Blackjack betting takes a second. Slide chips over, maybe break chips if necessary. Slight break for insurance bets. Most of the time spent is players considering their move, and sure, new players likely take longer.
It’s usually okay to spectate at a table, even better if you know the person you are watching. Just don’t use a cell phone at or near a table too much, you can turn away if you need to respond to a quick text but leave if you need to stay on it.
It’s not a given that blackjack is faster than craps or vice versa. Firstly, if you’re playing craps for minimum losses, you’re just betting the pass or don’t pass line. So you don’t win or lose every roll, you win or lose when the point is hit. That can take a number of rolls which can easily exceed the length of a blackjack hand. As mentioned, blackjack also depends on how many players and how fast they are. If you’re sitting alone at a blackjack table you can rack up quite a fast betting rate. If you’re operating at a full craps table playing the pass line, you might have a minute or two between each bet. It’s situational.
There are bets that you’d bet every single roll in craps, but you don’t want to take those.
This was referred to above but not really explained, too. In craps, there are “odds” bets that pay out true odds - no house edge. But you have to bet the pass line or don’t pass line in order to be able to make those odds bets. The house edge on the pass line is about 1.41%.
You’ll see things like “3 4 5x odds” or “10x odds” - this is referring to the amount of times your original bet you can make the size of your odds bet. So if the table minimum is $5, and it’s a 10x odds tables, you can be $5 on the pass line (1.41% house edge) and up to $50 on the odds bet (0 percent house edge, a true gamble).
Now - whether that’s a better bet depends on what you’re trying to accomplished. In this (relatively player friendly) scenario you’re going to be paying 7 cents ($5 * .00141) on every pass bet, which can last several rolls. The $50 bet is basically just along for the ride. But if you wanted to gamble $55 - if that’s entertaining to you - you’re essentially paying 7 cents to bet $55 which is a miniscule house edge on the total bet.
The actual expected value doesn’t change. You’re losing 7 cents per bet either way. It’s just… do you prefer to risk more money at no house edge? If not, just bet the $5 pass line and collect your free drinks. If you do, you can’t do better at the casino than playing the odds.
Now - $5 min/10x odds is an unusually good table. Depends on where you go and the particular limits and rules of their craps tables. That is actually available in some places, most casinos are going to offer you fewer than 10x odds. 3x4x5x is common which restricts the odds bet amount based on the point number and how likely it is to hit. It’s a bit of a sneaky way to offer lower odds that sound better than they are, but the concept is the same. Sometimes you’ll even see places that offer 50x or 100x odds bets.
Of course, implicit in any discussion of going to a casino is the notion that you find risk entertaining. If you do, then going to a casino is, effectively, paying for that entertainment. If, by contrast, you don’t find risk entertaining, then the clear best bet is to not go to the casino at all.
So if you’re at the casino, and thus implicitly find risk to be entertaining, then you might as well get some free entertainment from the odds bets.
[Moderating]
Oh, and this thread is a factual question about gambling. It could go in either FQ or the Game Room, but since it started here, I’ll just leave it here.