I love to promote blackjack to my readers, because it offers the best odds in the casino. But I also love to write about how to win at craps.
Here’s why:
You win a Buy 4 / Buy 10 bet when a 4 or 10 combination is rolled before a 7. In theory, the house edge should be zero because your odds of winning and the payout are both 2:1. But casinos take a 5% commission out of every bet you make, putting the house edge at 4.76%. Craps – Here a players throws either a 2, 3 or a 12, which is indeed called ‘craps’. If that happens, all bets on the pass line lose. If that happens, all bets on the pass line lose. Point – Regardless of the results of the come out throws (craps or natural), the current shooter.
Blackjack requires you to memorize a basic strategy and use it every time you play. That’s a lot for some people.
Craps, on the other hand, requires no memorization of a strategy table. The odds are excellent, especially in casinos which allow you to place big bets on the free odds bet.
And you only need to do 3 things to win big at craps:
- Place the smartest bets
- Avoid the dumbest bets
- Get lucky
Yes, craps is a game of chance, so getting lucky is a prerequisite to winning big.
Luckily, it’s easier to get really lucky at craps than it is at most other casino games.
If you’ve never played craps, it’s easier than you think. Obviously, craps is a dice game played on a table with 2 dice. You bet on what total shows up on those dice and how those totals are made.
Some people think craps is too complicated. You can’t blame them, either. A craps table is covered with bewildering bets with strange names.
As luck would have it, you can ignore almost all the bets at the craps table and face excellent odds. In fact, the rule of thumb in craps is that the simpler the bet is, the better the odds for the player are.
But 1st, you need to understand how the basics of playing craps work:
The easiest way to think of craps is as a game that’s played in phases. The first phase is the come-out roll. This is the 1st roll of the dice that a shooter can make.
The basic bet that you can place in this situation is called the pass line bet. This is a bet that the shooter will succeed.
The shooter can fail or succeed on the come-out roll, or she can set a point and continue to roll.
The shooter fails on the come-out roll if she gets a total on the 2 dice of 2, 3, or 12. This is called “crapping out.” The pass line bet loses immediately in this situation.
The shooter succeeds on the come-out roll if she gets a total on the 2 dice of 7 or 11. The pass line bet pays off at even money immediately when this happens.
If she rolls any other number, she sets a point, and the pass line bet stays in action until it’s resolved on a subsequent roll. This is the 2nd phase of the game.
The possible point numbers are:
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 8
- 9
- 10
When a point is set, the shooter continues to roll the dice until she does one of 2 things:
- Rolls a total equal to the point
- Rolls a 7
If she rolls the point before rolling a 7, the pass line bet wins and pays off at even money.
If she rolls a 7 before rolling the point, the pass line bet loses and the casino collects your bet.
The Free Odds Bet
When a shooter rolls a point on the come out roll, a bet becomes available on the table that’s only available when the point is set. This is called the free odds bet, or just “the odds bet.”
The odds bet is an additional bet on the shooter making the point.
The cool thing about this bet is that it pays off at true odds when the point is made. The payoff on this bet varies based on what the point is:
- If the point is 4 or 10, the odds bet pays off at 2 to 1.
- If the point is 5 or 9, the odds bet pays off at 3 to 2.
- If the point is 6 or 8, the odds bet pays off at 6 to 5.
The size of the odds bet you’re allowed to place is based on a multiple of the pass line bet that you started with. It also depends on the casino.
Here’s an example:
You bet $100 on the pass line.
You’re playing at a casino where you’re allowed to bet up to 2X your pass line bet on the odds bet.
The shooter rolls a 4 on the come out roll.
You bet $200 on the free odds bet.
The shooter rolls a 4 on the next bet. You win even money on your original bet, which was $100. You ALSO win 2 to 1 on the odds bet, so you win $400 there. Your total winnings are $500.
As you can see from that example, you can get some big swings in craps just making the simple bets
The house edge is a mathematical concept that measures how much of an advantage the casino has over the player in a casino game. It’s expressed as a percentage, and it represents the average amount of money the casino expects you to lose on a given amount of action.
