Street Dice Or Craps

Street Craps Sometimes called Shooting Dice or Ghetto Craps, this style of play is similar to the Casino game play, but with a few distinct differences. In the 1990’s and even as early as medieval times, craps and associated versions were often played on the streets though the. Craps is one of the most lively games in a Las Vegas casino, and it’s also one of the games with the most colorful jargon. Over the decades, craps dealers (many of them bored out of their skulls) have come up with clever ways of calling out dice numbers, often based upon rhymes. Street Craps - sometimes referred to as 'ghetto craps,' or 'throwing dice' - is a watered-down version of the casino game, often played in informal settings. The most notable difference is the lack of a 'dealer' or a formal craps table, making some of the complicated casino betting impossible in this setting. Street Dice is a dice game that debuted at the Downtown Grand casino in Las Vegas on May 16, 2014. It could loosely be described as a simplified version of craps, with just two bets and a maximum of four rolls to resolve a bet.

• Street Dice Craps
• Best Dice Roll In Craps
• Street Dice Or Craps Odds
• Casino Craps Dice

Street craps, also called 'shooting dice,' is a simple gambling game that can be played wherever dice and a flat surface are at hand. Although a relative of the casino game craps, street craps is simpler and faster. Players bet on the likelihood of one player (the 'shooter') rolling a certain target number before they roll a 7 on two dice.

Introduction

Street Dice is a dice game that debuted at the Downtown Grand casino in Las Vegas on May 16, 2014. It could loosely be described as a simplified version of craps, with just two bets and a maximum of four rolls to resolve a bet. At the Grand, the game is played outdoors with the dice cast inside a three-sided wood box, painted to look like an alley.

The dealer uses a claw to pick up the dice.

Rules

There are two bets only in Street Dice. Both are played with two ordinary dice.

Pass Bet

1. The Pass bet is made before the 'Set the Point' roll, the equivalent to the come out roll in craps.
2. If the Set the Point roll is a 7, then the Pass bet pushes.
3. If the Set the Point roll is an 11, then the Pass bet wins even money.
4. If the Set the Point roll is a 2, 3, or 12, then the Pass bet loses.
5. Otherwise, whatever was rolled becomes the Point. The object is to roll the point again, within three more rolls, and without rolling a seven. The odds depend on the point and on which roll it was rolled a second time, according to the pay table below.
6. If a seven is rolled after the Set the Point roll, or the player goes three rolls without rolling the point or a seven (I'll call this getting three strikes), then the Pass bet loses.

Pass Bet Pay Table

Roll	Point
	4, 10	5, 9	6, 8
1	5 to 1	4 to 1	3 to 1
2	4 to 1	3 to 1	2 to 1
3	3 to 1	2 to 1	1 to 1

These are the dice used. They are a little bigger than craps dice. I'm told the Grand preferred to use even larger dice, but these are as big as Nevada Gaming will allow.

Some readers might wonder about the bounciness of the ground. It is like wet clay. Sometimes the dice just lay right where they land.

Brick Bet

1. The Brick bet is made before the 'Set the Point' roll.
2. If the Set the Point roll is a 7 or 11, then the Brick bet pushes.
3. If the Set the Point roll is a 2, 3, 5, 9, or 12, then the Brick bet loses.
4. Otherwise, whatever was rolled becomes the Point. The object is to roll the point again the hard way* within three more rolls, and without rolling a seven or the point the easy way**. A win pays 25 to 1.
5. If the player rolls a seven, rolls the point the easy way, or goes three rolls after the Set the Point roll without doing either, then the Brick bet loses.

* The Hard Way is rolling a particular even number with both dice landing on the same face. For example, a five and five would be called a hard 10.
** The Easy Way is rolling a particular even number with both dice landing on difference faces. For example, a four and six would be called an easy 10.

Street Dice Craps

Analysis

The following return table shows the probability and contribution to the return of all possible outcomes of the Pass bet. The lower right cell shows a house edge of 5.02%.

Pass Bet Return Table

Event	Pays	Probability	Return
Set the Point roll 7	0	0.166667	0.000000
Set the Point roll 11	1	0.055556	0.055556
Set the Point roll 2, 3, 12	-1	0.111111	-0.111111
Roll 1 -- Point 4 or 10	5	0.013889	0.069444
Roll 1 -- Point 5 or 9	4	0.024691	0.098765
Roll 1 -- Point 6 or 8	3	0.038580	0.115741
Roll 2 -- Point 4 or 10	4	0.010417	0.041667
Roll 2 -- Point 5 or 9	3	0.017833	0.053498
Roll 2 -- Point 6 or 8	2	0.026792	0.053584
Roll 3 -- Point 4 or 10	3	0.007813	0.023438
Roll 3 -- Point 5 or 9	2	0.012879	0.025758
Roll 3 -- Point 6 or 8	1	0.018605	0.018605
Seven out	-1	0.248114	-0.248114
Three strikes	-1	0.247054	-0.247054
Total	1.000000	-0.050223

The following return table shows the probability and contribution to the return of all possible outcomes of the Brick bet. The lower right cell shows a house edge of 6.27%.

Brick Bet Return Table

Event	Pays	Probability	Return
Set the Point roll 7 or 11	0	0.222222	0.000000
Set the Point roll 2, 3, 5, 9, 12	-1	0.333333	-0.333333
Hard way win	25	0.027502	0.687538
Point made easy way	-1	0.088594	-0.088594
Seven out	-1	0.165009	-0.165009
Three strikes	-1	0.163340	-0.163340
Total	1.000000	-0.062738

This display indicates how many more rolls the player has to hit the point.

Rack Card

Click on any image for larger version.

Here I am making the very fist bet, which was Tweeted. Hopefully, that guy behind me wasn't holding his nose because of me.

