Your First Time at a Craps Table

Knowing the rules and knowing how to stand at a real table are two different skills. Reading about the come-out roll doesn't tell you where to put your cash down, who to ask for a Place bet, or why everyone just groaned at the guy who said "seven." This covers the second skill: what to actually do, physically and socially, the first time you walk up to a live craps game. None of it is hard. Most of it just isn't written down anywhere obvious, because everyone who already knows it learned by watching, not by reading.

Buying in

Don't hand cash to a dealer directly. Wait for a break in the action (between rolls, not mid-shooter), put your bills flat on the layout in front of an open spot, and say what you want: "change two hundred," or just wait for the dealer to ask. The dealer converts it to chips, stacked in the denominations you'll need to actually bet with, and slides them to you. This is standard everywhere and dealers expect it; nobody thinks less of a new player for not knowing the exact phrase, only for handing money directly into a dealer's hand, which security treats as suspicious no matter who does it, since it's the one gesture that looks like an attempt to pass something off the table's cameras.

Count your chips before you walk away from the table, and count them again if you cash out. Mistakes happen rarely, but they're far easier to fix in the moment than after you've left the pit.

Where to stand and why the spot matters

Any open rail spot works, but the spot changes what's easy to bet. Standing near a base dealer makes Place, Buy, and Come bets simple since you can just tell that dealer what you want and they're right in front of you. Standing near the stickman's end puts you closer to the proposition bets in the center but farther from a base dealer for the numbers, meaning you'll be calling bets out over more distance. New players do fine anywhere; it only matters once you're betting several things at once and don't want to reach or shout across people to get a dealer's attention.

If the table's crowded, standing near a corner tends to be the easiest spot for a first session: it puts you within reach of a base dealer for Place bets while keeping you out of the more crowded center where the loudest, most complicated action happens.

Who's who

Who stands where at a craps table The stickman stands at the center of one long side, running the dice and proposition bets. Directly opposite, the boxman sits at the center of the other long side, flanked by two base dealers who each handle one half of the layout. Players stand around the remaining rail on both ends and along the stickman's side. STICKMAN runs the stick & props BASE DEALER handles this half BOXMAN supervises, seated BASE DEALER handles this half PLAYERS (either end) PLAYERS (either end)
The layout on the felt is symmetrical because the crew serves both halves of the table at once, one base dealer per half.

Four people run the game. The stickman controls the stick, moves the dice back to the shooter, calls out every roll, and runs the center proposition bets. The boxman sits, watches for irregularities, and handles color changes and fills, the casino's own money supervisor at the table. The two base dealers stand on either side of the boxman, each running one half of the number layout: taking bets, paying wins, and collecting losses on their side.

What you can and can't touch

Chips and cash on the layout are yours to place; the stickman's stick, the dice before they're thrown to you, and anything already in a dealer's rack are not. The one rule that matters most: never reach across the table while a shooter is mid-roll. Dice in the air or about to be thrown means hands off the layout until the roll settles and the dealers finish paying, both because it's genuinely dangerous to the dealers' ability to track every bet correctly and because a hand near the dice mid-roll is exactly what surveillance is trained to flag.

Once the dice land and the dealers start paying out, that's the moment to place new bets or pick up chips you're taking down, not before. If you're not sure whether it's safe to touch the layout, wait a beat and watch what the regulars around you are doing.

Placing bets

Pass Line, Don't Pass, and Field bets go down yourself, directly on the printed area in front of you. Odds, Come, and Don't Come bets also go down yourself once you know where: Odds sit just behind your Pass Line bet, Come and Don't Come go in the box marked for them. Place bets, Buy bets, and Lay bets get called out to a base dealer instead ("Place the six for twelve," "Buy the four for twenty-five") since they land on a number box across the layout that you can't physically reach. Proposition bets in the center get tossed to the stickman with the amount stated out loud, since that's the stickman's territory, not yours to reach into; the stickman places the chip on the correct box for you.

If you're ever unsure which category a bet falls into, just say what you want out loud to whichever dealer is closest. Every dealer at the table has heard every version of "I'm not sure how to say this" and will either place it themselves or point you to whoever should.

Shooting

When the dice come to you, pick them up with one hand only, not two, since a two-handed pickup is one of the more common cues pit staff watch for as a sign of attempted manipulation. Toss them so they hit the felt wall on the far end of the table; a roll that doesn't reach the wall can be disallowed and re-thrown at the boxman's discretion, since a roll that never contacted the wall is easier to influence than a properly bounced one. Look at the numbers before you throw and try not to hold up the game for too long deciding, since a table full of people is waiting on every roll and a slow shooter is one of the few things that reliably annoys an entire table at once.

Shooting isn't mandatory. If the dice reach you and you'd rather not throw, just say "pass" and they move to the next player. Nobody is required to shoot to play craps at all; betting on someone else's roll is the default for most of the table, most of the time.

Superstitions you'll get scolded for

Don't say "seven" out loud once a point is on. It's pure superstition with zero effect on the actual dice, but it's the one norm enforced hardest at a live table, and someone will correct you fast if you break it, sometimes sharply, since a whole table's worth of Pass Line and Odds money is riding on that number not showing up. If you need to reference it, "the number nobody says" or just gesturing works fine.

Setting the dice to a specific face before throwing is tolerated at a relaxed table and rushed past at a busy one; the physics of a fair, properly bounced roll overwhelms any pre-throw arrangement, so it doesn't change anything about the outcome either way. Blowing on the dice, touching them to a lucky item, or any of the dozen other rituals regulars have are all in the same category: harmless to the game, meaningful to the person doing them. Neither category of habit affects the math. Both affect how fast you're accepted at the table, and a new player who respects the "seven" rule specifically will be treated like a regular faster than one who doesn't.

Tipping

Tipping isn't required but it's normal and expected at any table you're staying at for a while, especially if you're winning. Two common ways: hand chips directly to a dealer ("this is for you guys"), which they split among the crew, or make a bet on the dealers' behalf that they keep if it wins, usually a Place bet or a bet riding alongside your own ("and a five for the guys" on top of your own Pass Line bet). A bet for the dealers costs nothing extra if it loses; it was already earmarked for them either way, and dealers generally appreciate a toke bet slightly more than a flat handout since it gives them a stake in the same outcome you're hoping for.

There's no fixed amount. A toke here and there over a session, especially after a win, reads as generous without needing to be large.

When bets are working and when they're off

Place, Buy, and Hardway bets default to off during a come-out roll at most real tables, meaning they can't win or lose until a point is established, unless you tell the dealer you want them working. Practice this on the free craps table before you play live: the sim table defaults Place and Buy bets to working from the moment you make them, including through the come-out, which is more permissive than most real tables. Toggle its own Bets Off control if you want to match the real-table default while you practice.

You will not look stupid if

You buy in wrong, bet on the wrong spot, or ask a dealer to repeat something. Every regular at every table did all of that once. The only things that draw real irritation are reaching across a live roll and saying "seven" at the wrong moment, and now you know both. Everything else is just a new player learning, which every dealer has seen a thousand times and doesn't think twice about.

For the words you'll hear while all this is happening, see the craps glossary. For the actual bet math, how to play craps covers it in full.