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Casino Craps Gambling Game

Bank Craps and Private Craps

There is little difference between Bank Craps matter and Private Craps as far as the rules of the game are concerned. The big difference lies in the fact that Bank Craps players cannot bet among themselves; all bets must be placed on the spaces of the Craps layout and made against the bank. Hence the name Bank Craps. Another major difference between Bank Craps and Private Craps is that each bet made at Bank Craps has a percentage in favor of the bank. Bank Craps also has many bets on the layout which are not often made in Private Craps.
Bank Craps is usually played with Craps checks or chips instead of cash, although the Nevada Casino use silver dollars instead of dollar valued checks. Craps checks in most luxury casinos range in value as follows: $1, $5, $25 and $100 checks. Some sawdust joints deal in dime and quarter chips.

Craps Chips

Chips have been used instead of cash in European casinos for centuries. The reasons are obvious: (1) Since each casino gaming table is supplied with thousands of dollars worth of redeemable chips, the casino needs a much smaller bankroll to operate. I know of one casino in the Caribbean which uses $1 million worth of chips nightly, yet its Money bankroll is only about $50,000. (2) Chips in their varied colors make a fine background and make the dealer's job much easier and faster. The possibilities of theft by both dealers and players are minimized because chips are worthless unless they can be cashed.
Bank Craps today is played on a regulation Craps table about the size of a standard pool or billiard table. The first Craps tables actually were billiard tables; and the layout was drawn on the green cloth surface with chalk. A movable wooden rail, about 1 inch thick and 8 inches high, was placed around the outside edges of the table, forming a rectangular enclosure. This served as a backboard and also kept the dice from rolling off the table. The wooden was easy to remove, and the Craps table could be quickly converted back to an innocent billiard table in the event of a police raid.

Casino Players

Modem dice tables have grooves on the top edges of the rails in which the players can place their chips during play so that they do not clutter up the playing surface. The inside of the surrounding rail is lined with sponge rubber embossed in various patterns to help ensure that the dice rebound in a random manner. Online Casino operators, well aware that there are nimble-fingered players who have spent many hours mastering the art of making honest dice roll in a predetermined manner, insist that the shooter throw the cubes so that they strike the rubber-covered backboard before coming to a stop. The rail opposite to the boxmen's seating position is fitted with a 9 inch by 6 foot mirror. This is a protection device to help spot crooked miss potted dice that a cheat may have introduced into the game.
The mirror permits the boxmen to see the five sides of each die while it's resting on the table layout. On double-end tables, with two Craps layouts, one at each end, and two dealers working, this is not practical, so a string is stretched across the table's center on the cloth. The shooter must throw the pair of dice out and over the string so that they roll before coming to a stop. In most controlled dice shots the dice must hit the table soon after leaving the shooter's hand, and the string serves as a partial protection against such shots. Some spin-and-slide experts can bounce the dice over the string and still bring up the numbers they want, but smart game operators insist that dice must roll, not merely slide and spin, after they hit the table surface. In most Nevada casinos the string is not used, but the shooter must throw the dice past the spot where the stickman is standing; and at the slightest sign of a controlled shot, the boxman shouts, "Hit the boards."