Gambling-craps

Factual Questions
1

Not sure which forum is best for this but these seemed like a good place for it to start.

My favorite casino game is craps. While I’ve learned a bit on how to play I still have some unanswered questions.

I usually play at Foxwoods in CT. Odds are 3x, 4x, 5x.
I only play 5 dollar tables
My set budget for a session is normally $200-$400
I always play max odds
I rarely play the field If I do it’s the hardways or a 2 way yo to tip the dealers

Typical strategy for me is to play 5 bucks on the place line for the come out roll. After a point is established I play $5 on the come line to establish at least one other point.

When I’m feeling ambitious I’ll play on the come line every roll for the duration of the point. Establishing every point, placing maximum odds and assuming the point is 8 this would leave me with the following:

$5 on place line with $25 odds
$5 on come line
$5 on 6 with $25 odds
$5 on 5 and 9 with $20 odds each
$5 on 4 and 10 with $15 odds each

This is great as long as the dice keep moving. A 7 will cost me $140
My first questions relate to if the point is then made. When the puck goes off my bets are stuck out there in limbo.

I could have all bets on, is that good or bad in terms of my odds of winning?

When a 7 is rolled and the puck is off I get my odds back but lose the contracted wagers. I find this a bit of an annoyance as I liked having all the numbers as points.
A dealer stated to me ‘we allow put bets so you could pay out $25 and all the bets could stay with my odds’. This doesn’t seem like it would be to my advantage. Aren’t I going to have a better chance of winning by reinvesting my odds back onto the come line after the next point? or Why pay at the time the seven is rolled? While the puck is off I have no chance in winning. Couldn’t I wait till a point is made then make those bets again?

My next question is buy bets. I know nothing about them other then people buy a lot of 4’s and 10’s. How do these work?

Then control shooters. I’ve witnessed a few people that are pretty good at it. I’ve never been completely amazed as they roll an occasional 7 too. In theory they do so less then the rest of us. How do they practice? Not all tables are the same size and I suspect materials may vary. I don’t imagine the casinos would be very helpful in advising them. Is throwing dice across my desk into the wall going to do anything for me?(besides a scraped up desk and wall)

Any answers, pointers, comments, or gamblers anonymous numbers would be appreciated

2

In practice, they are very likely deluding themselves. Casinos would lose their built-in advantage if this worked; their continued general prosperity argues that it doesn’t (though I’m sure they’re happy that some people believe otherwise).

3

From what I’ve read, controlled shooting is throwing the dice in specific ways can lower the chances of rolling a 7 not eliminate it. There is no real evidence a person could roll a number of their chosing. If that is true the casinos still have a built in edge, just less so against a skilled shooter. Much like in black jack skilled players decrease the houses edge but obviously not enough for the casino to stop running black jack tables.

I’ve heard stories of casinos shutting down games when specific people come in, including craps tables. I’ll throw that out as another question is there any truth to those types of stories?

4

It is genuinely possible for a skilled player to shift the blackjack odds to their advantage. It’s just really, really hard, such that you’d probably make better money doing an “honest” day’s work. With craps, though, nobody in the very long history of the game has ever demonstrated a reliable ability to influence the dice to any degree. It’s conceivable that a casino might occasionally prohibit a particular player, though, since that would tend to reinforce the myth that some people can influence the dice, and the existance of that myth is excellent for the casinos.

5

Really? I’ve been practicing on a table I set up in my basement with those little corners and everything. So far, I roll 7s about 6 times as often as I roll 2s. Should I call Art Bell?

sinjin

6

Seriously, though. If you (or someone else) can explain what this means, I can tell you whether it’s a good idea or not. Probability is the fun, you know.

sinjin

7

In my experience it’s less hassle just to put six bucks on the 6 and the 8 instead of using the Come bet. That way you can control where your secondary point is, although presumably the odds are somewhat different. Also, since the puck is OFF on the come-out roll, your bets on the numbers just sit there and you can root for a 7 without reservation; those bets are only susceptible to being lost on that unlucky number once a point is set nad the puck goes back ON.

I won a little money at Foxwoods a year or two ago. By “a little money” I mean something like $30. I believe that in the half-dozen or so times I’ve played craps since I learned how to play, I’ve won all but once, although most of those wins were under a c-note and the loss was maybe $250.

–Cliffy

8

I do place bets as well. The house edge does go up quite a bit when you do so however. The odds on the come line are the same as the place line. The chart I’m looking at says a bet on the come gives a house edge of .37% while placing on a 6 or 8 would give the house a 1.52%. That assumes your putting full odds down. If you don’t take advantage of the odds you would be better off with the place bet.

