But, you say “chadd, i’ve never played craps! i don’t want to look like a complete tool and get yelled at by the dealers and shunned by the rest of the people at the table and have my girlfriend leave me and my dog get run over by a train and my house burn down and my momma not get paroled!”

Fear not!

First of all, you are not living the perfect country & western song (see minute 3:05).

Second, I’m going to give you the basics of how to play casino craps right here, in 20 easy to follow steps.

1. Walk up to the table and find an empty spot.
2. Set your drink on the bottom drink rail. All casino craps tables, and most home tables should have them. you never set your drink on the top chip rail. that’s for chips. pretty simple, the names give the purpose of the rails away.
3. Look for the big “puck” on the table. it looks like this:
4. if the puck is white and says “on”, just wait. if it is black and says “off”, put your money down on the table. never hand your money to the dealer, they can’t take it from your hand. just put it on the table, in the marked up part, and they will cash it into chips for you.
5. take your chips and put them in the top chip rail. not to be confused with the lower drink rail, see step 2.
6. put down your bet in front of you, on the pass line area.
7. if it is your turn to roll the dice, they will give you a bunch of them to choose from (probably 5 or so). pick two. they’ll take the rest back and then when you are ready, toss them down to the other end of the table.
8. some points about handling and throwing the dice:
   • never bring the dice back over the railing, you’ll get yelled at by the dealers
   • always use only one hand to hold the dice
   • blowing on dice is fine, having your hottie girlfriend blow on them is even better
   • always make sure you hit the wall of the table opposite you. you don’t want to look like a wimp or something
   • keep the dice on the table. don’t whip them off into the stratosphere, you’ll look like a dork.
   • don’t roll them into a bunch of piles of chips that are on the table
   • don’t throw them so hard they bounce from the back wall to the the front and back again.
   • optimum throw: lob them about chin high so they land just short of the back wall and then bounce against the back wall and come back at you a couple bounces and stop.
   • show some control with your dice throw, you’ll impress your hottie girlfriend
9. ok, you threw the dice like a pro, and in the process you didn’t spill a drop of the martini that you are holding in your other hand. very smooth.
10. if you rolled a 2, 3, or a 12, you lose your ‘pass line’ bet, and the whole thing starts over, but you don’t have to pass the dice, you get to roll again
11. if you rolled a 7 or 11, you automatically win your ‘pass line’ bet and the dealer will put your winnings down by your original bet, then you can scoop up your winnings, and you’ll get to put another bet on the pass line and roll again
12. if you roll anything else, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10, then that becomes the “point” and the dealer will take the puck and move it to that number and flip it so the puck is white and says “on” to mark what the point is.
13. now’s when you can play your ‘odds’ bet. this is an extra bet that you put behind your original pass bet. this is the best bet in the casino since it is paid off at the actual odds of rolling the number, with no casino cut.
14. how much can you bet on your odds bet? it is posted on a little sign on the wall of the inside of the table next to the minimum bet amount, and usually says 4x or 5x or 10x or something. that means you can bet that much times your original pass line bet. so if you bet $5 on the pass line and it says ‘5x odds’, then you can bet $25 on your odds bet. i’m not going to get into all the odds of what point pays what payout, just know that this is the best bet in the casino, and you want to bet as much on your odds bet as your bankroll can afford or you are allowed at this table.
15. now, let’s recap where we are: you have a bet on the pass line, an odds bet backing it up, a martini in one hand, and a girl on your side, and you just rolled a ‘point number’.
16. now you roll again. it boils down to this: if you hit your ‘point number’ before you hit a 7, you win your pass line bet and the odds bet behind it. if you hit a 7 first, you lose both your bets. no other numbers matter, if you roll anything but your point number or a 7, you just keep getting the dice back and you continue to roll.
17. if you hit the point number, everyone will cheer, you’ll stand back, finish your martini and flag down the cocktail waitress while the dealer pays you out by stacking chips next to your bets.
18. scoop up your bets and order your next martini (remember to tip).
19. no matter if you hit your point or not, the dealers will then flip the puck back to the black off position and move it to the side. then, if you hit your point, you’ll get to keep the dice, otherwise, the dealers will pass them to the next guy.
20. start over at step 6.

Yes, there’s a ton of other bets that you can make at a craps table, and you’ll see people throwing money all over the place. But this is the basics, and will get you into the fun. If you can follow those steps, you will look like you know what you are doing, and you will be playing the highest player advantage strategy.

Have fun and see you at the tables!

Where did I leave off. In our last episode, we left our hero with a craps table with no trim, no inside finishing done, things not painted and only one rail padded. A dire predicament indeed.

I made the second padded rail and painted all the exposed wood (see part 8 on the making of the rail). Then moved it down to the K2 lounge (basement) to put it into use.

It sat like that as I worked on various other projects until I found out I was going to be filmed for a new HGTV show called “Man Land”. That lit the fire under my butt to get this thing finished.

So here’s what I did:

Added some side trim pieces to cover the staples in the upholstered outside of the tub. Just some simple pine trim half round, painted gloss black, and attached with finishing nails.

