Should She Play Craps?

28 September 2023

By Royal Flushes

CINDY: Last week we wrote about a woman who wanted to learn how to play blackjack but she was afraid to go to the tables for fear of being slow and making mistakes in her strategy.

ABBY: She had a friend with her who came over as we were talking and enjoyed the conversation. Now, this friend was also a slot player but she wanted to branch out as well. The game she wanted to play was craps. She acknowledged that what intimidated her was the fact that craps seemed almost exclusively a male game as you saw very few women playing it.

CINDY: She was right there. While more women play craps today than ever before, it is still the province of the male sex. This is probably because it was a male game in the cities prior to World War II. When we first started playing, we were usually the only women who were not wives or girlfriends who didn’t play but cheered on their significant other. Most women were sent of to play the slots.

ABBY: This woman saw how many bets at the game were on the layout and that scared her. We explained that almost all bets at craps were bad bets coming in with percentages from four present to over 20 percent on the Fire Bet. These bets would destroy a bankroll and that might be very quick at that. The game seemed to be so fast too.

CINDY: The game isn’t as fast as it seems. Everybody has to make bets and that takes up time. Then the shooter shoots the dice and collecting and paying off the bets also takes time. The game looks fast but it is not as fast as it looks.

ABBY: So we told her how the game was played.

CINDY: How there is a come-out roll where a 7 or 11 would win for the shooter and a 2, 3 and 12 would lose for the shooter. We explained the darkside of the game too but told her no one like darksiders and forget about betting against the numbers.

ABBY: You can make a pass-line bet and then place the 6 and/or 8 in multiples of six dollars and leave it at that. You can also go the come betting route, which is a great bet.

CINDY: When a shooter gets hot, the tendency is to think the roll will last forever and the tendency will be to bet it up as your adrenaline is spiking. Don’t do that, stay at the same bets. Bet your normal game but ignore the other players going nuts. And feel free to cheer.

ABBY: Give yourself a set amount of money to play with and don’t go over that. You should also take your turn shooting the dice, maybe after playing a few sessions. Take your time and throw the dice softly. Here is where sometimes another player, always a man, who might grumble if you seven-out and lose the dice fairly fast. Ignore him. Shooting the dice can be fun and if you have a decent roll you get a big thrill from that.

CINDY: We went over to a craps table that had some spaces open and we watched the game. She saw how many men made those bad bets. I told her that it would be rare indeed if these fellows were ahead of the game for any length of time. Those bad bets were draining.

ABBY: After the game, we recommended she study the game and buy a book by Frank Scoblete.

CINDY: And that was that. We hope our new blackjack player and our new craps player enjoy their new games. I know the two of us do.

ABBY: Yes, we certainly do.