Craps. Teach me how to bet.

Factual Questions
1

Okay, this is not quite a “teach the newbie craps” thread. I think I know all the basics in terms of how to place bets, and what the different types of bets (come, field, etc.) are.

What I would like to learn, however, are the different strategies are fairly standard when it comes to actually making the bets. For instance, my last trip to Vegas, there was a guy who was betting, IIRC, on pretty much all the hard ways, except for the 12. One of my fellow players - actually, come to think of it, it might’ve been one of the dealers - explained that the guy didn’t have that much to lose since he also had money on all the easy ways for these numbers, and that these bets would cover his “hard” bets.

The way it was explained made it seem like it was the most natural thing in the world, which it probably was. So tell me, how should I bet to get rich? :wink:

2

First of all, you can’t “beat” any casino game - there is always a house advantage no matter what. There are no non-profit casinos.

That having been said, I once won over $500 at a craps session starting with only $50. I am still amazed I pulled it off.

DO NOT BET THE SUCKER BETS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LAYOUT!! Terrible odds, highly unlikely dice rolls.

STAY AWAY FROM THE “FIELD”.
Again, you get better payouts with other bets on the layout.

BET THE PASS LINE AND THE “FREE ODDS” BET.
Just bet that the shooter will win - after the come-out roll, place double your original bet behind it and say “odds”. This will pay out at true odds - combined with the pass line bet at 1.12% (I think) advantage for the house, will lead to a house advantage of only something like 0.8% - the best bet you will find anywhere in the casino.

Remember that the longer you play, the more chances the house has to take your money.

Also, never fall for the notion that when you win you are playing with “The house’s money”. Once it is in your hands, it is YOUR MONEY.

An excellent, if dated, book about all things gambling is “John Scarne’s complete guide to Gambling” or something like that. Check it out.

Phouchg

3

I understand what he’s doing. He’s just covering his hardways with line and place bets. It’s a way to make sure that he really doesn’t lose anything, but he really won’t win anything either–much of the time, the dealer will remove his losing bet from one part of the table and turn it over to him as winnings for another of his bets. Net win/loss = Zero.

That’s an oversimplification, because he may win a little or lose a little this way, barring any kind of run of the dice. But if you have the kind of chips that cannot be cashed and must be played for real chips in winnings, such a method is a way of giving the house the required action while minimizing your losses. (There is a better method, but I won’t explain it now.) And if you play long enough, even this way, you will lose–quickly, if the dice don’t follow their long-term pattern for a while, on which the posted table payoffs are based; more slowly if they do.

Of course, he might have thought this was a way to just play and have fun doing it while minimizing losses. That’s fine, but again, no great gains can be made this way.

Without knowing your level of experience, I wouldn’t recommend strategies really, except to say that Phouchg’s advice about bets to avoid is pretty good. I’ll amend it though to say that if you are a beginner, you should start with line bets only (Pass/Don’t Pass). When you’re comfortable, expand from there to odds on line bets. When you’re comfortable with those, expand from there to Come/Don’t Come and Place bets. Stop there, because at that time, you’ll have so much happening on the table, you’ll have a hard time following it all.

And just to repeat: avoid propositions, hardways, the field, the Big 6 and 8, and Any 7/Craps/Etc.

And yes, I’ll second the suggestion for Scarne’s Complete Guide to Gambling by John Scarne. It may be a little dated in the photos and the anecdotes, but the advice on cards, dice, wheels, and other games of chance remains accurate.

4

Generally the advice given above is good. Play the pass line and come bets with full odds. Avoid the field and the hard ways. If you like more control over your points, play the place bets. Believe us, if there was a better “system,” it wouldn’t be a secret.

If you find a casino that offers double odds on the pass line and come bets, you can reduce the house advantage to less than half a percent by always playing full double odds. Odds are called odds because they payback in exact proportion to the odds of winning. At that point, the only better games in the casino are Blackjack (if you have memorized all the combinations) and some individual slot machines (but good luck figuring out which ones). Therefore, craps is the most reliable way to gain an advantage over the casino.

