Real money craps can be played at any gambling site on the internet. I’d be willing to wager money that you could find a hundred places to play craps with just a few well-executed Google searches. Finding a place to play is the easy part.
What is not so easy is finding a good place to play. With so many options, it can be a major chore to sift through all the poorly written reviews and testimonials to figure out which gambling sites are legit and which should be left alone.
Where to Play Craps Online
The following casinos are three places where I’ve always had positive experiences. If you need a place to play real money craps online, these are the places I would recommend first. They are safe, established and (most importantly) they pay their winners.
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The Best US Craps Casinos for 2016
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The Best Craps Casino for 2016
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The Best Craps Casino for 2016
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No-Download Preview
Here’s a nice little preview that I managed to snag from Lucky Red Casino. The flash game below shows what it’s like to play with the no-download software at the website. If you can’t see anything below, it might be your browser. Try a different browser if you have one.
If that doesn’t work, you can just visit any of the above casino websites to download the software and it will work like any other program on your computer. As you can see, there are a lot of options in craps, it pays to take your time and learn the game before you play for real money.
Casino Bonuses and Craps
Online casinos love craps players, but they aren’t too fond of giving them signup bonuses. Craps is one of the few games that are almost always excluded from gambling promotions and bonuses. The reason is simple: craps has a low house advantage.
When it comes to deposit bonuses in particular, gambling sites will usually insert a little clause in the terms and conditions that states that craps cannot be used to clear the bonus. It all comes down to the low house advantage of certain craps bets (specifically the pass/don’t pass and taking the odds wagers).
You see, gambling sites don’t give out those big bonuses out of the kindness of their hearts. They want you to play casino games and hopefully lose a little money to help offset the bonus. That’s why every bonus comes with clearing requirements. The problem with games like craps is that the house advantage is so low that players could conceivably make easy money off the casino by clearing the bonus with a bunch of low-risk wagers.
So what do I do?
There a couple of things you should do if craps is your main game and you want to play online for real money. First of all, make sure to read the terms and conditions of every signup bonus you encounter. In most cases, you’ll see that craps is excluded.
If craps is excluded, make sure you do NOT get the signup bonus. There’s no point in getting it. Some casinos will give you a hard time cashing out if they see you with a large pending bonus and lot of craps wagers. Send the casino an e-mail before you deposit, tell them your account name and tell them that you do not want a bonus.
However, keep your eyes open for bonuses that DO work with craps. I’ve noticed lately that Lucky Red Casino and Buzzluck Casino have been offering reload bonuses to existing players lately that work with all games. You will occasionally see these “all game” bonuses listed on their websites or inside the casino software.
Keep an account open with a couple of casinos and watch your e-mail. You should get notices from those casinos whenever they have new deposit bonuses. In many cases, those bonuses work with craps.
Playing Real Money Craps Online
The basic rules of craps are the same online as they are at any brick and mortar casino. You place your bets, throw the dice and then place your other bets as the game progresses. The biggest difference between playing online and playing in person is that you don’t actually “throw” the dice online.
When you play craps online, the computer throws the dice for you. You click the “throw” button yourself, but a random number generator is used to generate the outcome of the dice. It’s just as random as throwing the dice in real life, but it feels a little different.
Other than the way the dice are thrown, everything else is the same online. The first throw either wins or loses outright, or sets the point. After that, you can place all the standard craps bets that you know and love.
The actual process of placing your bets online is similar to how it works at a casino. There will be a craps layout displayed on screen and you can click on that layout to place your wagers. There are areas for the pass and don’t pass bets, the field bets, the proposition bets and so on. Here’s what the craps table looks like at a typical online casino:
Strategy Considerations
Craps doesn’t leave much room for strategy beyond just knowing the house advantage of various bets. If your goal is to give yourself the best possible chance of winning, stick with the craps bets that have the lowest house advantage.
Take the pass line and don’t pass line bets up front. The don’t pass line bet actually has a slightly lower house advantage than the pass line but, but that will end up pitting you against most of the other players. When you play online though, it doesn’t matter. Take the don’t pass line bet when you play online.
After that, take the odds bet whenever you can. Most real money craps sites limit you to placing 3x odds. What this means is that if your original pass line bet was $10, the biggest odds bet you can place is $30. The odds bet in craps is one of the few wagers in the entire casino that has zero house advantage.
Place the maximum allowed bet on the odds whenever you can. The more you can wager on the odds bet, the more it lowers the overall house advantage of craps. Keep it within reason, of course. Nothing is guaranteed in gambling, even when the house advantage is 0.00%.
Other than that, there’s not a whole lot of craps strategy to know. Take a look at this post for a list of craps bets and the house advantage of each bet. Study that chart and get to know which craps bets are pretty good for the player and which bets have a high advantage.
And last but not least, don’t bother yourself with all those “secret systems” and “guaranteed methods” that you see for sale online. There is no secret system that can beat craps. Craps is a fixed-odds game in which the player has zero effect on the outcome of the game.
The game has been played at casinos for at least a hundred years and even though people have been selling each other “secret methods” for beating craps that entire time, craps is still offered at casinos around the world with the same rules that it has always had.