- Pays
- 1 to 1
- House edge
- 1.41%
- Decided by
- Several rolls
- Can be made
- Come-out roll
How the pass line bet works, roll by roll
A pass line bet goes down before the come-out roll, the first roll of a new hand. On that roll a 7 or 11 is a natural and the pass line wins at once. A 2, 3 or 12 is craps and it loses. Any other total, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10, becomes the point for the hand.
Once there is a point the dealer flips the puck to ON and sets it on that number, as described in our guide to the come-out roll and the point. Now only two totals matter to your chips: the point wins, a 7 loses. Every other roll in between does nothing at all.
That two-stage structure is the whole game. The come-out roll favors you, because eight of the 36 dice outcomes are naturals and only four are craps. The point stage favors the house, because a 7 can be rolled six ways and no point can be rolled more than five. The two phases nearly cancel out.
The come-out roll in numbers
Of the 36 equally likely results of two dice, eight win straight away (six sevens and two elevens), four lose (one 2, two 3s and one 12) and the other 24 set a point. So 22.22% of come-out rolls are winners, 11.11% are losers and 66.67% send the hand into a point, which is where most of the action happens.
Making the point
Once the point is on, your chance depends on the number. A 6 or 8 rolls five ways against the seven’s six, so it is made 45.45% of the time. A 5 or 9 rolls four ways and is made 40%, and a 4 or 10 rolls only three ways and is made just one time in three.
What the pass line pays
The pass line pays even money whatever happens: bet $10, win $10. That is true on a first-roll natural and on a 4 made after twenty rolls. The payout never reflects how hard the point was to make, and that flat price is the reason the odds bet exists alongside it.
| Bet | Pays | House edge | Per roll |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pass Line | 1 to 1 | 1.41% | 0.42% |
| Don't Pass | 1 to 1 | 1.36% | 0.40% |
| Come | 1 to 1 | 1.41% | 0.42% |
| Place 6 | 7 to 6 | 1.52% | 0.46% |
| Field | 1 to 1; 2 pays 2 to 1; 12 pays 2 to 1 | 5.56% | 5.56% |
| Any Seven | 4 to 1 | 16.67% | 16.67% |
Why the pass line house edge is 1.41%
Add the two stages together and a pass line bet wins 244 times out of every 495 decisions, or 49.29%. It loses 251 times. The seven-decision gap, divided by 495, is the house edge of 1.414%. On a $10 bet that is a long-run cost of about 14 cents each time a bet is decided.
For comparison, a Field bet costs 5.56% of each wager and a single-roll Any Seven bet costs 16.67%. The line bet gives the casino about a tenth of what the proposition box takes, which is why experienced players build almost every sensible craps strategy on it, whether they play live or online.
The cost per roll is smaller again, because a pass line bet stays up for 3.4 rolls on average. Spread across those rolls it costs about 0.42% of the bet per roll. Try it in the calculator below, where you can set a stake and a table speed and compare the pass line with any other bet.
Adding odds behind the pass line
Once the point is set you can put an extra bet behind your chips. This odds bet pays true odds: 2 to 1 on a 4 or 10, 3 to 2 on a 5 or 9, 6 to 5 on a 6 or 8. The payout matches the real chance, so the casino has no edge on it.
Casinos cap the odds as a multiple of your pass line bet. A common Las Vegas limit is 3-4-5x: three times the line bet on a 4 or 10, four times on a 5 or 9 and five times on a 6 or 8. At that limit the combined house edge on everything you have wagered drops to 0.37%.
Some rooms go much further. Downtown and locals casinos have offered 10x, 20x and even 100x odds, which pushes the combined edge down to 0.18%, 0.10% and 0.02% respectively. The catch is volatility: most of your money is now riding on a single point, so the swings get far larger than the edge suggests.
A pass line hand, played out
Say you put $10 on the pass line and the shooter rolls a 6 on the come-out. The puck goes on the 6. You add $20 in odds behind the line, a little under the 5x limit. The shooter rolls an 8, a 3, an 11 and a 9, and none of them touch your bet.
On the next roll the 6 comes back. The dealer pays $10 on the pass line and $24 on the odds, because 6 to 5 on $20 is $24. You collect $34 in winnings on $30 at risk. Had a 7 come first, all $30 would have gone, which is why the odds amount should be money you can lose.
Pass line mistakes that cost players money
The most common error is skipping the odds and spreading money across the center of the table instead. A $5 Hardway or a $5 Any Craps bet costs more in a single roll than a $10 pass line bet costs in a whole hand. The layout is designed to pull your eye toward the expensive boxes.
The second error is making a put bet on a point that is already set, usually a 4 or 10, without taking odds. You give up the favorable come-out roll and take a position that loses twice as often as it wins. If you want action mid-hand, a Come bet does the job properly.
A smaller but real one: some players press their flat bet after a win and leave the odds where they were. Since the odds are the free part of the wager, it is the odds that should grow first. Keep the flat bet at the table minimum and let the odds carry the money you want working.
Try the pass line on a free table
The table below plays by standard casino rules. Put a chip on the pass line, roll, and watch it settle; once a point is on, the puck turns and you can back your bet with odds. Nothing here costs money, which makes it a good place to learn the rhythm before a real table.