The casinos like to see people play the center fields as the best edge a player could then get is 9%

9

I’d try to explain it better if I could. Unlike you figuring out probabilityn makes my head hurt. I stick to memorising the results of other peoples math.

10

It is 100% neutral in terms of your odds of winning. By definition, actually, as free odds wagers have no expectation, so adding odds bets (or having them “off”) has no impact on your expected value whatsoever.

I would say that since they are customarily off, it’s best to just keep them off, as it’s a headache for both you and the dealers otherwise.

Yes. Line bets are far better than put bets. A put bet is a surrogate line bet without a comeout. So you can simply put $5 on whatever point number you’d like, then back it up with odds behind it just like a regular pass (or come) bet. The problem is that the pass line is strongest on the comeout, so put bets are truly a sucker bet dressed up in sheep’s clothing. Note that they most definitely do not allow put bets on the don’t, which should be reason enough to view it with suspicion.

They pay out at true odds, but you have to pay a 5% fee to establish them. You can buy the 4, let’s say, for $20, which would pay true odds (2:1) of $40 to you if it hits. However, you have to pay 5% of the $20 bet ($1) to the house (which isn’t a wager; you can never get it back) in order to make the bet. Thus, you “buy” the bet for a 5% fee in order to get the true odds. You can buy any number, but all buy bets have the unsurprising house advantage of exactly 5%. (The fee.) Place bets, OTOH, have varying house advantages:

Place 6&8: 1.52% house advantage
Place 5&9: 4.00% house advantage
Place 4&10: 6.67% house advantage

So you can see why you never see buy bets (with their 5% HA) on the inside numbers (5,6,8,9), and also why you usually see buy bets instead of place bets on the outside numbers (4,10).

The idea is to stack the dice on a number you’d like and then throw them with a spin in such a way that the spin is slightly favoring the top sides staying on top. This is a pernicious fallacy though; it simply doesn’t work.

So much to say…where to start? Probably easier to just link to my detailed thoughts about craps, which is my very favorite game to play.

In [post=4925015]this thread[/post] I detail all the various strategies I play. (Continuing to end of thread.)

In [post=5592322]this thread[/post] I mention that I don’t like odds, and then defend that position through the remainder of the thread.

I am happy to elaborate (here in this thread) on anything I said in those others; just quote what you have questions about.

11

Your last sentence is demonstrably false. The line bets by themselves offer the best fixed odds in the entire casino. You are mathematically better off with a line bet that has no odds than you are with any place bet. Whether you can further improve that line bet by backing it up with odds is a subject that I would debate.

For example, consider this:

6/8 ($5 on the line, $25 behind it.)
Pass: $30 bet pays $35
Place: $30 bet pays $35

5/9 ($5 on the line, $20 behind it.)
Pass: $25 bet pays $35
Place: $25 bet pays $35

4/10 ($5 on the line, $15 behind it.)
Pass: $20 bet pays $35
Place: $20 bet pays $36 <== $1 better

But wait, isn’t the place 4/10 a horrible 6.67% house advantage bet? Yep, it is; the buy bets are superior. So what’s going on? The interesting phenomenon is that place bets as a rule pay better than line bets because they do not enjoy the bonus of a comeout, so they have to offer extra incentive to be worthwhile. The extra incentive is in the form of better payouts.

Note that 3-4-5 odds coincidentally avoid an awkward state of affairs, and that is that place bets don’t pay the same as line bets; they pay better. Consider the comparison before Foxwoods (and Mohegan Sun, which I greatly prefer) offered 3-4-5 odds; back then the max odds available were double odds:

6/8 ($10 on the line, $20 behind it.)
Pass: $30 bet pays $34
Place: $30 bet pays $35 <== $1 better

5/9 ($5 on the line, $10 behind it.)
Pass: $15 bet pays $20
Place: $15 bet pays $21 <== $1 better

4/10 ($5 on the line, $10 behind it.)
Pass: $15 bet pays $25
Place: $15 bet pays $27 <== $2 better

Here we see that place bets used to universally pay better than line bets. So why would one ever play line bets? Because the comeout role is what defines the line bets. IMO, playing odds behind the line is really just demoting your excellent line bet into a crappy place bet, and even worse, won’t even pay as well as a true place bet.

In fairness, if your pass line bet gets established, it has already been demoted into a crappy bet, so in that sense it isn’t the odds bet that screws you, it’s the mere fact that you didn’t get a decision on the comeout. And with 3-4-5 odds, you do generally get the same payout as place bets.