How street craps works when there is no house
In a casino, every bet you make is covered by the house. In street craps there is no house, so every bet needs a second player willing to take the other side. That single fact shapes the whole game: who can shoot, what can be bet, and what anyone is paid when a number rolls.
The shooter usually must bet before he throws, most often to pass. Another player covers that bet by fading him, putting up the same amount on the other side. Once the shooter is covered, the others can make their own bets among themselves, on the pass, against it, or on single rolls, as long as someone agrees to match.
In larger games the job of covering the shooter can rotate around the circle, a little like the blind in poker. It is a practical rule. The fader has a small edge under the usual rules, as the math below shows, and rotation shares that edge around instead of letting one person sit on it all night.
Street craps rules, roll by roll
Most games borrow the casino come-out. A 7 or 11 is a natural and the shooter wins; a 2, 3 or 12 is craps and he loses. Any other total, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10, becomes the point. Our guide to the come-out roll and the point walks through that sequence in detail.
With a point set, the shooter keeps throwing until he rolls it again, which wins, or rolls a 7, which loses. Everything in between is irrelevant to the main bet. When he sevens out the dice pass to the next player. Some informal games skip the come-out altogether and simply agree on a point, then race it against the seven.
The rules nobody writes down matter just as much. Players usually agree that the dice must hit a wall or curb, that a die landing on its edge or on an object is rolled again, and what happens when the dice are knocked. Get those settled before money goes down. Arguments after a big roll are how street games end.
Who holds the edge
Under casino come-out rules the shooter wins 244 of every 495 decisions and loses 251. At a casino the don’t pass bettor gets the 12 barred to hand that advantage back to the house. In street craps nothing is barred, so whoever fades the shooter keeps the 1.41% edge, which is small but steady.
Side bets in street craps and fair prices
Side bets street craps players make are simple. The commonest is the point bet: once a shooter has a 4, say, one player bets he makes it and another takes the seven. Because there is no posted payout, the two agree a price. The right price is true odds, which the table below lists.
| Point | Ways to roll it | Ways to roll 7 | Fair price against the shooter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 or 10 | 3 | 6 | 2 to 1 |
| 5 or 9 | 4 | 6 | 3 to 2 |
| 6 or 8 | 5 | 6 | 6 to 5 |
These are the prices a casino pays on the odds bet, where the house takes no edge. On the street they are the only honest benchmark. If someone offers you even money that the shooter will make his 4, you are being asked to win one time in three and be paid as if it were one in two.
Hardway bets appear too. A hard 8, the 4-4, can roll one way, against six sevens and four easy eights. So the true price is 10 to 1. A casino pays 9 to 1 on the same bet, and our hardways page shows what that shortfall costs. Between players, 10 to 1 is fair; anything less favors whoever books it.
What differs from casino craps
The equipment, first. A casino table has a layout, a back wall lined with rubber pyramids, a stickman and two dealers. A street game has two dice and a wall. There are no chips, only cash, no posted limits and no commission on any bet. The game is policed only by the people standing around it.
The pricing, second. Every casino bet has a fixed payout that includes a house edge, set out in our craps payouts guide. On the street nothing is fixed. That can make side bets cheaper than a casino’s, at true odds, or far more expensive when an experienced player quotes a price to a newcomer.
The protection, third. Nobody checks the dice, so shaved or loaded dice are a real risk, and nobody guarantees that the loser pays. A casino table, with its dealers, marked dice and back wall, exists largely to remove exactly those doubts. Our craps history page traces how the game moved from the street into the casino.
Is street craps legal?
Plainly, in most places it is not. A game played for cash outside a licensed casino counts as illegal gambling across most of the United States. Some states carve out narrow exceptions for purely social games where nobody profits from organizing them, but the details vary and rarely cover a game on a street corner.
If you want the real thing legally, craps is dealt at licensed casinos in many states and online, for real money, in New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia if you are 21 and inside the state. To practice the rules and prices without any stake at all, the free craps table on this site plays by standard casino rules.
Practicing the street craps rules at home
The skill that matters most on the street is pricing, and you can train it anywhere. Roll a real pair of dice a few hundred times, note each total, and check the counts against the 36 combinations. Our roll log records the rolls and runs a fairness test, which is also a quick way to spot a suspicious pair.
Then learn the words. Fading, covering, right and wrong bettors, the point and the natural all carry over from the street to the casino and back. Our craps terms glossary has them. And before any game starts, ask one question out loud: are we playing the 7 and 11 on the come-out, or just a point?