Plenty of people live in Las Vegas, but few of them are actually from Las Vegas, and as a result Las Vegans don’t have much in the way of a regional identity — no accent, no slang, not even a foodstuff of local provenance to call our own. A lone exception to this rule might be the city’s shadow motto: “This town wasn’t built on winners.” The reminders are everywhere. You grow up seeing slots and video poker in grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, airports. Billboards advertising single-deck blackjack and sporting books pepper I-15, the city’s main artery. You see the desert clouds go purple on those rare rainy nights, their fluffy undercarriages lit by the city’s neon crown. And you grow up knowing: Don’t. Ever. Gamble. So I didn’t.

At least, that is, until I went to Atlantic City. I was on a work trip, counting down the hours until I could leave, when a co-worker thought he’d drag the guy from Vegas down to the casino. He was shocked to discover that I didn’t gamble and, even worse, that I didn’t know how to play craps. He took me to the most crowded table in the casino, broadcast my secret to 13 strangers, handed me a pair of dice and placed a bet on the table for me. My first roll, I heaved them across the table with so much force they bounced right out. The players groaned. My heart pounded. The second time, I banked the dice off the table wall successfully. I couldn’t see what happened, but when they landed, everyone screamed, and strangers grabbed my shoulders and told me to keep shooting. I was hooked.

I’ve since learned how to actually play the game, which is only as complicated as you want it to be. At its simplest, it works like this: One person rolls two dice, and the rest of the table bets on her. Most bet on the “pass” line, which means that if the shooter hits a 7 or an 11 on her first roll, they win. If the shooter hits a 2, a 3 or a 12, she “craps out,” everyone on the pass line loses and the dice go to the next shooter. If it’s a 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10, a big button that says ON is moved to that number on the felt, establishing the “point,” and the game kicks into full swing. Now the shooter must roll until she hits the point again (in which case everyone on the pass line wins), but without rolling a 7 first (in which case they lose).