5 Biggest Craps Rolls in History: Records, Odds and the Golden Arm

The longest craps roll in history belongs to Patricia DeMauro, a grandmother from Denville, New Jersey, who threw the dice 154 times over 4 hours and 18 minutes at the Borgata in Atlantic City on 23 May 2009. Guinness World Records lists it as the record. Before her, Stanley Fujitake held the mark for almost 20 years with 118 rolls at the California Hotel in downtown Las Vegas in May 1989.

Those two hands are the only long rolls with solid documentation. Below are the five biggest craps rolls and runs on record, what is confirmed about each, what is only anecdote, and the maths that shows how rare a 154-roll hand really is.

The 5 Biggest Craps Rolls at a Glance

How a Craps Hand Works (and Why Most End Fast)

A “roll” in these stories means a shooter’s whole hand: every throw from the first come-out roll until the shooter sevens out. On the come-out, 7 or 11 wins for the pass line, while 2, 3 or 12 (craps) loses. Any other total (4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10) becomes the point. The shooter then keeps throwing until the point repeats (a pass, followed by a new come-out) or a 7 appears (seven-out, and the dice move on).

Crucially, losing a pass line bet on the come-out with 2, 3 or 12 does not end the hand. Only a 7 thrown after a point is set does. That is why a shooter can throw well over a hundred times. Still, 7 is the most common total: six of the 36 dice combinations make it, a 1 in 6 chance on every throw. An average hand lasts about 8.5 rolls, and roughly half of all hands are over within 6 rolls.

New to the game? Our online craps guide covers the table layout and flow of play, and the common craps bets guide explains each wager.

1. Patricia DeMauro: 154 Rolls at the Borgata (2009)

DeMauro was playing craps for only the second time when she stepped up to a table at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa on the evening of Saturday 23 May 2009, according to Associated Press reporting at the time. A $100 buy-in was all she started with. DeMauro did not seven out until the 154th roll, at around 12:31 a.m., which put her hand at 4 hours and 18 minutes.

Guinness World Records lists the feat as the longest craps roll: 154 throws before a 7 finally ended her streak. Along the way she made 25 passes. That beat Fujitake’s 1989 mark by 1 hour and 12 minutes.

How much did she win? Nobody outside the casino knows. Borgata management declined to say, and DeMauro never published a figure, so any “six-figure” claim you may read is guesswork. What is on record is the reaction: the crowd around the table grew through the night and the casino toasted her with champagne when the hand finally ended.

Many articles quote odds of 1 in 1.56 trillion for her hand, which is wrong. In reality the figure is about 1 in 5.59 billion, explained in the odds section below.

2. Stanley Fujitake: 118 Rolls at the California (1989)

Stanley Fujitake, a regular from Honolulu, picked up the dice at the California Hotel and Casino in downtown Las Vegas in the early hours of 28 May 1989. The Boyd Gaming property has long drawn a large Hawaiian clientele. Fujitake held the dice from about 1:00 a.m. to 4:06 a.m., a hand of 3 hours and 6 minutes and 118 rolls. Mathematicians S. N. Ethier and Fred M. Hoppe note that casino staff replayed the surveillance tape to confirm both the roll count and the duration.

Word spread and the table went wild. According to the Las Vegas Advisor, 30 to 40 players crowded in to bet, the dealers struggled to keep up with payouts, and the casino ran out of $1,000 chips and had to start issuing scrip. In total the California lost more than $1 million, the biggest single table-game loss in its history. One player reportedly took about $100,000, the biggest win at the table, while Fujitake himself won roughly $30,000.

Fujitake’s hand earned him the nickname “The Golden Arm”. He went on to hold the dice for more than an hour on three other occasions, the best of them lasting 1 hour and 36 minutes.

The Golden Arm Club

The California later created the Golden Arm Club for any shooter who holds the dice for 60 minutes or more without sevening out. By 2022 it had more than 320 members, and before the pandemic about one new member joined each month, according to the Las Vegas Advisor. Members’ plaques hang on the pedestrian bridge between the California and Main Street Station. Fujitake’s record stood for almost exactly 20 years until DeMauro’s hand.

3. “The Captain”: A Reported 147-Roll Hand in Atlantic City (2005)

Craps writer Frank Scoblete has written about a player he calls “the Captain”, who is said to have thrown 147 consecutive rolls in Atlantic City in 2005. Ethier and Hoppe, in their 2009 paper on DeMauro’s record, mention the same hand as 148 rolls in July 2005, but add that it is not well documented and was unknown to Borgata officials.

Treat this one as an anecdote. There is no casino confirmation, no surveillance review and no Guinness entry, and even the roll count differs between accounts. If it happened as told, it would still fall short of DeMauro’s 154. It is included here because it is often cited in craps circles, and readers searching for the longest rolls will meet it.

4. The Tropicana High Roller: $5.3 Million in Six Hours (2011)

Not every famous craps hand is famous for its length. In June 2011 an unnamed gambler won about $5.3 million at the Tropicana Casino and Resort in Atlantic City during a six-hour hot streak, betting as much as $100,000 at a time. Most of the money came from craps, with some from blackjack and mini-baccarat. The player left a tip of more than $150,000 for the table games dealers who worked that night.

The Tropicana declined to name him, citing customer privacy, and confirmed it was not Don Johnson, the blackjack player who had taken $5.8 million from the same casino in April 2011. Tropicana chief executive Tony Rodio, defending the casino’s high table limits, summed it up: “Sometimes you’re the bug, and sometimes you’re the windshield.”

