I'm writing a series of blog posts about casino games and the good and bad strategies for playing those games.
Craps is one of my favorite casino games, so I've been looking forward to writing this one.
And the beautiful thing about craps is that it's a game of pure chance. The best strategy is just to choose the bets with the lowest edge for the house and have fun.
You can pick up the DPL bet at any time and make the place bet at any time. You can remove both bets at any time. As a holding strategy, until the table turns for the Do player, you might consider making a DPL bet and placing the 6 and 8.with one or 2 hits on the 6 and/or 8.taking them both down and wait for the 7. The All Sevens Set is the most popular dice set currently being used at the craps tables on the Come-Out roll. It has the ‘seven' showing on all sides and if executed correctly, it will give you the best chance of hitting a natural (7) or (11) and winning on the Come-Out. CRAPS PASS LINE BET 1.41% HOUSE EDGE The craps table features some of the best bets in the casino. Put your chips on the pass line, and you will win if a seven or an 11 is rolled and lose if a two, three or 12 is rolled. If any other number is rolled, you will win if that number is rolled again before a seven is rolled but lose if it isn't. With a big $30 bet, that's only $1 less than what we'd expect to be paid for true odds in an unbiased game that doesn't have any house advantage. What this tells us is that the Place bet on the 6 or 8 is one of the smartest bets on the craps table (i.e., by 'smart,' I mean it has one of the lowest house advantages of all craps bets). These bets are located in the center of the craps table. You choose one of these bets and hope they occur on the next roll. For example, if you choose Snake Eyes you're betting that two one's will be rolled on the very next roll. There are a number of proposition bets that change depending on what casino you're playing in and in what country.
But I'll have some things to say about some of the strategies and systems that other writers promote, too.
They're mostly bad craps strategies.
Here's the Only Craps Strategy You Need
When you're dealing with an entirely random game – like craps – the only strategy that matters is choosing the bets with the lowest house edge and having fun.
I'll have something to say about shooters and whether they have control over the outcomes later in this post, but for now, let's just agree that games like craps are purely chance.
In other games that are entirely random, like slot machines, you don't even really need to decide which bet to place. It's chosen for you before you sit down.
When playing craps for real money, you have a handful of good bets you can make, but most of the bets on the table are bad. Just skip the bad bets, and you're all set.
The Bests Bets at the Craps Table
The best bets at the craps table are the pass line bet and the don't pass bet.
The come and don't come bets are also great wagers.
I always advise casino gamblers to try to limit their gambling to games where the house edge is lower than 2% — preferably 1.5% or lower.
The house edge for the pass and come bets is the same, 1.41%, which means they qualify.
The house edge for the don't pass and don't come bets is even lower, 1.36%, but the 0.05% isn't worth worrying about. Most people prefer to root for the shooter to succeed.
The other bet to think about at the craps table is the odds bet. This is a bet you can only place after making one of the 4 bets I already mentioned and when the shooter has set a point.
This is one of the only bets in the casino that has no house edge. It's a break-even bet, but it can be expensive.
It can also drive the effective house edge on the money you have in action down to almost nothing.
Here's how that works.
How the Odds Bet Changes the House Edge for the Better
If you're betting on the pass line and the shooter sets a point, you can expect to lose $1.41 for every $100 you bet. That's on average and in the long run.
If you're playing at a casino that only allows you to place an odds bet at 1X the size of your pass line bet, you can put another $100 into action.
Your expected loss remains $1.41, though, which effectively cuts the house edge in half, from 1.41% to 0.71%.
If you're able to bet 2X your original bet on the odds bet, you can lower that even further to 0.36%. (You have $300 in action, but your expected loss is still only $1.41.)
The more you're able to bet on the odds bet, the lower the house edge for all the money you have in action becomes.
It's clear why betting on the pass line and taking the most odds that you can is an effective strategy. With the odds bet, you can get the house edge in craps lower than 0.5% at least some of the time at the table, making it an even better game than blackjack.
And what's more, you don't have to memorize basic strategy to get the low house edge at craps.
Best Bets To Make On Craps Table Games
You just need a big enough casino bankroll to make the right bets, and you need enough sense to avoid the bad bets at the table – of which there are many.
Any Strategy that Involves Placing ANY Other Bets at the Craps Table Is a BAD Craps Strategy
There's a reason gambling experts measure bets according to their house edge. That's because it's the single best indicator of how good or bad a bet is.
The house edge is a statistical estimate of how much money you'll lose as a percentage of your original bet over the long run.
If the house edge is 1.41%, the casino expects to win an average of $1.41 every time you bet $100.
If the house edge is 16.66%, the casino expects to win an average of $16.66 every time you bet $100.
Which bet looks like the better bet for the casino?
And which one looks like the better bet for the gambler?
