The progress of a game of Craps is marked with a plastic "puck", which is black on one side (OFF) and white on the other (ON) The first roll of the dice in a round of Craps is called the come-out roll. The puck is turned black side up (OFF) during the come-out roll. The basic opening bet in Craps, placed just before the come-out roll, is called a Pass Line bet. The Pass Line bet wins immediately if the come-out roll is 7 or 11 (natural), and loses when the come-out roll is "Craps" (2, 3, or 12) If a 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10 is rolled on the come-out roll, that number becomes the point. The puck is placed on the Craps layout over the box displaying the numbered rolled as the point with the white side up (ON) The shooter now keeps rolling the dice until either the point is repeated or a 7 is rolled to end the round. If the point repeats first, the Pass Line bet wins. If a 7 is rolled first (seven out), the pass line bet loses.

If any other number rolls you lose. This bet is placed in the area marked "Field" on the layout. Unless other Proposition bets, you have to wager the equivalent to a Pass or Don't line bet. For example, if the minimum Pass line bet is $5.00, you must wager at least this amount for a Field bet.

In this system, you raise your bet one unit if you lose and lower it one unit if you win, which means your winning bets will be higher than your losing bets. It would look like this in practice: 1, lose and go to 2, lose and go to 3, win and drop to 2, lose and go to 3, lose again, bet 4, win, bet 3 ad infinitum. It looks attractive, but the end result is the same: you will eventually lose your money. A ten loss series would have you down 55 units and you would have a helluva time getting out of that hole.

Some gamblers believe that you can recover your losses by doubling your bet every time you lose. This is known as the Martingale system. The idea is that when you win, the win will be big enough to cover your previous losses. There are two problems with this system: You may run out of money before you win. You can only double your bet so many times because of table limits, and so occasionally you will hit the table limit before winning – and this will be very expensive.