Where to find craps in Illinois
Half of the state’s craps tables sit around Chicago. Bally’s Chicago is inside the city, Rivers Casino is in Des Plaines, Wind Creek Chicago Southland is in East Hazel Crest, Grand Victoria is in Elgin and Hollywood Casino is in Aurora. Joliet has two, Harrah’s and Hollywood, and American Place is in Waukegan near the Wisconsin line.
The other eight are spread across the state. Rockford has Hard Rock Casino Rockford, Rock Island has Bally’s Quad Cities, and East Peoria has the Par-A-Dice. Danville has a Golden Nugget, and the St. Louis side has Argosy in Alton and DraftKings at Casino Queen in East St. Louis. Southern Illinois adds Harrah’s Metropolis and Walker’s Bluff near Carterville.
That spread makes craps in Illinois easy to reach from most of the state. A Chicago player has eight casinos inside a long drive, and nobody downstate is far from a river town with a table. It also means you can compare rooms on a road trip rather than settling for the nearest one.
| Area | Casinos with craps |
|---|---|
| Chicago and suburbs (incl. Joliet, Aurora, Elgin, Waukegan) | 8 |
| St. Louis metro (Alton, East St. Louis) | 2 |
| Central and northern Illinois (Rockford, Rock Island, East Peoria, Danville) | 4 |
| Southern Illinois (Metropolis, Carterville) | 2 |
The biggest names for Illinois craps
Rivers Casino Des Plaines, run by Rush Street Gaming, is the room most Chicago players know first, and it publishes a Fire Bet on its craps layout. Bally’s Chicago is the city’s own casino. Wind Creek Chicago Southland, run by Wind Creek Hospitality, is one of the newest large rooms in the south suburbs.
The large operators split most of the rest. PENN Entertainment runs Hollywood Casino in Aurora and Joliet plus Argosy in Alton, and Caesars Entertainment runs Harrah’s Joliet, Harrah’s Metropolis and Grand Victoria in Elgin. Bally’s runs its Chicago and Quad Cities properties as well as DraftKings at Casino Queen, and Boyd Gaming owns the Par-A-Dice.
Two newer names round out the list. Hard Rock Casino Rockford also publishes a Fire Bet, and American Place in Waukegan is operated by Full House Resorts. If you care about crowds and pace more than brand names, a weekday afternoon in Joliet or Elgin is usually calmer than a Saturday night anywhere near the city.
Illinois 16 casinos
- Argosy Casino Alton 1 Piasa Street, Alton, IL 62002 Google MapsCasino's craps page
- Hollywood Casino Aurora 2500 N. Farnsworth Ave., Aurora, IL 60502 Google MapsCasino's craps page
- Walker's Bluff Casino Resort 777 Walker's Bluff Way, Carterville, IL 62918 Google MapsCasino's craps page
- Bally's Chicago 600 N Wabash Ave, Chicago, IL 60611 Google MapsCasino's craps page
- Golden Nugget Danville 204 Eastgate Drive, Danville, IL 61834 Google MapsCasino's craps page
- Rivers Casino Des Plaines 3000 S. River Road, Des Plaines, IL 60018 Google MapsCasino's craps page
- Wind Creek Chicago Southland 17300 S. Halsted St., East Hazel Crest, IL 60429 Google MapsCasino's craps page
- Par-A-Dice Hotel Casino 21 Blackjack Blvd., East Peoria, IL 61611 Google MapsCasino's craps page
- DraftKings at Casino Queen 200 Front Street, East St. Louis, IL 62201 Google MapsCasino's craps page
- Grand Victoria Casino 250 S. Grove Ave., Elgin, IL 60120 Google MapsCasino's craps page
- Harrah's Joliet Casino & Hotel 151 N. Joliet Street, Joliet, IL 60432 Google MapsCasino's craps page
- Hollywood Casino Joliet 1401 Gateway Blvd., Joliet, IL 60431 Google MapsCasino's craps page
- Harrah's Metropolis Casino 100 E. Front Street, Metropolis, IL 62960 Google MapsCasino's craps page
- Bally's Quad Cities Casino & Hotel 777 Bally Blvd, Rock Island, IL 61201 Google MapsCasino's craps page
- Hard Rock Casino Rockford 7801 E. State Street, Rockford, IL 61108 Google MapsCasino's craps page
- American Place 4011 Fountain Square Place, Waukegan, IL 60085 Google MapsCasino's craps page
What kind of craps Illinois casinos deal
Every one of the 16 Illinois casinos in our directory runs a live dice game. You will not find card-based craps here, and none of the entries is an electronic-only room. That makes craps in Illinois a traditional game: a stickman, a boxman, real dice and a layout that looks like the one in any Las Vegas pit.