An advantage? At craps? Yes, you can even push the game into your favor by being a tough customer: When you’re winning (i.e., have more money than you started with) bet big - bet at least double the table minimum. When you’re losing (i.e., have less money than you started with) bet only the table minimums - but still back them up with at least double odds. This way, assuming the game is even and you’re winning half the time, then you wind up making more money than you lose. Of course, you can really get bitten by the “boundary conditions” - the moments of transition between winning and losing. But then, if it were entirely predictable, it would be entirely boring. That’s where you get to use your intuition…

Which brings me to the exceptions to these betting rules. The classic “passline and two come bets” gets boring fast. You can spice it up a little by varying the number of come bets you allow yourself to have on the table, but it still becomes routine.

Therefore, if you’re bored it’s not stupid to put a dollar on the hard way for one of your current bets. You’re paying a dollar to enhance your entertainment… you’re not depending on it to make money. And if done only occasionally, it’s not mathematically altering your odds all that much.

The other main exception is tipping. If you’re ahead, it’s customary to tip the dealers by making a bet for them. If there’s a real hot shooter up, it’s nice to make a passline bet for the dealer, backed up with odds if a point comes out. But the most common way to tip is to put a dollar check on a hard way for them. And while you’re at it, you might as well throw two checks, and call it a “two way hard six” (or whatever) so that you get in the action as well. You don’t want that hard six to come up and not make some money yourself do you?

That’s pretty much it. Craps is really one of the simplest games in the casino. You’ll see a lot of folks throwing dollars at the stickman on come-out rolls: “dollar any crap,” “dollar yo,” etc. Ignore them at first. When you have the hang of your betting strategy, you can ask the dealers about those bets. Stand next to the stickman or one of the boxmen if you can - they’re frequently happy to answer questions, and they can hear you better when you call a bet.

When I visit Las Vegas, I usually wind up transferring money from the craps tables to the poker tables. I enjoy poker more, but I typically lose. But using the above strategy, I can win my money back at the craps table. However, it requires a lot of free time and a deep bankroll - the ability to suffer losses on the order of 100x the table minimum. Do NOT play if you can’t afford to lose that much, and do NOT play if you’re on a time limit. (When my girlfriend leaves me at the craps table and says “I’ll be back in an hour so we can go to the show,” I always walk away a loser. But when I have no set time to leave, I can walk away when I’m ahead.)

Places to play in Las Vegas: Most of the Strip casinos only offer double odds, and their tables are $5 minimum and up. Many casinos only have $10 minimum tables. Last time I was there, though, Tropicana offered 3x odds and always had at least $5 table open. Bally’s doesn’t always have a $5 table open, but it does offer 3x odds on the 5 and 9, and 4x odds on the 4 and 10 - a game I enjoy. Ceasar’s has the same odds, iirc, and seldom has a minimum less than $10, but they have huge tables that can be very exciting to play at when they’re full and the shooter is hot.

But the best place to hone your strategy is the Horseshoe, in Downtown. They almost always have a table with a $1 minimum, and they used to take 100x odds on $5 bets or bigger - I’m not sure if that is still true. But regardless, you can play all night with a $100 bankroll if your luck isn’t continuously bad.

Finally, if you’re running a Windows box, there are all kinds of excellent craps programs out there for free. Download one and play with it. Mac users aren’t so lucky, but there are a couple that are playable. The commercial casino suites aren’t any better - don’t waste your cash. And whatever you do, stay away from online casinos. The whole point of craps is that you are betting on the dice - one of the last remaining true random processes that you can find in a casino. To bet real money against a dubiously-programmed, dubiously-random computer program is unforgivably stupid in the eyes of a real craps player…

Good Luck! And more importantly, Have Fun!

5

There’s no real such thing as strategy. The math of one bet is entirely independent of the other bet in terms of your total expected payoff. You can change the riskiness of what you’re doing, but the overall odds are the same whether you place bets sequentially or simultaneously.

So your best “strategy” is to forget about strategy. Find the best odds bet, and use that. The best bet in craps is the don’t pass line with full odds behind it. Most people play the pass line instead, because it’s odds are almost as good and (1) the rest of the table won’t glare at you, and (2) it’s easier on the bankroll, because taking odds there costs more to get less even though it is proportionally more certain. That is, if you have infinite money it’s the exact same, but you probably don’t.

So pass line with full odds. Come bets with full odds are mathematically equivalent.

If you feel like taking other bets, feel free. Just be aware every time you do so that you are paying for the entertainment value of spicing up your bets.

