Casino Craps: Shoot to Win! - Ebook written by Frank Scoblete. Read this book using Google Play Books app on your PC, android, iOS devices. Download for offline reading, highlight, bookmark or take notes while you read Casino Craps: Shoot to Win!

1. Shoot To Win Craps Locations
2. Shoot To Win Craps Locations In Illinois
3. Playing Craps To Win

One of the most confounding casino games for rookie gamblers visiting Las Vegas is real money craps.

And that’s a shame too, because the classic dice rolling affair is also one of the most entertaining experiences on any casino floor. Even better, despite the trappings of exotic bets like the “hard way,” the basic wagers in craps offer odds which are among the most favorable around.

Unfortunately, due to the craps table’s reputation as the domain of hardcore gamblers, many beginners who want to learn the game never step up to take the dice in hand. This phenomenon can be attributed to many reasons, but first and foremost is the intimidating atmosphere presented by a traditional Las Vegas craps table.

Craps is a dice game in which players place wagers on the outcome of the roll, or a series of rolls, of a pair of dice. Players may wager money against each other (street craps, also known as shooting dice or rolling dice) or a bank (casino craps, also known as table craps). This is 'Shoot to Win Craps' by Aruze Gaming Group on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

And even when you’re not rolling the bones yourself, a crowded caps table can feel more like a frat party than a casino game. Everyone is shouting their desired number, yelling to the dealer to get bets down, and celebrating in unison when the shooter nails their point number.

As for the craps table itself, this elongated piece of equipment is always home to no less than five casino staff members working the game. You’ll see a boxman supervising the action, a stickman sliding the dice to shooters, and three dealers scanning bets to collect losers and pay out winners.

Throw in one of the more complex betting layouts found in any casino – one featuring several dozen unique wager types listed using all variety of slang terminology – and traditional craps can easily dissuade would be beginners from giving the game a try.

For these reasons, whenever I encounter a craps rookie lingering near the rail and showing hesitation, I politely suggest that they try a “Bubble” craps machine first.

Officially known as “Shoot to Win Craps,” these innovative machines manufactured by Aruze Gaming manage to recreate the game to perfection in a personalized play format.

The only thing is, many Las Vegas gamblers simply ignore these Shoot to Win Craps machines out of hand, mistakenly believing them to be bastardized versions of the real deal.

That’s what Scott Roeben of the popular Vital Vegas blog used to do, as the experienced local simply didn’t see Shoot to Win Craps as a viable alternative. Here’s what Roeben had to say about this first impression of the machine:

“We love traditional craps, at a craps table, with the chips and the cussing and the dice you can fondle, so we spent months just walking right by the Shoot to Win Craps game.

Until recently, when we sat down and played, and we loved it right from the start.”

After taking the time to play Shoot to Win Craps – which takes its “Bubble Craps” moniker from the plexiglass bubble used to house and roll large foam dice – Roeben took to his Vital Vegas page and spread the new game’s gospel to the masses:

“Craps can be intimidating. While craps tables are often the most boisterous parts of a casino, the jargon and fast pace of the game can be a little off-putting.

The table layout and bets can take some time to learn, so many just watch and move on to game they’re more comfortable with.

Shoot to Win Craps makes craps accessible to everyone, and even provides a lot of benefits more experienced players will appreciate.”

If you’ve ever wanted to play craps for yourself, but couldn’t quite muster the courage to put chips down on a real table, this page is here to tell you that Shoot to Win Craps provides the perfect entry point.

Shoot to Win Craps Machines Won’t Hit You With Hidden Changes

First things first… you’re probably wondering how the house uses Shoot to Win Craps machines to get one over on players.

In other machine-based replicas of traditional table games, the casino can easily adjust the odds ever so slightly in their favor to increase the house edge. Video blackjack machines largely eschew the more favorable 3 to 2 payouts on a natural 21 for the inferior 6 to 5 reward. And on a video roulette machine, you might find 34 to 1 payouts on a single number hit instead of the standard 35 to 1.

But on a Shoot to Win Craps machine, the payouts and house edge rates are identical across the board to those offered on a genuine craps table:

Payouts and House Edge Rates for Common Bets on the Shoot to Win Craps Machine:

This may not seem like much at first glance, but knowing that Aruze Gaming chose to design their Shoot to Win Craps machines with integrity is very important. I would never advise my readers to take a shot on an inferior wager, so rest assured that you’ll be facing the exact same odds and house edge rates, while playing for the same payouts, when you try the Bubble Craps alternative.

The Minimum Bet Limits and Odds Offered Can Be Much Better on Bubble Craps

Speaking of odds, one of the most popular and profitable wagers in craps – and all of casino gambling for that matter – is known as the Odds bet.