Internal Links

• Die Rich — Similar game that appeared at the Luxor in 2006.

External Links

• Wizard of Vegas — Discussion about the game in my forum.

Written by:Michael Shackleford

Downtown Grand, formerly Lady Luck, opened on October 27, 2013. Even before the hotel’s grand re-opening, there was buzz about a new game to be offered at Downtown Grand: Street Dice.

The much-talked-about game will finally debut to the public on Friday, May 16 at 6:00 p.m., and we’ve got a first look at the game Downtown Grand touted as “unprecedented,” “crazy fun” and “unlike anything Vegas has ever seen,” which is technically the same thing as “unprecedented,” but let’s not get bogged down in details. Behold, Street Dice!

Yes, there are dice, but don’t get your hopes up about the “street” part.

We should get something out of the way right up front: The name “Street Dice” is a misnomer. The game is played on the sidewalk outside Downtown Grand, not on the street.

“Sidewalk Dice Under an Awning” doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Street Dice is, as advertised, unprecedented. And it can only be found at Downtown Grand at the moment.

It’s played on a special table, with a unique layout, and the dice are thrown against a large, enclosed, simulated wall.

Yeah, rumors of the dice being thrown against an actual wall appear to have been thwarted by the Nevada Gaming Commission. At one time, the game was going to face the wall of Downtown Grand, but regulators nixed that, so the game was turned parallel to the wall.

We’ll be withholding our “meh” until we get a chance to play. We’re fair like that.

The dice used in the game are not, as was predicted by many (including this Las Vegas blog), larger-than-life dice. No fuzzy dice. No inflatable dice. No epic dice. Just, you know dice, although they’re about twice the size of regular craps dice. They’re the largest legal casino dice, apparently.

Best Dice Roll In Craps

The dice are retrieved by a “stick” of sorts, but it’s really one of those grabber thingys you use to get objects off the high-up shelves in your kitchen.

Yes, “grabber thingy” is the technical name.

Now, for the layout and game play.

The brick motif is awesome, but would be even more so if the game involved actual bricks.

Street Dice Or Craps Odds

Players make their basic bet, then throw the dice. Go ahead and set them if you like. The “wall” you’re shooting against is 10 feet away, so controlling the dice would be beyond impossible.

If you roll a 2, 3 or 12 on the first roll, you lose your bet. A seven is a “push.” Only an 11 wins on the first roll (it pays even money).

If you roll something other than those numbers, the dealer marks the point, and you have three rolls to hit the number again. There’s a digital counter on the wall that counts down from three.

Casino Craps Dice

Counting backward from three is, you know, a lot harder than counting to three.

Payouts on the numbers, if hit, vary based upon which roll it is, first, second or third. For the numbers 4 and 10, hitting the number on the first roll pays 5-to-1, second roll pays 4-to-1 and third roll pays 3-to-1. For 5 and 9, hitting the number on the first roll pays 4-to-1, second roll pays 3-to-1 and third roll pays 2-to-1. For 6 and 8 (the most commonly-rolled numbers, after seven), hitting the number on the first roll pays 3-to-1, second roll pays 2-to-1 and third roll pays even money.

If you roll a seven (the most commonly-rolled number) after the point has been established, you lose your bet.

So, hit your point (win), “seven out” (lose) or fail to hit the point in three rolls (lose), and you start all over again.

The casino has wisely put the rules and payouts right on the layout, so even the drunkest of us can keep track of our wins and losses. Especially that last thing.

Thanks for the convenient payout table, layout designer persons.

That’s pretty much it. Easy game, easy payout table. To illustrate the simplicity of the game, we grabbed these photos as dealers (presumably dice dealers in the main casino) were being trained to run Street Dice, and their entire training took less than five minutes.

The straightforward nature of Street Dice at Downtown Grand should make it accessible to people intimidated by traditional craps, as well as those with far too much disposable income.

There’s one side bet in the game, just to keep things interesting.

The side bet in Street Craps is called a “Brick Bet” (again, no actual bricks, and this bet must be made before the start of a roll). It pays if an established point of 4, 6 , 8 or 10 hits as a pair, or “hard way,” within three rolls. On the “come out,” or set-the-point roll, 2, 3, 5, 9 and 12 lose, as those aren’t among the four numbers (4, 6, 8, 10) that can be made the hard way. A roll of 7 loses, too. An 11 on the set-point roll is a push. A winning “Brick Bet” pays 25-to-1.

Traditional craps has more than 100 bets and bet combinations. Street dice? Two.

So, will we play Street Dice when it makes its grand entrance at Downtown Grand? Yes! Do we expect to win? Hell, no!

Street Dice isn’t about winning. It’s about having fun, and it’s about playing a casino game outside. It’s a novelty, and it will definitely garner some interest as a one-of-a-kind table game.

Unfortunately, Street Dice’s hype doesn’t appear to match the final product (imagine that in Las Vegas), so we’re going out on a limb to say there won’t be much of a wait to play.

Downtown Grand can’t seem to overcome its challenging location, despite a number of excellent offerings nearby (including Pizza Rock and Triple George, both outstanding restaurants), and it’s unlikely Street Dice will have much impact there. Downtown Grand’s restaurants, like Stewart + Ogden, have improved a lot since the hotel opened, but even vastly improved food can’t seem to help the hotel’s struggling casino.

When it comes to Downtown Grand, we tend to follow the philosophy below.

Still, we love us some Vegas newness, and we’re looking forward to trying Street Dice during the last few moderate days of spring before Las Vegas slips into its predictable 100-degrees-plus summer. (When an outdoor table gets hot in Vegas, it really gets hot!)

Will you try your hand at Street Dice? If you do, we’d love to hear about your experience.