Even if you’ve played craps, you still might be fuzzy about “horn” bets. We can help.

Horn bets are commonly referred to as “not especially smart bets,” also known as “sucker bets,” mainly because the house edge is high-ish compared to other bets on the craps table. Who cares, though, right? Horn bets are a blast and keep the game interesting.

Come-out roll: A shooter’s first roll of the dice in the game of craps. Crap Numbers: Rolls of 2, 3 and 12. Hard Way: A bet on 4, 6, 8 or 10 that wins only if the dice roll as pairs (2-2, 3-3, 4-4, 5-5). Come Bets have the same house edge as the Pass Line Bet: 1.41%. That makes the bet, along with the Pass Line Bet, the second-best wager at the craps table. The opposite of the Come Bet is the Don’t Come Bet, which is a bet against the shooter. As you can see from the table layout, there are a lot of different bets to choose from. I'll briefly explain each of the bets below. (For more detailed information on these bets go ahead and review the post 'Craps: Odds, Payouts, House Edge'PASS LINETRUE ODDS 251 to 244 PAYOUT 1 to 1. In the casino craps table there is no room for odds bets and a lot of casinos allow odd betsto be placed as much as 100 times the bet placed for pass line. An example would be, if you place a pass line bet of $10 your odds bet can be $20 or up to 100 times that which will be $1000. For point numbers of 6 or 8 the odds bet pays 6 to 5. The Proposition bets are found in the bottom-right corner of the Craps play table, and they include both single-roll bets, which are resolved with a single roll of the dice, like Yo (11) and Any Craps (2, 3 or 12), and multi-roll bets, like the Hardway bets.

The horn bet is found in the middle of the craps table where the proposition, or just “prop,” bets are. A horn bet is a bet split between the numbers 2, 3, 11 or 12. A $4 horn bet is a bet of $1 on each number.

If one of your numbers hits, the 2 and 12 pay 30-to-one and the 3 and 11 pay 15-to-1. Horn bets are a one-time roll, by the way.

Craps Table Bets Explained Results

The layout says 16-for-1 and 31-for-1 on horn bets, but they keep a buck to replace your bet. The house is sneaky like that.

That’s the basic horn bet. You can always toss out a $5 chip, and rather than getting $1 back, you can ask the dealer (the stickman, specifically) to double up the bet on one of the numbers.

Craps Table Bets Explained Two

To double up on the 11, for example, the bet is “horn, high yo.” “Yo” is used rather than 11, because 11 sounds too much like “seven,” and craps players are superstitious like that. With a “horn, high yo,” $1 is put in 2, 3 and 12, and $2 goes on 11.

A “horn, high 12” bet puts the $2 on 12 and $1 on the other numbers. A “horn, high aces” bet means the $2 goes on the 2, with $1 on the other numbers. There’s probably a name for the bet where $2 goes on the 3, but we have no idea what it is. If we did, it would mean we have a gambling problem. (It’s “horn, high ace-deuce.”)

Craps Table Bets Explained

Now for the bad news: The “horn, high aces” and “horn, high 12” bets have a house edge of 12.78%, and the “horn, high ace-deuce” and “horn, high 11” bets have a 12.22 % house advantage. Translation: It’s only a sucker bet if it doesn’t pay!

Craps Table Bets Explained Against

So, now you know. And, yes, there will be a quiz. But quizzes about craps are the most fun kind of quizzes.