It shouldn't be hard to make the distinction.
Even the best of the bad bets on the craps table are inferior to the 1.41% or 1.36% you can get from the pass, don't pass, come, and don't come bets.
And trust me on this:
You can have PLENTY of fun sticking with the basic bets at the craps table.
Betting Systems Where You Raise and Lower the Size of Your Bets Are Bad Strategies
The classic example of this kind of betting system is the Martingale System, where you double the size of your bets after each loss. When you do this repeatedly, you eventually win back the money you've lost along with a profit of one unit.
The problem with a system like the Martingale is that you'll eventually run into a big enough losing streak that it will wipe out all those small profits and then some.
Most people underestimate how quickly a bet's size gets when doubling after every loss.
They also overestimate how likely they are to avoid long losing streaks.
If you double a $5 bet once, that's $10.
But if you run into a losing streak of 8 bets in a row, you're looking at having to bet $640 to make up for your losses.
Also, every roll of the dice is an independent event. The odds don't change based on how many times you've won or lost in a row.
You might think the probability of losing that 8th bet is lower than the likelihood of losing the first one, but the truth is that the dice have no memory. They have the same 6 sides, no matter how many times you've lost in a row.
Each bet in craps is an independent event, and any betting system will assume that the odds are changing based on how many times in a row you've won or lost.
Money Management Strategies Don't Hurt Anything, but They Won't Improve Your Odds of Winning, Either
Money management strategies involve having strict gambling discipline about how much of your bankroll you're willing to risk before quitting the game. They also require you to stop when you've won an arbitrary amount of money.
Money management techniques are often used in conjunction with betting systems.
Here's an example of a money management strategy in craps:
You decide your bankroll for the session is $250, and you're playing for $5 per roll of the dice.
Your stop-loss limit is $100, so, if your bankroll drops to $150, you must quit the craps session and go do something else.
Your win goal is $250, so once your bankroll gets up to $500, you must quit the game and go do something else.
This kind of strategy might increase your chances of walking away from the game a winner.
But that's only because a lot of gamblers will just keep playing until they've lost their entire stake. They just don't generally have a lot of sense about that sort of thing.
The Jury's Out on Dice Setting or Dice Control
I've seen multiple reputable gambling writers express interest and some belief that some craps shooters can influence the probability of specific outcomes. I'm skeptical – in the extreme – but I'll give it an appropriate amount of credence.
The idea is that you hold the dice a specific way – 'setting' the dice – then throw with a minimum amount of force – just enough to hit the back wall and eliminate most of the rolling action.
A controlled shooting expert doesn't have to be perfect. Instead, they're trying to be like someone who's playing darts. They improve the probability enough to change the negative expectation on a bet to a positive expectation.
You can buy books and videos explaining how to get an edge at craps this way, but I can't imagine the amount of practice and record-keeping required to have any confidence in your ability to change the odds.
Imagine if you spent 1000 hours trying to learn how to control the dice and coming up short. Maybe you just don't have the knack for it.
That doesn't sound like a good deal to me.
I'd rather learn to count cards in blackjack.
Conclusion
Those are the best and the worst of the strategies I know of for playing craps in the casino. I know plenty of people who would disagree with every recommendation I've made, but the math behind the game doesn't lie.
The best strategy is to stick with the bets with the lowest house edge and have as much fun as you can.
This is the 1st in a series of craps posts aimed at players who want to start winning more often. I'm including everything you need to know about craps to get the best odds of success. Most of the information in the posts in this series is not aimed at beginners. You should probably already understand the basics of craps before digging too deep into this series. The idea is not to provide how to play craps posts but to provide new information and ideas that might take your existing craps game to the next level.
Craps Is a Negative Expectation Game
Yes, craps is a 'negative expectation' game. But what does that mean, exactly? Gamblers and mathematicians like to talk about bets in terms of their 'expected value.' The expected value of a bet is a simple formula, too:
(The amount you stand to win X the probability of winning) – (The amount you stand lose X the probability of losing) = Expected value of a bet
You bet $2 on a coin flip, but if you win, you only get $1. You have a 50% chance of winning $1, which amounts to 50 cents in expected value. But you also have a 50% chance of losing $2, which amounts to -$1 in expected value. Subtract one from the other, and you get an expected value of -$0.50.
It should be obvious that if you flip a coin repeatedly long enough under those terms, you might get lucky in the short run, but you'll go broke in short order in the long run. ('In the long run' just means 'eventually.') All casino games design their odds of winnings and payouts to provide you with a negative expectation, by the way. That's how the casinos stay in business.
In some games, the expectation is the same no matter what. In other games, like craps, you can choose from an entire all-you-can-bet buffet of wagers. Some of these wagers have a bigger negative expectation than others. One of the subjects I'll cover in this series of posts is which bets are better and which bets are worse.