6

Quoth bughunter:

This sounds like a variation of the Martingale scheme. The most interesting feature of the Martingale is that it doesn’t work. In fact, no strategy can possibly give you a positive expectation, unless there’s at least one individual bet which has a positive expectation. In blackjack, there is occasionally such a bet available, and if you’re counting cards, you can recognize it and take it. Every roll of the dice, however, is completely independent, so there is never a positive bet. Just because you’ve been winning, doesn’t mean that you’ll keep on winning, or even that you’re more likely to keep on winning.

7

Wrong.

Strategy can be as simple as, “next time I win a passline bet, I’ll walk away.” Or, alternatively “Once I’ve lost X dollars, I’ll walk away.” The latter is the most fundamental strategy, and one that I advise every player to adopt.

Or it can be as complex as tweaking your passline/come betting: How long do I leave my odds up? When should I press my odds on a 3x/10x/100x table? How many come bets should I have on the table at once?

And should you not be an entirely 100% rational person (very few of us are), strategy could include things like tipping the dealers to try and warm up a cold table, only standing in a certain spot at a table, betting more on female shooters, etc…

There certainly are craps “strategies,” and some are better/more rational than others. Mutt’s statement is only correct in the context of one bet only. But nobody makes just one bet…

8

And betting to spice up life. After all, if I wanted a safe investment, I’d invest in the stock market…
:slight_smile:

9

Martingale Scheme: In an even money game, double your bet each time you lose in order to recover your loss. If you have deep enough pockets, eventually you can recover any loss, and if you leave when you’re ahead, you’re always a winner. Widely accepted as a losing scheme, because eventually you’re going to encounter a losing streak that both exhausts your bankroll and negates all your past winnings.

No, “Tough Customer” (for lack of a name) isn’t a Martingale scheme. In fact, in some ways it’s the opposite of Martingale: It’s a strategy that benefits from the tendency of random events often run in streaks. And instead of pressing bets to cover a loss, you slowly inflate bets to supplement a win. Never press a bet to cover a loss.

Exactly, but it’s a kind of hysteresis that gives you a slight benefit… While you’re winning, work to increase your awards; while you’re losing, work to minimize your payouts. The “streaky” nature of random events will work in your favor. It’s enough of an added edge to make a nearly even game like craps profitable enough, frequently enough, so that you have more opportunities to leave while you’re ahead. And ultimately, that’s the whole point.

Of course there’s no reliable way see a streak as it’s happening. Very often you think you’re on a streak and you press your bets, and >boom< seven out, line away. Happens a lot. But if you aren’t betting all your winnings, you’re still ahead. Fall back to the minimum bet and start over.

That’s what I meant by the “boundary condition.” A streak frequently ends right as you are adjusting to it, and this is when you see your biggest losses, either in lost inflated bets or failures to inflate your bet at the right time. This happens because, of course, short streaks are much more common than long ones, and you’re looking to get on board a long one early.

But when you do finally get on board for just one long winning streak, and inflate your bets, it can be very profitable - profitable enough to more than make up for your losses. Even more profitable if you have the self-discipline to leave the table before you have to ride out another long string of real losses and lost opportunites. :wink:

Of course if there were an “infallible” strategy for craps, it wouldn’t be gambling, and no casino that offered it would stay in business for very long. But I didn’t invent this one - it’s in many of the “learn to play craps from a pro” books. If I weren’t at the office, I might even be able to dig one of them up and cite a reference…

10

The house always wins at craps; Every day, every month, every year. If you want the best way to bet on craps, BE the house. Buy stock in the casino’s parent company. Even in a bad year, you won’t lose everything you bet. Try to find a craps player who can say that!

11

Bughunter, you are completely wrong.

The money you will lose at craps == the number of bets you make, X the house odds X the amount you bet. Period. Just like any other game of independent trials.

All the gambler tricks in the world (quitting when you are ahead, playing with the ‘house’s money’, stop-losses, stop-wins, riding your hot streaks, you name it) don’t change the house’s percentage by one thousandth of a percent.

Stop losses and stop wins will change your win/loss distribution, but the absolute amount won or lost will never change.

It’s comments like this -

  • that keep losing players coming back and losing more money, long after the fun has gone out of the game and it has become an exception.

There is NO such thing as a predictable streak in a truly random trial. Period. There’s no hysteresis, no magic forces. These myths persist because people have selective memories - we remember the long streaks, and we forget about the other combinations that don’t assert a pattern.

