The Trouble with the Bubble

Bubble Craps

A short time before home video games crashed our living rooms and seized control of an entire generation, there was this nifty little board game that captivated families from one coast to the other.

The game featured a bubble-like container known as the Pop-O-Matic, where each player pressed down firmly on the plastic dome, prompting the two inner die to tumble haphazardly until landing on a specific number.

The game was called Trouble.

If you’ve ever indulged in the Hasbro gem back in the day, it’s likely long dissolved from your memory card along with Lawrence Welk and Schlitz beer.

But if you’ve entered a high-profile casino over the past half-decade, you may have been aptly re-reminded of it.

Cropping up throughout casinos everywhere has been the bubble craps machine, a game highly reminiscent of Trouble from yesteryear. Featuring a Pop-O-Matic centerpiece, bubble craps sports a roundtable in which bettors enter wagers onto a console mimicking a full craps table.

One press of a button triggers each roll, as the two die skip about the dome like popcorn kernels before settling on a specific number. Bets are placed on the console’s touchscreen (pass line, place bets, horn bets, hard ways, etc.), while odds and payouts are electronically calculated.

Bubble craps hit its pinnacle during the Covid-19 stretch when the traditional table version was mandated inoperable. As a fitting alternative, craps lovers were crammed into the six to eight chairs of the circular apparatus to get their fix of hops and hard ways.

While many machines feature one community Pop-O-Matic at its center, others contain a series of individual domes, one for each player.   

The Good: Your wagering comes with the utmost privacy, a silent transaction between you and your own individual touchscreen. It eliminates any threat of enraging neighboring players, especially the anti-don’t pass/come crowd.

In addition, most bubble machines require a mere $5 minimum, a stressless campaign compared to the more daunting $25 or $50 table minimums. Such allows for lengthier playtime without losing one’s upper garments, also allowing for more adventurous wagering of snake eyes, box cars, and hoppers.

The Bad: When taking such a ploy, you’re relying on a machine with a potentially controlled outcome, much akin to any slot throughout the premises. Whereas the conventional craps table cannot influence the tumbling of dice, perhaps the bubble version has you at its mercy. In other words, the seemingly random roll may not be so random.

While many strongly refute the notion of a “rigged” outcome, claiming the dice roll is a completely random act, many others believe the machine is armed with magnets and computer chips for predetermining a result.

The Ugly: With its flimsy plastic and cheap cardboard, the Trouble board game had a short lifespan and ended up as either garbage or woodstove feed within a few months.

Likewise, the casino version is a vastly inferior, second-rate version of the 12-foot table of green felt and birch plywood. The visceral appeal of firing a half dozen points and fist-bumping your neighbor is unmatched by anything in the casino. Unfortunately, it is woefully absent with the bubble. We’ve occasionally settled into the bubble craps machine to test this puppy out for ourselves. The results were stifling, ranging from marginal wins to outright shellackings.

Bubble Craps Console

Whereas we experienced brief flashes of triumph, we always ate mammoth-sized crow over the long haul.

Raking in a few marginal wins was nice, but as soon as we increased the bets, in came the Big Red (the out-7) like a sharp boot to the genitals.

Coincidence?

Then how about the time we placed a few bucks on each number across the board and on the very next roll...

Armageddon. Out-seven.

Coincidence?

Well, we then flipped to the dark side, dropping some change on the Don’t Pass bar.

With a point of 4 or 10, hedging the Don’t bet with a buck on the hard-4 or hard-10 would reduce our chances of losing to a measly twenty-two percent. Hence, the only losing scenario would involve the soft point (4 or 10).

Watching the dice pop about the bubble and settle on the 3-1 or 6-4 combo turned our suspicions into affirmed beliefs.

There was little chance this was a coincidence, especially when it happened as frequently as a Ben & Jennifer breakup.

While some folks have reported good fortune with the mysterious apparatus, others have come away with mere chump change and nary a morsel of trust.

So, only one question truly remains:

Does the bubble spell trouble?

Perhaps it’s time to roll the dice and find out.