After you’ve placed an introductory bet on either the Pass Line or the Don’t Pass Line, and the shooter sets a point number on their come out roll, you are then free to “take the Odds.” Essentially, this is a second bet placed behind your Pass Line or Don’t Pass Line wager which pays out at true odds when based on the point number.

In other words, you’ll receive a payout of 2 to 1 on your money when the shooter rolls the point of 4 or 10 again; 3 to 2 odds on a 5 or 9 point; and 6 to 5 on a 6 or 8 point. And as the table above makes clear, the Odds bet offers one of the rarest sights in all of casino gambling – a wager with no house edge whatsoever.

Of course, casinos aren’t in the business of offering fair odds like this, which is why you have to place a perfunctory Pass Line or Don’t Pass Line bet first. Furthermore, craps tables nowadays have ditched the old 100x limit on Odds bets which once made Las Vegas the craps capital of the world. Instead, you’ll often see physical craps tables in Sin City limit the Odds bet to 3x on 4 or 10 points, 4x on the 5 or 9, and 5x on the 6 or 8.

Here’s how the various limitations on Odds betting can affect your overall house edge rate when the Pass Line or Don’t Pass Line wagers are factored in:

House Edge on Craps Odds Bet (by Odds Limit):

Now that you know how the Odds bet works, check out the list below to see how various Las Vegas casinos choose to limit this crucial wager:

Survey of Craps Tables in Las Vegas:

As you can see, almost all of these venues like to cap their Odds bet action using the 3x-4x-5x structure. And when you can find higher limits than that, you’ll usually need to place a higher minimum wager on the Pass Line or Don’t Pass Line to “earn” that right.

Conversely, players sitting at a Shoot to Win Craps machine can almost always limit their initial liability via lower minimum bets.

Almost every casino in town uses a $5 or $10 minimum on the initial bets when you play at a traditional table. But when you try the Shoot to Win Craps machine, you’ll be able to learn the game at a more leisurely pace thanks to lower limits – all while still enjoying up to 5x on your Odds bet:

Survey of Shoot to Win Craps Machines in Las Vegas:

Comfort Is Key on the Shoot to Win Craps Machine

Enough about the intricacies of craps mathematics for a moment though… the real hook offered by Shoot to Win Craps machine is ease of entry.

When you play Bubble Craps, you won’t have to worry about anybody else at the table sizing you up and pegging you as a rookie.

That means no dirty looks if you decide to dance with the “dark side,” a colloquial craps term used to describe Don’t Pass Line bettors. Similarly, when you want to splash around on some of the more longshot exotic wagers like the Any Craps, Hard Way, or Yo-Leven, you can feel free to indulge yourself without receiving a lecture from more conservative players.

And for pure beginners who are simply trying to learn the rules and basic gameplay, Shoot to Win Craps uses a convenient touchscreen input to make the betting layout easy to read and navigate.

You can watch this short video provided by Aruze Gaming to see exactly how Shoot to Win Craps machines present the game from the player’s perspective:

Conclusion

I’ll be the first to admit that as a longtime craps player, adjusting to the machine-based Bubble rolling can be a bit tricky. Cradling the dice in hand and letting them fly is all part of the fun, as is high-fiving and back-clapping your fellow players when the right number comes in.

But for folks who have little to no experience rolling real dice at the tables, sitting down for a session on the Shoot to Win Craps machine is definitely the next best thing. When you’ve learned the ropes there, feel free to take your newfound knowledge and confidence to the tables to complete your evolution from student to master.

This weekend I visited the Winstar Casino in Oklahoma (mostly to hit the buffet), and I discovered 2 casino table games I’d never played before – Shoot to Win Craps and Virtual Roulette. Both games are produced by Aruze Gaming.

I had some fun playing both games, especially since the minimum bets were so low. Below I explain all the pertinent details for each game, and I also provide some notes about my results on both games.

Virtual Roulette

Virtual Roulette is an example of something called an “electronic table game.” In other words, it recreates the traditional table games, but instead of using physical machinery – like a spinning wheel and a metal ball – it generates results with a random number generator program.

The most interesting thing about the Virtual Roulette game that I played was the video display. I’ve played plenty of 2-dimensional roulette simulations on the internet. They’re old hat. I’ve even seen some online games that were supposedly 3-dimensional.

But I’ve ever seen anything like this virtual roulette wheel.

8 roulette players sit in a circle around a virtual roulette wheel – one that looks astoundingly reel.