Bughunter, repeat after me: “There is no combination of negative expectation bets that can yield a positive expectation”. This is fundamental probability theory.

I know what I’m talking about. In addition to having an advanced math and statistics background, I spent years as a professional gambler and author on gambling topics.

As for the best strategy: The other guys have it right. Bet the pass/don’t pass, and take all the odds you can. HOWEVER, there’s one detail they didn’t mention - even though the odds may be reduced, the amount of money per roll that the casino makes from you does not change. The odds bets simply increase your variance.

In other words, let’s say you bet $5.00 on the pass line, with a house vig of about 1.2% (Offhand, I can’t remember the exact percentage, but it’s close to that. 1.37% perhaps?). Anyway, at 1.2%, the house will earn 6 cents on every roll you make, in the long run. Now let’s say you take double odds. Now you’ve got $10 in action, but the house STILL makes the six cents on the original bet. The overal percentage comes down because you increased the wager, but your hourly cost to play the game does not change.

What does change is your variance. Putting more money into play with a fixed charge means that you have a better chance to get ‘lucky’ and win at the end of the day. Of course, your downside risk is now also much higher.

So, if you want to bet $20 per roll, and the house offers double odds, you’re way better off betting $10 on the pass line and taking odds than you would be betting $20 on the pass line. But don’t bet $20 on the pass line and take odds.

12

Sam Stone is right when he points out that bughunter is wrong. Especially when bughunter says things like

This is the most common error I’ve seen in craps “strategies” - believing that streaks are more common than what random rolls would be. The rolls are random. This means that no matter what numbers have come up the last 87 rolls, the probability of a seven on the next roll is exactly one in six. You can look back in retrospect and see a long string of non-sevens, but there’s no way to jump in the middle and have any increased expectation that it will continue. This is also the point where hard-core craps players will tell us mathematically-inclined folks that we don’t know what we’re talking about, and stop listening.

The other thing I’d like to point out is that double or triple odds don’t necessarily help your expectations of winning. Odds decrease the house advantage only when you measure it as a ratio of your winnings to your bets. But the absolute dollar amount you can expect to win/lose doesn’t change (however the variance will increase). If you want to play the five-dollar table, and get the most entertainment outof it, betting odds doesn’t help. In fact, it just makes it more likely that you’ll hit your loss limit sooner.

On the other hand, if your desire is to bet $15 per come-out, then the way to get the best odds is to bet a $5 pass line bet and back it with double odds.

13

Why not get a free craps program on the net & play it & see which techinique makes you the most money?

14

Handy, it’s been done many times. Bughunter is wrong, the rest of the gang is right.

However, he does point out one significant factor: It may be worthwhile to look at strategies of money management seperately than strategies of what you are actually betting on. For instance, would you like a strategy that gives you a near certain change of winning a little, with an infintesimal chance of complete wipeout? Bughunters Tough Customer strategy is indeed a variant of this. You do not change your expected average winnings a bit, but you can change the distribution that yields that average – you can make some financial outcomes more likely at the expense of others.

15

Because though craps may or may not be truly random, craps programs are almost guaranteed to be even less so.

Thanks guys, I think I’ll be betting mostly pass line with odds from here on out. With a couple place bets to alleviate boredom, of course. :wink:

16

Don’t forget your come bets (taking full odds, as mentioned)! Those carry the same odds as your pass-line + odds bets. That allows you to continue to put money out on the table at the least-worst odds available.

If you want to alleviate boredom by making the sucker bets in the middle of the table, do it with the dealers’ tips. (heh)

17

Me, I transfer money for the blackjack table to the craps table (I’m a card counter).

Muttrox was almost right. The best odds is betting “wrong” - the Don’t Pass/Don’t Come lines. (I don’t play this, I bet “right”. Sue me, I’m an idiot. :))However, contrary to Muttrox assertion, don’t bet full odds on when betting wrong.

Why? Because free odds on Don’t Pass pay even odds, just like free odds on the pass line. You have better odds on the straight Don’t Pass bet than free odds. the Don’t Pass/Don’t Come lines pay 1-to-1. This is better than even odds, because the roller is more likely to crap out than hit any point. Most books I’ve read recommend only 1X free odds when betting wrong.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that betting wrong is the way to beat the house - the odds turn against you because you have to get the point in the first place, and the roller is more likely to roll the 7/11 combo than anything else, so that’s where they get you.