If you are new, learn the basic flow first. Our guide on how to play craps covers the come-out roll, the point and the bets that matter, and the pass line page explains the one bet most of the table makes. Ten minutes of reading saves a lot of confused looks at a busy Friday table.
Two Illinois rooms publish side bets. Rivers Casino Des Plaines and Hard Rock Casino Rockford both list the Fire Bet, which pays when a shooter makes several different points in one hand. It is a small wager with a large top payout and a high edge, so read our side bets guide before you drop a chip in that box.
Illinois craps table minimums and odds
None of the Illinois casinos in our directory publishes its craps minimums or odds limits online, so we do not list any numbers here. That is normal. Casinos change limits with the day of the week and the size of the crowd, and a figure copied from an old forum post is more likely to be wrong than right.
What you can count on is the math of the game itself. The pass line costs 1.41% of each bet decided, the don’t pass 1.36%, and the odds bet behind either has no house edge at all. Whatever multiple the table offers, taking the odds lowers your overall cost, which matters more than chasing the lowest minimum in town.
Watch the center of the layout. A one-roll Any Seven bet costs 16.67% of the wager, more than ten times the line bet. The single best habit for craps in Illinois, or anywhere else, is to keep your money on the line and the odds and ignore the proposition box, however loudly the stickman calls 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% |
| 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% |
Is craps legal in Illinois?
Yes. Illinois legalized riverboat casinos in 1990, and craps has long been part of the table game mix at the state’s casinos. A 2019 gaming law expanded the market, authorizing new casinos in Chicago, Rockford, Waukegan, Danville, the south suburbs and southern Illinois, and letting existing riverboats move onto land.
All Illinois casinos are commercial and regulated by the Illinois Gaming Board, which licenses operators, approves games and enforces the rules on the floor. The state has no tribal casinos. You must be 21 or older to enter a casino floor, and each casino posts its own house rules for table games, including craps.
For players, the law mostly shows up as consistency. Craps in Illinois is dealt under the same basic rules at every licensed room, the dice are inspected, and disputes go to a supervisor and, if needed, the regulator. What changes from casino to casino is the business side: limits, odds multiples, side bets and how many tables are open.
Online craps and Illinois
Illinois licenses online sports betting, but real-money online casino games are not licensed in the state, and that includes online craps. Sites that offer real-money craps to players in Chicago, Springfield or anywhere else in the state are not licensed by the Illinois Gaming Board, and we do not list or recommend them.
Seven states license online casinos, led by New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and only to players who are physically inside those states. For practice at home, our free craps table runs standard casino rules with play money, which is a sensible way to learn the layout before a trip to Joliet.
Planning a craps trip in Illinois
Call ahead or check the casino’s own website before you drive. Table counts drop on weekday mornings, and a room with three games open on Saturday night may run one on a Tuesday. Ask what the minimum is at the hour you plan to arrive, and whether the table offers more than the standard odds.
Choose by distance and mood. The Chicago-area rooms are the busiest, the river towns are quieter and often friendlier to a beginner, and Metropolis or Walker’s Bluff make sense for players from southern Illinois or western Kentucky. Our casino directory and the state-by-state guide let you compare Illinois with neighboring states.
Set a budget before you buy in and treat it as the price of the evening. The house edge applies to every roll, and no betting system changes that. If gambling has stopped being fun, our responsible gambling page lists support, and the 1-800-GAMBLER helpline is open around the clock.
One detail to check on the felt: what the field pays on the 12. Most tables pay double, which leaves the field bet at a 5.56% house edge, and that payout is printed right on the layout. Look for it before you buy in, then ask the dealer about the odds multiple, since that number is almost never printed anywhere.