What bubble craps is and how the machine works
A bubble craps machine is a cabinet with a transparent dome in the middle and betting stations around it. Inside the dome sit two large dice. Blue Lake Casino Hotel in California describes its version plainly: two foam dice are bounced by compressed air or a mechanical mechanism, inside a clear acrylic dome, before the machine determines the result.
Each seat has its own touchscreen showing a full craps layout. You load credits with cash or a ticket, pick a chip value, and touch the spots you want to bet. A countdown timer tells you how long you have before betting closes. When it runs out, the dice fly, settle, and the machine settles every bet at once.
Nobody handles chips. Nobody shouts the number. Payouts land in your credit meter automatically, which makes the game faster than a live table and removes the arithmetic that confuses newcomers. The bets themselves, from the pass line to the hardways and the one-roll propositions, follow the same rules and pay the same amounts as the felt game.
Why casinos like the machine
A live craps table needs a boxperson, a stickman and two base dealers. A bubble machine needs a technician now and then. That lets a casino offer craps at quieter hours and lower minimums, and it lets smaller venues without a full craps crew run the game at all, often around the clock.
How to play bubble craps, step by step
Learning how to play bubble craps takes about three rolls. Load credits, pick the smallest chip, and touch the pass line before the timer ends. The first roll is the come-out: a 7 or 11 wins, a 2, 3 or 12 loses, and any other total becomes the point, marked on your screen instead of by a puck.
Once the point is set, only two results matter for the line bet: the point wins, a 7 loses. In between you can touch the area behind your line bet to add odds, which pay true odds with no house edge. Most machines also let you place numbers, make come bets and bet the field.
The second thing to learn about how to play bubble craps is the rhythm. Rolls come on a fixed timer, so the game runs fast. If you are still deciding, you simply sit out a roll. Nothing is lost by waiting, and no dealer is going to hurry you along or comment on your bets.
Is bubble craps rigged? What labs and regulators check
The short answer is no. The house edge on every bet except the odds is already written into the payouts, so a machine that pays the standard amounts wins for the casino over time without any help. That is also why rigging would make little sense for a regulated operator with a license at stake.
Machines sold to US casinos are submitted to independent test labs such as Gaming Laboratories International before they reach the floor. GLI’s standard for electronic table game systems says that when a machine plays a recognizable game, the same probabilities as the live game must be evident. State regulators then approve the equipment and can inspect it after installation.
What people sometimes read as rigging is ordinary variance. A 7 arrives on one roll in six on average, and runs of three sevens in ten rolls happen all the time. If you want to check a machine yourself, record a few hundred rolls in our roll log, which runs a fairness test on the totals you enter.
Bubble craps strategy that holds up
Every sound bubble craps strategy starts from the same numbers as the live game. The pass line costs 1.41% of each bet, the don’t pass 1.36%, and odds behind either line cost nothing. Placing the 6 or 8 costs 1.52%. Those four choices are the whole cheap end of the layout, and the machine changes none of them.
| 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% |
| Place 5 | 7 to 5 | 4.00% | 1.11% |
| Place 4 | 9 to 5 | 6.67% | 1.67% |
| Buy 4 | 2 to 1 less 5% | 1.67% | 0.42% |
| Field | 1 to 1; 2 pays 2 to 1; 12 pays 2 to 1 | 5.56% | 5.56% |
| Hard 8 | 9 to 1 | 9.09% | 2.78% |
| Any Seven | 4 to 1 | 16.67% | 16.67% |
A practical bubble craps strategy therefore looks dull on paper. Bet the minimum on the pass line, add odds whenever allowed, and for more action, place the 6 and 8 in units of six. That keeps your blended cost low. The place bets guide shows why the 6 and 8 beat the 4, 5, 9 and 10.
Place or buy on the machine
On the 4 and 10, a buy bet with the 5% commission taken only on wins costs 1.67%, far better than 6.67% for placing. On the 6 and 8 the order flips and placing is cheaper. Machines differ on when they collect the commission, so read the help screen once before you touch the buy boxes on a new cabinet.
The expensive part of the screen is the middle. Any Seven costs 16.67% of every bet and resolves on one roll, so a player who touches it every roll bleeds money quickly. The machine makes these bets one tap away and often highlights them, which is design, not advice. Our proposition bets page puts a price on each one.
Crapless bubble craps
Some electronic cabinets offer a crapless version, where 2, 3, 11 and 12 all become points on the come-out and only the 7 wins at once. Casino pages list electronic crapless craps at places such as the LINQ in Las Vegas and Harrah’s Oklahoma, though not every listing says whether the cabinet is a dome or a screen.
The rule change sounds generous, since you can no longer lose on the first roll. It is not. The pass line in crapless craps carries a house edge of 5.38%, because you give up the winning 11 and take on long-shot points like the 2 and 12. Our crapless craps page works through the numbers in full.
Bubble craps online, and where to find the machines
There is no dome online, but licensed casinos in New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia offer computer-dealt craps that feels much like the bubble screen, plus live-dealer tables that roll real dice on camera. You must be 21 and physically inside one of those states. Our online craps guide covers the licensed options state by state.
If you only want to practice, bubble craps online in the sense of a free simulator is easy to find, and one sits on this site. The free craps table uses standard rules and the same payouts as a real machine, so you can rehearse the timer rhythm and the odds button before you spend a dollar anywhere.
On land, official casino pages list bubble craps at Mount Airy Casino Resort in the Poconos, which calls it the latest electronic craps game, at Blue Lake Casino Hotel and Morongo Casino Resort in California, and at Prairie Knights Casino in North Dakota. Our casino directory lists more rooms with electronic craps.
Before you sit down at an unfamiliar cabinet, open the help screen and look for two things: whether odds bets are offered, and how large they can be. A machine that caps odds low, or leaves them out, removes the one bet with no house edge, and that matters more to your bankroll than the minimum shown on the screen.