Street Craps

How to Play Street Craps

In a nutshell: No table, no layout - Just dice, a point, and a 7 to dodge. You play with 2 dice, it's rated the classic shooter's game, and pass wins about 49.3% of decisions - nearly a coin flip.

Street craps - shooting dice - is the game the casino version was built from: two dice, a wall to bounce them off, and one question per round. You either shoot (bet pass) or fade the shooter (bet don't pass). The come-out follows the rules every craps player knows: 7 or 11 wins for the shooter, 2, 3 or 12 loses (the don't side pushes on 12, keeping things fair), and any other total sets the point. Then it is the oldest duel in dice - the point against the 7. There are no odds bets, no field, no props, no house at all in the original; just even money and the raw 49.3% heartbeat of the pass bet. This free version keeps that purity, adds a puck so you never lose track of the point, and wraps it in the usual session race: $500 in chips, double up to $1,000, fastest time takes the board.

Street at a glance

Goal	Run your $500 up to $1,000 the old-school way - pass or don't pass, even money, no layout in sight.
Dice used	2 standard dice - 36 combinations per roll
Difficulty	The classic shooter's game
Odds	Pass wins about 49.3% of decisions - nearly a coin flip
Family	Street & Historical
Bankroll	Start with $500 in free chips - double up to $1,000 to win the session

Step by step

History of Street

Street craps grew wherever the simplified American game traveled after Bernard de Marigny brought hazard to New Orleans around 1805 - riverboats, army camps, alleys and barracks. All it needed was two dice and a wall.

The name 'craps' itself likely came off the street: from 'crabs', hazard's losing throw, or the French 'crapaud' - toad - said to describe players crouched over sidewalk games. Soldiers carried the game through both World Wars, making it for decades the most-played gambling game in America.

John H. Winn's don't pass innovation (circa 1907) was invented to fix street games plagued by crooked dice - letting anyone bet against the shooter made loaded dice pointless. Craps.now deals the street game with honest seeded dice, free chips and a leaderboard in place of a sidewalk pot.

How to Win Street: Strategy

💡 Top tip: Fade when you want the math: don't pass wins 47.9% and loses 47.6% of come-outs once you account for the 12 push - a hair better than shooting.

Winning tips, in order of importance

1. Respect the coin flip - pass decides in your favor 49.29% of the time, so no streak, hunch or rhythm changes a nearly even game.
2. Flat-bet the session: with no odds bets to leverage, your stake size is your only tool, and consistency preserves the rack longest.
3. Points of 6 or 8 win their chase 5 times in 11 - the friendliest points to be shooting on; 4 and 10 win just 1 in 3.
4. As the fader, hope for a 4 or 10 point - your side now wins the chase 2 times in 3.
5. Never bet both sides - the 12 push means shoot-plus-fade slowly bleeds chips for zero thrill.
6. Speed is the street game's gift: two-bet simplicity means more decisions per minute than any point-based table - useful on a time-ranked leaderboard.

Advanced tactics for Street

1. Come-out anatomy: 8 of 36 combos win the pass instantly, 4 lose it, 24 go to a point - two-thirds of the game is the chase, so judge your side by chase odds.
2. Weighted by frequency, the pass side's chase wins about 40.6% of the time; the instant wins are what pull it back to 49.29% overall.
3. The don't side's edge over the pass side (49.30% vs 49.29% of decisions... effectively 1.36% vs 1.41% against) is real but tiny - pick the side that keeps you disciplined.
4. Since bets lock at the point, your bet size decision happens once per round - decide it on total bankroll percentage, not on the last result.
5. In real street games the 'house edge' is zero (players book each other) - the discipline you build here transfers exactly.
6. Track point distribution over a session: 6s and 8s appear as points 10/24 of the time, which is why shooters feel the game is friendlier than the raw numbers.
7. Want the same duel with backup? The casino table adds free odds behind the identical come-out rules - the single best upgrade in craps.

Common Street mistakes to avoid

• Betting both shoot and fade to hedge. Fix: the come-out 12 pushes the fade but loses the shoot, so covering both sides quietly bleeds chips every cycle.
• Thinking a hot shooter changes the odds. Fix: pass wins 49.29% of decisions no matter whose hands are hot - bet a fixed fraction of your rack and ignore the theater.
• Judging the game by come-outs alone. Fix: two-thirds of rounds go to a point - learn the chase odds (6/8 win 5 in 11, 4/10 win 1 in 3) and you know the real game.
• Doubling after a seven-out. Fix: the next come-out is the same coin flip as the last - streak chasing turns a near-even game into a fast bust.

Street Variations

Casino (bank) craps

The street game plus a layout: odds, come bets, field, props and a house bank - our main table, with the pass line at 1.41%.

Shooting against a pot

The purest street format - the shooter covers all fades from a pot and side bets ring around it. Our two-sided version captures the core duel.

Army blanket craps

The barracks variant rolled on a blanket - famous for teaching generations of soldiers the come-out rules used to this day.

Hazard

Street craps' medieval grandparent, with called mains instead of a fixed 7 - dealt on our Hazard table with the historical rules.

New York craps

What East Coast rooms built when they moved the street game indoors - box numbers at true odds with a 5% vig. Its own table here.

Street FAQ

Street guides & strategy

• Street craps rules, start to finish
• Why is it called craps?
• More craps questions, answered in plain English

Still have a question about Street Craps? Browse the full craps FAQ, look up a term like come-out roll or seven-out in the craps glossary, or compare Street with the other tables in the rules for every craps game.

Last updated 2026-07-03.