Red Hawk Casino Craps
Each casino has their own way of doing this. I prefer the way the Grand does it. The shooter rolls a cube. The cube has the numbers 1,2 & 3 on it. They use 2 sets of cards. Each set of cards has a die marking on it. For instance, a 1 has one red spot on it, a 6 would have six red spots on it. The player rolls the cube. Red Hawk Casino near Placerville is the latest to offer a card-based craps game. The casino added two live card-craps tables to its mix of table games in response to feedback management received.
The uber-swanky Red Hawk Casino in Placerville (El Dorado County) is celebrating its first anniversary with two new card games: card-based craps and live-action poker.
The new poker tables - six in all - are part of a brand-new 60-seat poker room that casino management installed after players complained that there was nowhere on-site to push all-in.
The poker room opened last week.
Unlike those Sacramento-area casinos that use electronic tables, virtual cards and virtual chips (ahem, Thunder Valley Casino in Lincoln, we're talking about you), the tables at Red Hawk require live dealers who distribute honest-to-goodness cards and push pots of real chips.
Other pluses: three large flat-screen televisions, as well as food and drink service at the tables (and for those players waiting at the rails).
The downside: Currently, Red Hawk spreads only Texas Hold 'Em. Peter Nairn, vice president of gaming operations, says the casino wanted to 'start small' and focus on one game. He adds that if enough players express interest in playing Omaha or seven-card stud, the casino will add those games.
'Because of TV, most people know Hold 'Em best,' Nairn said. 'But our dealers know how to deal a variety of games, so if we get a list going for something different, we can accommodate that, too.'
One thing that might be difficult to have in the Red Hawk poker room: tournaments. With only six tables, Nairn says it will be tough to hold tournaments and live games at the same time.
It won't be tough to play craps at Red Hawk; two new craps tables opened last month.
Because dice games are illegal in California, however, these games revolve around a special deck of cards. Each card has a different die face on it; each player receives two cards from a multi-deck shuffle machine when it's his turn to 'shoot.'
The two cards represent the two sides of two dice that an ordinary craps player would be throwing for each roll.
Otherwise, the game plays like regular craps, with come and place bets, odds and so on.
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Red Hawk's new craps games also offer unique side bets. Two bets, which pay 34 to 1 apiece, allow players to wager that numbers 2-6 or 8-12 will appear before the shooter sevens out. In another, which pays 175 to 1, players can bet that numbers 2-6 and 8-12 will appear before the shooter notches a seven.
Are these bets exciting? They are. They're also terrible investments from a gambling perspective; the house edge on these kinds of side bets is astronomically high.
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That said, simply trying card-based craps is worth the effort. If you close your eyes, you can convince yourself for a moment that the cards are actually dice. After this, the experience almost feels like Vegas. My motto: Some craps is better than no craps at all.
Red Hawk Casino
1 Red Hawk Pkwy., Placerville. (888) 573-3495. www.redhawkcasino.com.