Sua

18

I admit that I was in error to imply that any strategy gives one an “edge” over the house, or guarantees consistent winnings. At least in craps.

And I also agree that I have blurred the line between money management and specific types of craps bets. You can play “tough customer” with place bets, or even Field bets if that’s your desire.

However, I maintain that “tough customer” is among the best strategies for wagering upon the outcome of random processes. Businesses do it according to economic climate. Day traders do it according to short term expectations of share value. “Tough Customer” is not my term - afaik it was coined by dealers and pit bosses.

Finally, I have a question. I occasionally see novices walk up to the table and put bets on the passline after the point is already established, and then when the point is made, they get paid. What kind of bet is the dealer treating these as? A place bet on the point?

19

Manhattan is correct - don’t neglect come bets.

The rational reason is to get more money out on the table on bets that pay off “correctly.”

But the reason you’ll do it eventually is because just betting pass line will get boring fast. Especially in situations where the shooter takes a long time to make either the point or a 7. You’ll see this a lot - this is called a “hot table.” The point will be a 5 or something, and for a half an hour, the shooter will roll anything but a 5 or a 7. Sixes and Eights will come out again and again, and the place bettors will be screaming and howling with joy, while you with your single pass line bet stand there bored stiff, the only sedate person among a table full of cheering, bouncing happy gamblers.

Points like this is where your come bets make you a lot of money. Of course, there are even more points where you put odds on your passline bet, and on the next two rolls you place come bets and back them up with full odds, and then the third roll is a 7. BOOM! Nine checks down the drain, at least. Don’t let it rattle you. You need to have brought enough money to suffer this several times and still be able to make a passline bet.

Just keep an eye on how much money you have on the table. On a $5 table, with double odds, you’re putting out $15 per pass/come bet. How many of those can you afford to lose if the 7 comes out? You have to trade off this answer against the answer to: how many opportunties to make money do you want to see pass you by when the table looks hot?

The compromise in most “how to books” I’ve read is one pass line bet and two come bets. You can modulate this according to how aggressive you want to be, moment to moment. It adds a little tactical flavor to the game.

Also remember what most people forget: You can take down your odds at any time (between any two dice rolls that is). Since Odds are paid off “correctly,” the house has no problem with you calling down your odds if you get nervous and feel a seven coming on. Just don’t touch them - tell the dealer you want your odds “down.” (There’s no mathematical, logical reason to do this. And you’ll find that it screws you as often as it helps you. But craps players are frequently superstitious, ignoring the previous two sentences. :slight_smile: )

The other thing to remember about come betting is that if the point is made, and you have come bets still on the table, the default understanding is that the odds (and only the odds) on your come bets are “not working” on the come out roll. The logic of this is that the house assumes people playing “Pass” and “Come” don’t want to lose odds on a 7 for the come out roll. You can delcare your odds “working” on the come-out roll if you wish; mathematically, there’s no reason to do it one way or the other.

20

As a hard core craps player let me be the first to admit that you know what you’re talking about (mathematically).

bughunter sounds like a craps player to me and if someone wants to get advice for an upcoming craps session I say stick with the player and not the mathematician.

If you want advice on gambling statistics check with a math whiz. No matter what the game I’m sure he can tell you what rate you will loose at. The house wins EVERY game over the long haul and there is no “system” that can guarantee you will win.

That being said try to tell someone who just won $1,500.00 in a casino that mathematically the odds are against them and see if they care.

Tell a 16 million dollar lottery winner that the odds are astronomically against them and buying tickets is a waste of money.

Gambling is a risk against the odds and chances are you will loose but there is nothing like catching a streak at a craps table, or riding a long roll by a hot shooter.

The math can prove odds over a long time line but statistical aberrations happen. Strategies that attempt to keep you in the game long enough to capitalize/recognize streaks is what a craps system is all about.

KKBatousai
Sounds like the guy was playing a wack system, like a doey don’t type of thing. It’s where you bet pass and don’t pass simultaneously. You do some other things but I forgot what they are. It’s a lot of work to make sure you don’t win or loose much.

As for advice bughunter gave you some good stuff to work with. I’ll just add this never gamble money you can’t afford to loose!

Good luck.