casino appears once its own website or regulator confirms a table, and not before.
His floor guides follow a first visit in order: where to stand, how to buy chips, when to put a bet down, what the stickman is calling and how to tip the crew. Etiquette and craps terms have their own pages, so a new player can learn the lingo at home before walking up to a live rail.
Variants are his beat as well. Bubble craps, crapless craps, the card-based game found in California, electronic craps and street craps each have a guide that sets out how the format changes the layout and what it costs. If a casino near you spreads something unusual, the variant guide is the place to check the rules.
Why a pen name
Dale writes under a pen name, as the whole team does. The directory is built from sources anyone can check, each listing links to the casino’s own craps page where one exists, and corrections are welcome. A reader who knows a table better than we do is the best source of an update, and those reports are checked before they are published.
If a casino near you runs craps and is missing from the map, or a listing has changed, the contact page is the place to say so. Include the casino’s name and a link to its table-games page if you have one, and the listing will be checked and added once the casino’s own site confirms it.