Dear Mark,
I have a friend who once worked for me and his favorite
casino game was craps. I told him one day that my
only experience playing craps was while I was in
the military and we did not have all the different
bets that you can make today in the casinos. During
our conversation, the subject came up concerning
how many different ways a seven can be made. I told
him that I believe that a seven can be made with
six different combinations. He said that he had
been playing craps for over 20 years and that I
did not know what I was talking about. He was very
adamant that there were only three ways to make
a seven. I tried to explain why I think there are
six ways, but possibly my communications skills
are not what they should be, or maybe he is just
too dense to understand. Can you explain just how
many ways there are to make a seven so even this
stubborn fool can understand? Tom M.
Craps is a game played
with a pair of matched, numbered cubes. Each die (the
singular of dice) has six sides on it. The numbers
one through six are marked with small dots on each
side. With perfectly balanced dice, each side has
an equal chance of landing face up when rolled. Because
each dice has six sides, 36 different combinations
(6 X 6) can be thrown on one toss of two dice. Your
mulish pal believes there are only three ways to roll
a seven, but, Tom, the four (1 and 3, 3 and 1, 2 and
2) and 10 (six and 4, 4 and 6, 5 and 5) are the two
numbers that can only be rolled three ways
You are correct, Tom,
in that seven can be rolled six different ways (6
and 1, 1 and 6, 5 and 2, 2 and 5, 4 and 3, 3 and
4). To illustrate the difference, demonstrate it
by using two different colored dice, a red one,
and a blue one. The red dice has a six on it, and
the blue dice has a one. Then, show that same red
die with a one on it and the blue die having a six.
Continue to do this with all six possible combinations.
If your efforts fail to sink in, tell your impenetrable
buddy he has failed Crapology 101