Why I Love Craps and Why You Should, Too
Blackjack has its fans, and I understand why. But craps is my game, and if you have the right personality, it's probably your game, too. It's fun, scary, exciting, suspenseful, and the most entertaining game in any casino which offers it. One of the reasons it's so great is this buffet of bets I just talked about, by the way.
At most craps tables, you'll find a huge crowd of players yelling, stuttering, and moaning over the results of any throw of the dice. Some players want to win a lot of money on a small bet. They might bet that the outcome of the next roll will be a 2 ('snake-eyes'). That pays off at 30 to 1, so even a measly $5 bet pays off at $150.
Other players like to play a close to even game with an even-money payoff. Those players will bet on the pass line and take as big an odds bet as they can. If you can find a casino offering you the option of betting 10X odds, the house edge for all the money you have in action on that combination of bets is only 0.184%.
The house edge, by the way, is just another way of expressing the expected value. In this case, it's the amount of money the casino expects to win from each bet over the long run. If the house edge for a bet is 1%, the casino expects to win $1 on average every time you bet $100. With a house edge of 0.184%, your expected loss on a $100 bet is only 18.4 cents—less than a quarter!
What I Hate about Craps, Though
The large variety of bets is a 2-edged sword. It's a feature but also a drawback. With such a large number of bets to choose from, it's easy to choose bad bets—wagers with a high negative expectation. In fact, when it comes to craps, there are far more bad choices you can bet on than good ones.
But if you choose the wrong bets—the wagers with the highest house edge—you can lose your entire bankroll faster than you ever thought possible. Lots of players make those bets, too, and the casinos even encourage their employees at the craps table to hustle those bets and encourage players to make them.
More about the House Edge and How the Casino Makes Its Money
The best way to think about how the casino makes its money at craps is to realize that one of 2 things is always happening with a craps bet:
- The casino wins more often than the player on an even money proposition
- The casino gets a cut of our winnings on any bets that you win
These are 2 sides of the same coin. Let me explain how those concepts work to make the casino a fortune:
The most common bets in craps are the pass line bet and the come bet. These are the most basics bets in the game—bets that the shooter will succeed. In the long run, over 495 'rounds,' the casino will win either of those bets on average 251 times. The player will only win an average of 244 of those bets. That's a difference of 7 bets over the course of 495 rounds of play (7/495 = 1.41%). By taking the odds bet, you can reduce that even further. In a casino where you can take 10X odds, the house edge is reduced to 0.18%, and in a casino where you can take 100X odds, the house edge is reduced to 0.02%.
The Any 7 Bet Is a Great Example
The 'any 7' bet is a one-roll bet that the next roll will be a 7. You have 6 ways of making a 7 when rolling 2 dice:
- 1, 6
- 2, 5
- 3, 4
- 4, 3
- 5, 2
- 6, 1
That means the probability of winning this bet is 6 divided by 36. (There are 36 possible outcomes when you roll 2 6-sided dice.) This means you'll win 1 bet out of 6, which also means that your odds of winning are 5 to 1. If you bet $10 repeatedly on the 'any 7' bet, you'll lose $10 on 5 rolls out of 6, or $50.
Best Bets To Make On Craps Table Game
The house edge on that bet—the average that you mathematically expect to lose on it—is 16.67%. For every $100 you bet, you're expected to eventually lose an average of $16.67. That's a big sum compared to the $1.41 on the pass line bet, or the 61 cents on the pass line bet with 2X odds. This bet is often called 'big red.' (I have an ex-girlfriend with the same nickname, but I won't get into that here.) Since red is the color accountants use for negative numbers on a spreadsheet, this bet is appropriately named. You can analyze any bet in craps this way.
The Field Bet Is another Great Example
Another example is the 'field' bet. That's another one-roll bet, this time that the next number will be one of the following:
Best Bets To Make On Craps Table Top
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
You have a total of 16 ways to make those numbers, out of 36 possible outcomes. That sounds pretty good. Also, most casinos pay out 2 to 1 if you get a 2 or 12. The field bet is still a lousy wager, though. The casino still has 22 ways to win compared to your 16 ways to lose. Even with the doubled payouts on the 2 and the 12, the casino comes out way ahead here. The house edge for this bet is the same as the house edge for an American roulette game—5.26%.
The Hard Way Bets
Some craps players love long odds, though. These guys make 'hard way' bets. A popular fictional character who does this is featured in the movie Hard Eight, which I recommend you see if you haven't already.
You can make the following hard way bets:
- Hard 4
- Hard 6
- Hard 8
- Hard 10
These are called 'hard way' bets because you're betting that the corresponding total will be rolled as doubles—a pair of 2s for a total of 4, a pair of 3s for a total of 6, a pair of 4s for a total of 8, or a pair of 5s for a total of 10. You're also betting that this will happen BEFORE the shooter rolls either a 7 or the corresponding total the 'easy way.' For example, if you bet on '6 the hard way,' if the shooter rolls a 1, 5; a 2, 4; a 4, 2; or a 5, 1.
