What is the Iron Cross in craps?
The Iron Cross is a combination of four bets made after the point is established. You put a chip on the Field bet, which pays on 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 and 12, and you place the 5, 6 and 8. Between them those four bets cover every total the dice can make apart from 7.
A standard unit is $22: $5 in the Field, $5 on the 5, and $6 each on the 6 and 8. The odd amounts matter, because place bets on the 6 and 8 pay 7 to 6 and the 5 pays 7 to 5. With those stakes every placed number returns exactly $7, which keeps the dealer’s arithmetic tidy.
Why only after the point?
Most players start the Iron Cross once a point is on, because place bets are normally off on the come-out roll. A 7 on the come-out would still sweep the Field, while the place bets would simply sit there doing nothing. Waiting for the point keeps all four pieces working together from the first roll.
- Pays
- 1 to 1
- House edge
- 5.56%
- Decided by
- One roll
- Can be made
- Any roll
What the Iron Cross pays on each roll
The Field is decided every roll, so something happens on every throw. On a 2 or 12 the Field pays double and you collect $10. On a 3, 4, 9, 10 or 11 it pays even money, $5. The place bets sit untouched on those rolls and stay up for the next one.
On a 5, 6 or 8 the Field loses its $5 but the place bet on that number pays $7. You net $2, and you have to put another $5 in the Field to keep the cross complete. On a 7 every piece loses together: the Field and all three place bets, $22 in one roll.
| Roll | Ways out of 36 | Result on a $22 Iron Cross |
|---|---|---|
| 2 or 12 | 2 | +$10 (Field pays 2 to 1) |
| 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 | 14 | +$5 (Field pays even money) |
| 5, 6, 8 | 14 | +$2 (place wins $7, Field loses $5) |
| 7 | 6 | −$22 (everything loses) |
How often the Iron Cross craps strategy wins
Count the table above and the headline claim holds: 30 of the 36 dice combinations pay you something, an 83.33% chance on any single roll. Only the six sevens lose. That is why the Iron Cross craps strategy has such a following, since a player can stand at the rail for several rolls in a row and collect every time.
The trouble is the size of those wins. Add up the 30 winning combinations and they return $118 in total, an average of about $3.93 per winning roll. The six losing combinations take $22 each, or $132. Over a full cycle of 36 rolls you would expect to be down $14, however pleasant the winning streak felt.
Waiting for the seven
A 7 comes up once every six rolls on average. Five winning rolls at roughly $3.93 each come to about $19.67, then the seven takes $22. The spread has paid you five times and still left you $2.33 short. It is a slow, steady leak dressed up as a winning system, and the dice rarely reverse it for long.
The real cost of the Iron Cross
Price each piece by its per-roll cost and the leak has a size. The $5 Field costs 5.56% every roll, about 27.8 cents. The $5 place on the 5 costs 1.11% per roll, about 5.6 cents, and the two $6 bets on the 6 and 8 cost 0.46% each. Together that comes to about 38.9 cents per roll.
Compare that with a $10 pass line bet backed by odds. The pass line costs 0.42% per roll on the flat bet, about 4.2 cents, and the odds bet behind it costs nothing. The Iron Cross puts roughly twice as much on the felt and charges you about nine times as much for every roll the shooter throws.
Over 100 rolls that gap grows from cents into real money. The Iron Cross is expected to cost about $38.90 against roughly $4.20 for the pass line with odds. The race above runs both side by side, so you can watch the cross collect small wins while the line bettor quietly keeps more of the bankroll.
The Field is the weak link
Almost three quarters of that cost comes from the Field bet alone. The three place bets are fairly priced for craps, and the 6 and 8 in particular cost barely more than a line bet per roll. The Field turns a reasonable spread into an expensive one, because its 5.56% edge is charged again on every single throw.
Iron Cross variations and a cheaper Field
Some casinos pay 3 to 1 on a Field 12, which cuts the Field edge from 5.56% to 2.78%. On a $22 cross that brings the cost down to about 25 cents per roll. It is still six times the price of a pass line with odds, but if you play the spread, find that table first.
Plenty of players also run the Iron Cross on top of a pass line bet, so the spread is working alongside a point. That changes nothing about the cross itself. The line bet adds its own small cost, and the whole position still goes down together when the seven arrives, which makes the swings larger.
Scaling the unit
The stakes scale in steps of $22: $10 in the Field, $10 on the 5 and $12 each on the 6 and 8 makes $44. Keep the 6 and 8 in multiples of $6 and the 5 in multiples of $5, or the dealer pays short on the odd dollars. Each step doubles the per-roll cost and the wins.
Cheaper ways to get action on every number
If what you like about this spread is having chips working on most rolls, there are cheaper routes. The 3-Point Molly keeps three numbers working with pass and come bets backed by odds, and each extra dollar of odds costs nothing. The swings are bigger than a single line bet, but the price is a fraction of the Field.
A simpler option is to drop the Field and the 5 and keep only the place bets on the 6 and 8. Two $6 place bets cost about 5.6 cents per roll combined, and they win on ten of the 36 combinations. You lose some action, but you keep most of the money the Field was quietly taking.
Our wider guide to craps strategy ranks every bet by what it costs, and the strategy lab lets you run the Iron Cross against any of them for as many rolls as you like. Before trying any spread with real money, it is worth setting a session budget with the rules on our bankroll management page.
Playing the Iron Cross online and at a live table
Licensed online craps in New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia lets you build the cross with a few clicks, and the payouts match a land casino. The catch is pace. A computer-dealt game can roll much faster than a live pit, and since the Iron Cross is charged per roll, faster dice mean a faster leak.
Live-dealer games such as Evolution Live Craps run closer to casino speed, with real dice and a human stickman on camera. Whichever you choose, the same numbers hold: 30 winning combinations, six losing ones, and about 38.9 cents of expected cost on every roll of a $22 spread with a 2 to 1 Field 12.
Setting it up at the rail
At a real table you place the Field chip yourself, in the Field area. The place bets go through the dealer: drop $17 on the layout and ask for the 5, 6 and 8. After each 5, 6 or 8 you will need a fresh $5 in the Field, so keep a small stack of red chips handy.