The game of Craps and the gamblers it draws to its berth
is like no other game in the casino.
What always amazes me when I walk up to a Craps table is
the variety of characters placing bets. At any given table will be Mr. B.S. Loudmouth,
tossing chips and making demands of the dealer as if he’s the only person playing, or
Mr. Wall Flower, the quiet, demure, and unsure bettor who waits until all betting is done
before he decides to place his bet, is nearly hit by the dice, and has to be reprimanded:
“Hands up! Dice are out!”
Another amazing element is that the expected buy-in at
this predominantly male gaming trough, does not necessarily correspond with each
individual’s appearance. For example, I witnessed a man with bloodshot eyes, dirty
blue jeans and a tattered shirt (who looked like he just got off a Burlington Northern
freight car) buy-in for three-hundred dollars while the man next to him, who was
impeccably dressed and looked like money, bought-in for forty dollars. Another time
I saw a construction worker with mud caked on his boots and sawdust trapped in his hairy
arms, elbow his way into a corner spot at a packed table, upsetting those on each side of
him. He placed a $25 chip on the FIELD on the “come-out” roll,a two was thrown,
and he picked up his three chips and left, much to the irritation of the men he displaced.
And once I saw a woman who looked like Ma Kettle and
apparently didn’t know about taking advantage of the “odds” bets, place
five dollars on the Pass Line. She had a whole row of red chips in front of her. She
tossed the dice and six became her point. She refused to take the odds on her pass line
bet, resisted suggestions from the dealers, and proceeded to toss the dice for twenty
minutes, making money for everyone but herself...and happily collected five dollars on her
Pass Line bet each of the five times that she made her point!
But this one takes the cake. The most unusual dice player
I ever watched was a man wearing bib overalls over a well-worn flannel shirt, donning an
ageless John Deere cap that was badly in need of an oil change! He had the soggy stump of
a stogie in his mouth that traveled randomly from one side to the other. The dealers all
knew him and called him by name but I never heard him utter a word back to them. He
consistently made the same bet with his grease-stained hands. When I walked-up, he’d
placed a twenty-five dollar chip on the Pass Line and “four” was his point. He
took $100 odds behind his four and picked-up the dice, placing no more bets. This
conservative approach (conservative in the number of bets that can be made, not the
quantity of the bet) seemed to work for him with varying degrees of success as he had
about a thousand dollars at his disposal, however, I don’t know what amount he’d
bought-in for.
After several throws, he made his point. His next point
was the number nine, and again he took one hundred dollars odds. That’s when
something peculiar happened. As he was throwing the dice, with a series of
“craps” numbers appearing,I heard a high-pitched, rhythmic noise. It seemed to
rise in pitch and then drop as the shooter’s dice came to rest. The other’s
around the table seemed oblivious to it, apparently attuned to the expected outcome of the
roll.
My first thought was maybe it was one of those new, noisy
game show slot machines, whirring and sputtering when three seven’s appeared, or
maybe an air conditioning duct was clogged. Soon, I realized that what I was hearing was
similar to the chant heard at a baseball game (Hey, batter-batter) except it was
coming from the shooter’s mouth, “Hey, nine-er, nine-er , nine-er!” And
it must have worked, too, because that old guy threw the nine five more times, making his
point three times and collecting a nice profit--and never once did he show any emotion
other than that unusual pitch in his vocal cords, which may very well have been the ghost
of Walter Brennan!
If you don’t play Craps and you’re intimidated
by the seemingly countless varieties of bets or the noisy gamblers at the table, try
watching awhile. It is a fast-paced game, but if you desire to play, the dealers are there
to help, and the “stickman” should--and most do--hold the dice until everyone
has a chance to bet.
I can’t promise that you’ll win, but I can
promise you’ll have fun, you’ll learn the most exciting game in the casino, and
the gamblers you meet will probably be rich...at least, in character.
