Keep drinks away from the rail. And definitely don’t hold your drink over the rail. Craps is a fist-pumping, back-slapping, wild game, so you’re bound to get jostled and splash your whiskey on the felt.

Don’t touch the numbers. Craps dealers keep a lockdown on parts of the layout. Players are only allowed to place chips on the bets right in front of them: the pass-line and don’t-pass bets, plus the come, don’t-come, field, and Big 6/8. The unspoken demarcation line is the come box; any bet in the numbered squares requires a dealer’s assistance. The same is true for all bets in the middle area; the stickman places those bets for all players. (Check out “Avoiding ‘Sucker’ Bets,” later in this post, for more info about these bets.)

Handle the dice with one hand only. When your turn comes, never use two hands - and keep the dice where the crew can see them. Casinos are justifiably obsessed with cheaters who might sneak crooked dice into the game, so these rules limit those chances of cheating.

Do your best to toss a valid throw. Toss the dice so they hit the far wall of the table and bounce off. This move ensures a random outcome and is considered a valid throw. Also, don’t toss the dice too high or too soft, and keep the arc lower than the tallest player at the table.

Leave the fancy pitches to baseball. Don’t fling the dice like a hotshot grounder to third - you’re likely to leave piles of rubble in your wake and generate a dirty look from the boxman. As a dealer once said of dice, “They’re small, light, and not made of dynamite.”

Two dealers: Each dealer covers one wing of the table. The dealer’s job is to change your currency into chips, help place your bets, and pay off winners.

Stickman: The stickman, who stands at the middle of the table and opposite from the dealers, is in charge of the dice. His job is to retrieve and deliver the dice to the felt in front of the shooter by using a long, straight, putter-shaped stick. The stickman also makes the call (announcing the results of the roll to the entire table), oversees the central betting area (placing all bets in that area for players), and instructs the dealers to pay out winners.

Boxman: Sitting across from the stickman at the center of the table, the boxman is also the bossman, overseeing the entire game, releasing stacks of chips to the dealers, and collecting cash for the house. He watches the bets and keeps a wary eye on the dice, the other dealers, and you and the other players to make sure everything’s on the up and up.

Shooting for the whole table

The shooter is a key character in craps because she’s the player who’s rolling the dice. In craps, shooting, or dice rolling, is a rotating affair. Each player gets a turn to roll for the entire table, and the honor moves clockwise around the table. When your turn comes around, the stickman pushes five dice toward you, and you select two. The only requirement to shoot is that you have a bet riding.

If you’re a craps newbie, you can refuse your turn to roll the dice. But I recommend you give it a try. Shooting is part of the experience of craps. Even if your first roll goes completely off the table or lands in someone’s drink, pocket, sleeve, mouth, or cleavage, the game continues, and nobody gets too upset. The stickman (when he’s done laughing at you) calls, “No roll.” Then the boxman inspects the errant die and gives you another shot at getting it right.