Everything else being equal, a game with a lower house edge is better than a game with a higher house edge.
The house edge for the pass line bet in craps is 1.41%.
This means that if you bet $100 on the pass line bet repeatedly, the casino expects to win an average of $1.41 every time you place that bet. That’s a long term average based on thousands of trials. In the short run, anything can happen.
The house edge for the odds bet, though, is 0%.
This means that the house has NO edge over the player. If you could avoid having to place the pass line bet and only place the odds bet, you’d be playing a break-even game with the casino. Over a long period of trials, you’d be likely to break even.
One way to look at the house edge in craps, too, is the amount of money you expect to lose on average over the total amount of action on a bet.
In other words, if you combine the pass line bet with the odds bet, what’s the house edge on your total action?
The more money you’re allowed to bet on the odds bet, the lower the cumulative house edge becomes. This is why you should prefer casinos which have higher betting limits on the odds bet.
Here’s an example:
Suppose you’re in a casino that limits your odds bet to the same size as your pass line bet. This means that if you’ve bet $100 on the pass line, you can put $100 on the odds bet. The house edge on that $200 is 0.85%.
Now suppose you’re in a casino where you can bet up to 100X the pass line bet. You bet $100 on the pass line, and you also bet $10,000 on the odds bet.
The house edge on that action is only 0.02%.
When you’re facing a house edge of only 0.02%, you’re facing a game where the house edge is as close to 0 as you’re likely to find. For all intent and purposes, you’re playing a break-even game with the house.
In fact, if you combine this strategy with the perks you get from the players club, you’re coming out slightly ahead of the casino here.
But don’t forget that these numbers represent long-term averages. In the short run, you can expect anything to happen.
What Are the Other Smart Bets at the Craps Table?
There aren’t many, really.
But there’s also a bet called “come.”
A come bet is a bet on a subsequent roll of the come-out roll that treats this roll as if it were a brand-new come out roll.
Basically, it’s a new pass line bet on this latest roll. You can even place an odds bet on it.
The house edge on this bet is also 1.41%, and that decreases when you set a point and place the odds bet on top of it.
Depending on which number you choose to bet on, the place bets can be reasonably good bets, too. A place bet is just like an odds bet, but the payoff isn’t as good. You also aren’t limited to betting on the point—you just choose which number you want to bet on.
The place 6 or place 8 bet offers the lowest house edge for this variety of bet. The payoff is 7 to 6 on that one—as opposed to the 6 to 5 you’d get if you were placing the odds bet. This gives the house an edge of 1.52%, which is close to what you’d expect on the pass line bet.
The house edge for the other numbers is too high to consider. The house edge for a place 5 or place 9 bet is 4%. The house edge for a place 4 or place 10 bet is 6.7%.
The house edge is too high on those bets to even consider.
But you’re also not limited to betting on the shooter to succeed. You’re also able to bet AGAINST the shooter.
This is called “wrong betting.”
And the house edge for wrong bettors is actually marginally better than the house edge for right bettors.
The opposite of the pass line bet is the don’t pass bet. The house edge bet for a don’t pass bet is 1.36% instead of 1.41%. That’s a difference of only 0.05%.
Most craps players prefer rooting for the shooter, since that’s what the other players are doing at the table.
The don’t pass bet pays off on the come out roll when the shooter rolls a 2 or 3 on the come out roll. (Notice that it doesn’t pay off on the 12; that’s where the house gets its edge with this bet.)
The don’t pass bet loses when the shooter rolls a 7 or an 11 on the come out roll.
And if a point is set, the don’t pass bet pays off if the shooter rolls a 7 before rolling the point again.
You can even place an odds bet on the don’t pass bet. It’s called “laying the odds,” and it pays off the same way—if the shooter rolls a 7 before rolling the point again, laying the odds pays off.
But the payouts are reversed to reflect the change in odds. The bet still pays off at its true odds, and it’s still a long-term break-even bet.