As the player, you also have a monitor in front of you that you can use to place bets. One of the aspects of the game that was interesting to me was betting limits. You could bet as little as $1 or as much as $4000.

If you’ve read much about the Martingale System for playing roulette, you probably already know that having a big gap between the minimum and maximum bet makes the Martingale more effective (even though it’s still a losing system in the long run.)

The computer monitors above the wheel display statistics about the previous 200 results. It includes what percentage of those results were red or black, for example, and it displays which numbers have hit the most often and least often.

Roulette systems players are bound to love this aspect of the game, even though the Gambler’s Fallacy is a mathematical truism that applies here as well as with mechanical roulette games.

When you’re dealing with independent random events, the results of the previous events have no bearing on the results of the next event. In other words, even if the ball has landed on red 8 times in a row, it’s just as likely to land on red on the next spin as ever – it’s still 47.37%.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve noticed that I’ve mentioned 3 sets of computer screens on this game, and you might be puzzled about how that works.

You have a monitor in front of you which displays the betting surface that you’d normally see at a roulette table. It’s a touchscreen, so you place your bets by inserting money into the game and placing your bets by touching the appropriate spot on the screen. I had some trouble making single-number bets, though – most of the time, when I tried, the touchscreen thought I was trying to make a split bet (a bet on 2 numbers). I eventually got the hang of it. Bigger screens might alleviate this problem, but I’m sure Aruze Gaming tested these games before manufacturing them, too.

The monitors displaying all the statistical information are in front of you and above the round monitor that makes up the actual wheel itself.

One fun thing about this game is that you get to “shoot the ball” yourself – this rotates around the table. To shoot the ball, you just move your finger on the touchscreen in front of you.

Shoot To Win Craps Locations

Another fun thing about Virtual Roulette is the progressive jackpot. This is a side bet and has no effect on the main game or the main action.

I used the Martingale System while I was playing, and I started with a $5 bet. I lost 4 times in a row before winning, so I almost lost my bankroll:

• Spin #1 – I lost $5
• Spin #2 – I lost $10
• Spin #3 – I lost $20.
• Spin #4 – I lost $40.

On my 5^th spin, I bet $80 and won, which won back the $75 I’d lost so far along with another $5.

This was just in time, as I’d only brought $200 to play with, and I wouldn’t have been able to place the next bet in the series.

So, I won $5 playing Virtual Roulette.

Shoot to Win Craps

I was more excited to play Shoot to Win Craps, because it gave me the opportunity to explain how craps works to my date before taking her to the real craps table. Like Virtual Roulette, Shoot to Win Craps involves sitting around the game proper, but in Shoot to Win Craps, you actually have dice in an upside-down glass jar of sorts. They’re big dice, so it’s easy to see the results after each roll of the dice.

Also, like Virtual Roulette, the minimum bet is just $1, and the game also offers an optional side bet on a progressive jackpot. The maximum bet was $4000. I’m sure the minimum and maximum bets are flexible and can be changed by the casino operator in charge of the game.

If you’re familiar with how to play craps, you know that casinos limit the size of the “odds bet.” This is always expressed as a multiple of the pass (or don’t pass) bet that you’ve made.

On the version of Shoot to Win Craps that I played, the limit was 2X.

I’m a proud low roller, so I was betting $1 at a time on the pass line. I was also making a lot of come bets. I maxed out the odds bet on those at $2.

The interface was intuitive and took no time at all to learn how to use, although, if you’re not familiar with the game already, it might take you a little longer to get the hang of it.

The dice in the game were far larger than the dice you’d find at a regular craps table, and they didn’t seem to “roll” as much on some of the rolls. I can’t imagine that they weren’t providing truly random results, because I can’t hallucinate a way that you could rig a pair of dice and keep your license.

Shoot To Win Craps Locations In Illinois

But I suppose it’s possible that the probabilities were somehow different from what you’d expect from a pair of 6-sided dice.

I bought in to Shoot to Win Craps with about $25, and I finished with $19, so I lost $6 total.

But I played for almost an hour on that money, so I felt like I got excellent value for my gambling dollar.

Playing Craps To Win

Conclusion

I know that Aruze Gaming has multiple other games in the casino, because I saw those games. They were located near the Shoot to Win Craps and Virtual Roulette games. The Wheel of Prosperity slot machine game was especially prominent in that area of the casino, in fact.

According to their website, Aruze Gaming also has electronic versions of baccarat, blackjack, “Lucky Big Wheel,” and Sic Bo.

I didn’t see any of those games, but if they were made with the same craftsmanship as Shoot to Win Craps and Virtual Roulette, I’m sure they’ll be a big success.

I’d almost rather play these versions of the games than the “real” versions.