Craps. Simple odds game?

“Don’t Pass” means you are betting that the shooter will crap out and everybody who is playing the Pass Line and Points will lose. You are the one guy in a Yankees jersey at Fenway. You are, by definition and acclaim, an asshole.

Don’t be that guy.

The darkside is my favorite way to start on a table. Figure $300 buy-in on a $10 table. Put $10 on Don’t Pass, then $10 on the Don’t Come every roll after that. You’re basically putting $10 on the table every roll of the dice. Take no odds.

Keep your initial $300 in one stack, and put your winnings in a separate stack. Keep going until you’ve bet your entire $300.

Math says you should have around $290 after betting all $300, and this technique is about as low variance as you’ll find. However, it’s a ton of betting, so it feels like a lot of action. Fun, exciting, and reasonably safe, it gives you nice starter round to whet your whistle before you begin the business of losing all your money with odds and whatnot.

Doing the lightside instead works about the same mathematically, but it’s way less fun and engaging because the lightside wins most of its money (in this betting scheme) on the come out roll (7 or 11) which is much less satisfying.

EDIT: Note that I continue this even when I’m rolling. Nothing wrong with betting against yourself. Especially when you’re as bad a roller as I am. Feels like all my turns at shooter go “8, 6, 10, 7, next shooter!”

Right. It’s not all that hard to compute the odds for each of the different bets. The best bet are the “odds” bets that are fair odds, but you have to place another bet before you’re allowed to place those. The next best bet is the “don’t pass”/“don’t come bet” (which are really the same bet, but have different names based on when you place them). People think you’re a jerk if you play the best bet (see quote), so instead most people play the “pass”/“come” bet (again, exactly the same bet, just made at different times).

The stupidest bet (in my opinion) is the “Big 6” and “Big 8” bets at the corner of the table. They are literally the same bet as putting money on the 6 or 8, but with a poorer payout.

An excerpt from Dr. Richard Feynman’s Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman: