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!

A bar.

Building a bar in your basement can be as simple or as complex as you want. I have gone with fairly simple. Basically building a freestanding counter top.

The plan is to attach it to the blackjack table on one end to create the “L”-shape. I had to add the “cut out” on one end of the bar to allow plenty of room to stand behind the blackjack table and deal without having to reach over the bar counter. It cuts out some countertop workspace, but I can live with it.

Here are the plans I drew up:

Dimensions:
42″ tall (not including padded rail)
3″ padded rail
6′ long
24″ deep counter
24″ deep bar top centered on edge of counter
12″ overhang on bar top for legroom underneath
36″ tall countertop

phase 1: build the base frame

add the countertop

added a shelf and the first layer of the bar top:

The bar top:

It is stained with a blue tinted stain, Island Waters I think is the official Minwax name of the tint.

Just to ensure that it is fitting right, I laid the bar top on the base. Also added a few more shelves, and set in the new mini fridge I got from Sears to see how it fit. It fits nice.

Since the top was on the bar, I thought I would push it together with the blackjack table and get an idea of how the whole thing fit together.

Next step was to take the entire thing apart. Fun, Fun. It was a good practice run for when I have to take the bartop off to carry the thing downstairs to the basement anyways. Got it all taken apart and painted the inside black. Then I reassembled and put the bar top back on.

I padded a 3 inch rail (pictured above) with 1″ green foam from joann fabrics and whisper vinyl. Again, that process is documented in my poker table building post, and if you need even more help, read the padded rail maker’s bible

After I got it all put together, i layed it on it’s side and upholstered the front identical to the blackjack table.

After the bar was all put together and upholstered, I made myself a Brandy Manhattan, straight up, hold the water, and toss the cherry. Tasted even better from behind my own bar.

The only thing left is a few strips of trim to be nailed on around the edge of the bar top. After that, it’s down to the basement.

[update: check out how the bar and blackjack table look now that they are moved down into the basement k2 lounge]

Plus, I have this awesome layout that I want to display.

I used the standard poker table building technique, documented fully here, as the basic construction method for the blackjack table playing surface. Pretty much the same process as building a round poker table, except it’s just a half a table.

Used 2 sheets of 3/4″ pine CDX ply to cut the half circles. The table itself is a circle on a 36″ diameter, so it ends up being 6′ wide. There are spots on the layout for 6 people, but I think the original table this layout was on was a bit bigger than a 36″ diameter circle, and when they cut the felt off the table, the cut it a tad tight to be able to make it that big again (plus my basement is going to be a bit cramped with all this stuff down there), so that’s why I went with the idea to shrink it down a bit. Plus there were a couple cigarette burns that got folded over and hidden in the process of upholstering.

The chip tray was created by cutting a rectangle into both layers of the table before I added the layout. I didn’t really want to spend the bling to get a custom sized locking metal chip rack so i ripped apart one of my cheap aluminum poker chip cases and pulled the “chip rack” out of it and just set it in the newly created rectangle on my table. Trimmed out the inside of the rectangle with 1.5″ trim (still to be painted and brad nailed in) and there you go. perfect chip tray on the cheap. To “fancy it up” a tad, I put down a piece of scrap volera and covered it with a scrap of suited speed cloth for the bottom of the chip tray. Makes it nice and easy to pick up chips when they fall flat. plus, it looks kinda slick.

The base was made by cutting out a 24″ radius half circle, screwing a crapload of studs to it, 6″ on center, and then setting another 24″ radius half circle on top. Covered the base with 1/8″ hardboard. Used some t-nuts to put the playing top onto the base.

The rail is 3″ wide and padded with 1″ foam. I documented the process more in my poker table building post, and if you need even more help, read the padded rail maker’s bible.

I used a 1/4″ headliner foam as padding under the felt. Feels really nice. Not quite as squishy as the volera I used on the poker table, but works really well for this situation.

Here is the table with the base upholstered using black moleskin fabric and a layer of batting underneath. I’ll be using the same material for the bar that will sit next to the blackjack table.

There are just a few minor additions left to do on the table. Dealing shoe, discard tray, some trim behind the table. And I was thinking of adding a money drop slot, since the hole for one is already cut in the fabric from where the drop slot was located when the layout was used at the Hard Rock Hotel.

Other than that, it’s done. And it plays great. Now I just have to get it into the basement.

Construction was exactly the same process, differences were purely cosmetic.

I went with a birch veneer instead of oak, and used a light stain. The playing surface uses a midnight blue speed cloth ordered from yourautotrim.com, chosen to match the upcoming blackjack table.

I wasn’t able to come by a donation table base this time around so I went to the local restauraunt supply store, Kessenich’s, and lucky me, they had a cast iron base in stock that I took home that morning. At a cost of $43 for the base, it was a bargain for me.

Here’s the finished product in all its glory.

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