Women and Craps

13 October 2020

By Frank Scoblete

They make up a slight majority of blackjack players. They make up a majority of slot players. They are about 50 percent of roulette players and baccarat players. They play Pai Gow Poker and all of the carnival games. Without them there would be no casinos throughout the land. There might just be Vegas. That’s a fact.

But they don’t play craps in any large numbers and they probably make up about two percent of the players – if that. Who are they? They are women who have eschewed craps since it was the number one table game in the casinos in the 1950’s up until it gave its title away to blackjack around 1963. That didn’t matter even though craps is now in second place behind blackjack – and women still stay away from the game.

Craps is a man’s world. Totally.

Just go to any casino and you’ll see the truth of this. Yes, you will find some girlfriends of men playing but they are just at the tables as arm-candy. They’ll stop playing once they get married or breakup with Todd Jr.

Real dyed-in-the-wool craps players are rarely women. In fact, a woman alone at a craps table is a jarring sight for some men, especially those older men who were weaned on the game that had no women players.

Why did this happen? Craps became a dominant game during World War II when men in the armed forces picked it as their favorite non-card game in their free times away from battle.

Craps had made its way to the Northern cities by mid-1920’s from its origin along the Mississippi River in the late 1800’s. A game based on the English game of Hazard and called “crabs” appealed to the former slaves and the Southern gentlemen and non-gentlemen. The name “crabs” was changed to “craps” because the Southern accent confused Northerners who thought players were actually saying “craps” as opposed to “crabs.”

It was a street and basement game played by men. They refined the game and played it extensively before and during World War II. My gambling mentor, the late Captain of craps, first played craps in the Army during the war.

When Las Vegas started roaring after the war, craps was instituted in the casinos and its popularity was unsurpassed. Men flocked to the tables to play the casino version of the game. And the women? They were told to “take this money and go play the machines.” Craps was not the world for them.

Indeed, I remember those World War II veterans in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s in Atlantic City being quite put out if a woman came to the table in those days. One old cantankerous gravelly-voiced guy said to one of the first women I ever saw at a table, “Lady, don’t you know this is no place for you. The slot machines are for women.”

Some women with whom I have talked do express a desire to play the game, or at the very least to try the game but the layout and the screams of the men have a tendency to turn them off. The layout alone can certainly be off-putting. All the boxes and bets can seem overwhelming to someone thinking of trying the game. The language of the bettors is also confusing; how can anyone understand what’s going on here? And chips are flying all over the place!

Those of us who play craps are so accustomed to the layout and the yells of the players that we aren’t confused or upset by anything in the normal course of the game. Certainly a player not following the rules of the game can be annoying but that is an entirely different thing.

I am of the opinion that more women should try the game. The layout is not really that intimidating once you understand what everything means. Proper playing strategies basically negate all the bad bets on the table and a smart player only makes the few – the very few – bets that are actually worth making. Learn these few bets and a person can play the game almost immediately.

Women and craps should enter the modern casino world. The time has come for women to throw off the shackles of past thinking and grasp the joy of rolling dem bones!

Come on ladies, give it a try.

All the best in and out of the casinos!

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books and at bookstores.