Duration is the only figure on record here; the number of throws was never published. It belongs on the list because it remains one of the largest single-session craps wins reported in the United States.

5. Archie Karas at Binion’s Horseshoe (1990s)

Archie Karas’s “Run” is the most famous winning streak in Las Vegas history, and craps was a big part of it. Karas arrived in Las Vegas in December 1992 with about $50 and borrowed $10,000. Over the following years he turned that into more than $40 million playing razz, seven-card stud, pool, craps and baccarat, beating poker players such as Stu Ungar and Chip Reese along the way.

At Binion’s Horseshoe he was allowed pass line and come bets of up to $300,000 without odds, according to accounts summarised on Wikipedia. That limit would be unthinkable at most casinos today.

The run did not last. In about three weeks in 1995 Karas lost roughly $11 million at craps, $17 million at baccarat and $2 million to Chip Reese. He went back with what was left and lost almost all of that too. Unlike DeMauro and Fujitake, his story is not a single hand but a streak over many sessions, and exact figures vary between sources. It shows what the house edge does to any bankroll over time, however large.

Odds of a Long Craps Roll

Because a hand only ends on a seven-out, its length depends on where the game sits: on the come-out a 7 is a winner, but once a point is set a 7 ends the hand. The chance that a hand reaches a given number of rolls therefore has to be worked out roll by roll (a Markov chain), not with a single power of 5/6. The table below shows our calculation, which matches the published figures from Wizard of Odds’ Michael Shackleford and from Ethier and Hoppe.

Why “1 in 1.56 trillion” is the wrong number

The 1.56 trillion figure comes from (5/6) raised to the power 154: the chance of throwing 154 dice rolls in a row without a single 7. That is not what DeMauro did. She could throw 7s on come-out rolls, and each one was a winner that kept her hand alive. Ethier and Hoppe call the trillion figure “the right answer to the wrong question”. Michael Shackleford calculated the correct probability on 2 June 2009 as 1 in 5,590,264,072, and Ethier and Hoppe reached the same 1 in 5.59 billion.

Worked example: the first two rolls

A hand of exactly one roll is impossible, because the come-out cannot seven out. On the come-out, 12 of 36 combinations (2, 3, 7, 11, 12) leave the shooter on another come-out and 24 set a point. Whatever the point, the shooter then sevens out on the next throw with probability 6/36. So 24/36 × 6/36, about 11.1% of hands, end on the second roll. From there the probabilities in the table shrink by a fairly steady factor with each extra roll, which is why the odds lengthen so dramatically past 100 throws.

How many rolls happen per hour?

DeMauro averaged about 36 rolls per hour and Fujitake about 38, both on crowded tables where payouts slowed the game. That is why the Golden Arm Club measures time rather than throws: holding the dice for an hour on a busy table typically means a hand of 30 to 40 rolls, roughly a 1 in 60 to 1 in 260 event for any given shooter.

Craps Basics: House Edge by Bet

A long roll only pays off if you are on the right bets. The pass line and the free odds behind it are the cheapest bets on the table; the one-roll propositions in the middle are the most expensive. Figures below are from Wizard of Odds.

The odds payouts quoted above are for a pass line bettor; don’t pass odds pay the reverse (1:2, 2:3, 5:6). During a hot hand, pass line bettors win every time the point is made, and players with place or come bets on several numbers collect over and over, which is how one table can cost a casino more than $1 million in a single hand. Don’t pass bettors, by contrast, lose on every pass. No betting system changes the house edge, and a long roll is luck, not skill: the average hand still lasts about 8.5 throws. For live dealer versions and other table games, see our live casino games hub.

Other Craps Legends You May Hear About

Older books and websites mention more giant hands, such as a 1947 “unfinished hand” in Miami described by gambling writer John Scarne, where the house is said to have closed the game when its bankroll ran out. We could not find an independent record to confirm the details, so it is not ranked here. The same caution applies to any roll claimed on social media: unless a casino or Guinness confirms it, DeMauro’s 154 remains the record. If you enjoy gambling culture, our list of the best blackjack movies covers the card-table side.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the longest craps roll in history?

Patricia DeMauro threw the dice 154 times over 4 hours and 18 minutes at the Borgata in Atlantic City on 23 May 2009. Guinness World Records lists it as the longest craps roll.

Who held the craps record before Patricia DeMauro?

Stanley Fujitake, with 118 rolls lasting 3 hours and 6 minutes at the California Hotel in Las Vegas on 28 May 1989. His mark stood for almost 20 years.

What are the odds of rolling 154 times in craps?

About 1 in 5.59 billion, as calculated by Wizard of Odds’ Michael Shackleford and by mathematicians Ethier and Hoppe. The widely quoted 1 in 1.56 trillion is the chance of 154 rolls with no 7 at all, which is a different event.

How long does an average craps roll last?

An average hand lasts about 8.5 rolls, and roughly half end within 6 rolls. Only about 1 hand in 60 reaches 30 rolls.

How much did Patricia DeMauro win?

The amount was never disclosed. She bought in for $100, and the Borgata declined to say how much she won.

What is the Golden Arm Club?

A club at the California Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas for shooters who hold the dice for 60 minutes or more without sevening out. It honours Stanley Fujitake’s 1989 hand and had more than 320 members by 2022.

What is the best bet in craps?

The odds bet behind the pass or don’t pass line has no house edge. Of the main bets, don’t pass (1.36%) and pass line (1.41%) are the cheapest, according to Wizard of Odds.

Craps should be entertainment, not a way to make money. If gambling stops being fun, call the National Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738).