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I hesitated calling this the art of practicing craps at home, but we're all sophisticated people here, so I probably didn't need to call this blog "dice," did I? Well, anyway, a friend of mine was ogling a craps table on eBay, for just $5,000. I, suggested other options. Aside from actually buying a full-size casino craps table for $1,200 or so locally (check the paper, Craig's list, etc.), you might want to consider just going to your local casino and playing the game itself.

Silly, I know.

Even if you want to practice the art of dice control, it's a lot cheaper to play the game live with a $3 bet on the line (sure, $5 sometimes - or don't play when the crowd pushes the game to a $10 or $15 minimum) and do all you strange contortions and weird betting patterns. In fact, if you bet $5 on the line and don't make any other bets, you can expect that the 1.41 percent edge the house has is only going to cost you a few bucks an hour. If there are 21 decisions and you lose 11 and win 10, well, that's $5. Have a free drink and enjoy your practice session. Is it really necessary to get a $5,000 table to practice on? You can always buy one of those shadow-box kind of deals with the egg-shell rubber padding and about 3-feet of wood and felt to toss the dice into. They only cost about $100 delivered.

If you do go to the casino, you also might consider looking at a few of the craps side-bets offered these days, especially in Mississippi. My favorite is Fire Bet and Sharp Shooter, where you get a pretty large payoff for making 3 or more points in a row.

In fact, you could just bet the line, toss the dice yourself all day, and make that side-bet, and if you really do keep from throwing a 7-out, you can get 29 to 1 for six points, and at Fire Bet, you get 1,000 to 1 for making at least one of each of the points (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10). That's enough to buy your own table!

Back on the subject of practicing at home, learn the odds and practice how to add a few wagers (come, place, buy bets) to a going hand and that's really all you'll need. Dice is a lot more fun on a busy game at a real casino. Try it, you'll like it.