Here are the payoffs for laying the odds:
- Laying the odds when the point is 4 or 10 pays off at 5 to 6.
- Laying the odds when the point is 5 or 9 pays off at 2 to 3.
- Laying the odds when the point is 6 or 8 pays off at 1 to 2.
A lot of gamblers don’t like to place bets where their payoffs are lower than the amount they’re risking, even if it means the house has a lower edge.
Wrong betting isn’t for such gamblers.
And the 0.05% difference in house edge probably isn’t worth it for you. After all, gambling is supposed to be fun.
Stay Away from the Sucker Bets
Almost all the bets on the craps table, besides the ones I’ve mentioned, have an absurdly high house edge. These bets might as well be carnival games, because the odds are so bad for the player.
The bets in front of the stickman at the craps table are the worst bets at the table. But part of the stickman’s job is to hustle up action on these bets. Don’t fall for it.
The house edge on these bets is usually greater than 10%.
There’s never a good reason for placing a casino game bet on a game with a house edge of more than 10%.
You can play roulette, one of the worst games in the casino, and you’ll only face a house edge there of 5.26%.
Here’s an example of one of the many sucker bets at the craps table:
You can place a bet on hard 8. That’s a total of 8 where both dice land on 4. It loses if you get an easy 8 or a 7.
The house edge on that bet is a whopping 9.09%.
This next tip is controversial. Some believe that skilled dice shooters can affect the odds of rolling a 7 or another number just enough to change the odds of the game. The idea is that even if you’re not perfect every time, you only need to change the odds by a small percentage to create a positive expectation situation.
After all, the house edge is SO low already.
The comparison I see most often is with darts, although I suppose you could also compare it to bowling. You have some control over where the dart lands when playing darts, just like you do when you’re bowling. But no one is 100% successful all the time. That failure rate is part of the random nature of the game.
Frank Scoblete suggests trying to find a shooter who’s either naturally good at controlling the dice or one that’s intentionally doing so. His methodology for this is called “the five-count.”
The way that works is that you count how many rolls the shooter makes without crapping out. If the shooter can make 5 throws in a row without crapping out, Scoblete suggests that the shooter might be a natural “rhythmic roller.”
I’m skeptical of how possible such a thing as controlled shooting in craps can be. Maybe it’s possible, but to learn how to do it, you’d need a facsimile of a craps table so that you could re-create casino conditions. Then you’d need to practice.
When you’re practicing, you need to tally your results. Only if you can demonstrate a difference between your actual results and the expected results for hundreds or thousands of rolls can you be confident that you’re actually able to influence the outcome of the dice.
Some Basics of Smart Gambling that Apply to Craps
Craps is a negative expectation game, even though it has a low house edge. As with any casino game, you should only gamble money you can afford to live without on the game. This means don’t gamble the rent money or the mortgage payment.
Frank Scoblete is my personal craps guru. He suggests setting win goals and loss limits, and I think that’s a smart move, too.
A win goal is an amount of money that, once won, signals that it’s time to end your craps session and go do something else.
A loss limit is just the opposite. It’s an amount that, once lost, signals that it’s time to quit your craps session.
Many gamblers set arbitrary goals as a way to make sure they don’t lose more than a certain amount.
They also do this to make sure that they walk away a winner at least some of the time.
Craps is one of the streakiest games in the casino. You can have huge winning streaks and losing streaks in very short periods of time. Be ready for that.
Also, any time gambling stops being fun, you should quit. Entertainment is the entire point. If you’re not having fun, that’s a possible clue that you’re developing a gambling problem.
No one benefits from that except the casino.
And even the casinos would prefer that you not lose your entire life savings. They’d prefer to keep you as a customer generating revenue year after year for the rest of your life.
Craps is one of the best opportunities to win big in the casino. If you stick with the right bets, you can face one of the lowest house edge games in the casino.
If you really want to take things to the next level, learn about dice setting, dice control, and rhythmic rolling.
Practice sound bankroll management and try to quit while you’re ahead at least part of the time.
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