After my previous experiences, I gave up on the idea of having a curved mirror and just cut a cheap ($2.50 on sale) full length mirror to fit. Glued it in place, done and done. I surrounded the mirror with the self stick vinyl tile I used on the other side of the inside of the tub. Looks pretty slick. In these photos, the flash really reflects off the white edges of the tile, but in person, you can hardly see the edges after i went over them with a black Sharpie.

The biggest dilemma was how to trim the curved top of the sides of the tub. I debated using everything from rubber door seal to vacuum cleaner hose, but nothing seemed to work. Either it didn’t fit right or it didn’t look right. Ended up slapping on some more of that self stick vinyl tile and it actually turned out pretty good. Gives it a good finish and shows off the curve nicely.

All in all, it was a fun project. Took way too long, but that’s how it goes. I’m happy with the result, even without the chip rail. Plus it’s been a lot of fun to play on.

Now if I could just find the perfect betting system…

After getting it assembled, I made a trip to JoAnn fabrics to pick up foam and vinyl. If you ever have a question about fabric or upholstering, just ask those ladies that work there. They answered all my questions and were a great help in choosing the right materials. I couldn’t believe how excited they were to “help this nice young man with his project”. According to one lady, it is more fun to help the men that come in since they are doing the fun projects like poker tables, boat upholstering, bar rails, etc. In reality, I think she was just hitting on me.
Ended up getting 3 yards of Black Dakota Vinyl, and one sheet of 1″ HD foam. The only HD foam they had came in pieces about 24″ wide, so I ended up having to piece it together to cover the whole rail.

Got the vinyl stretched on, stapled, and trimmed on one side and then ran out of staples, so I still have one side to go.

Since I couldn’t do the other rail, I thought I would tackle cutting the mirror to fit for the inside stickman wall. Let’s just say that cutting a mirror is a bit more difficult than scoring and snapping a piece of drywall. I ended up breaking three mirrors before I gave that up for the night. I’m hoping that I can find a mirror that will fit if I just keep an eye out. If not, I’ll be taking a mirror down to the local glass shop to have them cut it. Three broken mirrors of bad luck is enough for me.

go to part 9 – the finale

In preperation, a few days back, I took a piece of 1/2″ OSB and cut out a shape that would exactly fit inside the “tub” when dropped in. You can see it in the background here:
It is that big piece of OSB standing vertically in the back, leaning against the wall. I had to make sure that it fit nice and snug when dropped in, so it took a few trimming cuts with the jigsaw to get everything with as little gap around the edge as possible when laid into the table. What I ended up with went from snug fitting to at most a 3/16″ gap.

I took that OSB and laid out the felt playing surface, getting it straight and centered as possible, and then folded the overhang around to the bottom and stapled. Flipped it over, cut the triangles out of the corners and made sure there was never any overlapping fabric. Cut off any excess cloth and dropped that sucker into the table. It fit like a glove. [insert witty OJ/Johnnie Cochran comment here] I cut a couple finger holes in the bottom of the table, so that if I ever want to take that layout out of the table, I can just push up from the bottom to be able to grab it.
Once the layout was in, I could put the pyramid rubber back into the ends. I decided to just tack them in with a few well placed finishing nails. You can hardly see them and they hold fine.

Then I started applying the self-stick vinyl tile to the dealer side of the inside of the craps table.

This was fairly simple and gave it a nice glossy black finish. Again, ignore the white lines in betweend tiles, as my poor photography has brought them out with a bad flash or something. In normal light you cannot see the tile seams, except at very extreme angles. I think I might go in and use a black magic marker and see if that hides those seams.

Next I think will be attempting to cover the stickman side of the inside table with a mirror. I have a cheap ($5) wall mirror that I am going to attempt to cut to fit. After that, I’ll be starting the padded rail, which will be a project in and of itslef. Other than that, all that is left is trim details on the base corners and edges and the trim to cover the seams in the upholstery.

I think there is a craps night at my house in the very near future.

continue to part 8

Still debating the best way to put the layout in. Leaning to the method of using the OSB that I cut out and gluing the layout onto it and then dropping it into the table and pulling it down with some T nuts. My only worry is that you will see the cut edge of the layout after it is in there.

One thing I have learned is that the basic construction is the easy part, it’s the finishing so you like how it looks that takes forever. I started painting the base and underside and any other exposed wood a high-gloss black. Got about 3 coats on everything and now am starting the clear lacquer spray to give it a nice glossy look.

While the paint was drying, I started putting in the tiles for the drink rail. Used black vinyl self-stick tiles and just cut them to fit. Was a pretty simple process. Only wasted one tile with bad cuts, but at 66 cents a tile, I’m not feeling too bad about it.

You may notice that in the photos, you can clearly see the seams between tiles as a white line. I think that’s just an effect of my flash because in normal light, the seam is not noticable at all. Just looks like one smooth surface.

Ended up this evening by stepping on a nail, so that was fun. Luckily, just a finishing nail, and it only went in a half inch or so. Just got my tetanus shot, so no worries there, but it did signal an end to the construction this evening.

I think the next step is to tackle the playing surface itself and get that into place.

Continue to Part 7