Right Bettor Wagers, Payoffs, and the House Edge
If you're betting on the pass line and the shooter sets a point, you can expect to lose $1.41 for every $100 you bet. That's on average and in the long run.
If you're playing at a casino that only allows you to place an odds bet at 1X the size of your pass line bet, you can put another $100 into action.
Your expected loss remains $1.41, though, which effectively cuts the house edge in half, from 1.41% to 0.71%.
If you're able to bet 2X your original bet on the odds bet, you can lower that even further to 0.36%. (You have $300 in action, but your expected loss is still only $1.41.)
The more you're able to bet on the odds bet, the lower the house edge for all the money you have in action becomes.
It's clear why betting on the pass line and taking the most odds that you can is an effective strategy. With the odds bet, you can get the house edge in craps lower than 0.5% at least some of the time at the table, making it an even better game than blackjack.
And what's more, you don't have to memorize basic strategy to get the low house edge at craps.
Best Bets To Make On Craps Table Games
You just need a big enough casino bankroll to make the right bets, and you need enough sense to avoid the bad bets at the table – of which there are many.
Any Strategy that Involves Placing ANY Other Bets at the Craps Table Is a BAD Craps Strategy
There's a reason gambling experts measure bets according to their house edge. That's because it's the single best indicator of how good or bad a bet is.
The house edge is a statistical estimate of how much money you'll lose as a percentage of your original bet over the long run.
If the house edge is 1.41%, the casino expects to win an average of $1.41 every time you bet $100.
If the house edge is 16.66%, the casino expects to win an average of $16.66 every time you bet $100.
Which bet looks like the better bet for the casino?
And which one looks like the better bet for the gambler?
It shouldn't be hard to make the distinction.
Even the best of the bad bets on the craps table are inferior to the 1.41% or 1.36% you can get from the pass, don't pass, come, and don't come bets.
And trust me on this:
You can have PLENTY of fun sticking with the basic bets at the craps table.
Betting Systems Where You Raise and Lower the Size of Your Bets Are Bad Strategies
The classic example of this kind of betting system is the Martingale System, where you double the size of your bets after each loss. When you do this repeatedly, you eventually win back the money you've lost along with a profit of one unit.
The problem with a system like the Martingale is that you'll eventually run into a big enough losing streak that it will wipe out all those small profits and then some.
Most people underestimate how quickly a bet's size gets when doubling after every loss.
They also overestimate how likely they are to avoid long losing streaks.
If you double a $5 bet once, that's $10.
But if you run into a losing streak of 8 bets in a row, you're looking at having to bet $640 to make up for your losses.
Also, every roll of the dice is an independent event. The odds don't change based on how many times you've won or lost in a row.
You might think the probability of losing that 8th bet is lower than the likelihood of losing the first one, but the truth is that the dice have no memory. They have the same 6 sides, no matter how many times you've lost in a row.
Each bet in craps is an independent event, and any betting system will assume that the odds are changing based on how many times in a row you've won or lost.
Money Management Strategies Don't Hurt Anything, but They Won't Improve Your Odds of Winning, Either
Money management strategies involve having strict gambling discipline about how much of your bankroll you're willing to risk before quitting the game. They also require you to stop when you've won an arbitrary amount of money.
Money management techniques are often used in conjunction with betting systems.
Here's an example of a money management strategy in craps:
You decide your bankroll for the session is $250, and you're playing for $5 per roll of the dice.
Your stop-loss limit is $100, so, if your bankroll drops to $150, you must quit the craps session and go do something else.
Your win goal is $250, so once your bankroll gets up to $500, you must quit the game and go do something else.
This kind of strategy might increase your chances of walking away from the game a winner.
But that's only because a lot of gamblers will just keep playing until they've lost their entire stake. They just don't generally have a lot of sense about that sort of thing.
The Jury's Out on Dice Setting or Dice Control
I've seen multiple reputable gambling writers express interest and some belief that some craps shooters can influence the probability of specific outcomes. I'm skeptical – in the extreme – but I'll give it an appropriate amount of credence.
The idea is that you hold the dice a specific way – 'setting' the dice – then throw with a minimum amount of force – just enough to hit the back wall and eliminate most of the rolling action.
A controlled shooting expert doesn't have to be perfect. Instead, they're trying to be like someone who's playing darts. They improve the probability enough to change the negative expectation on a bet to a positive expectation.
You can buy books and videos explaining how to get an edge at craps this way, but I can't imagine the amount of practice and record-keeping required to have any confidence in your ability to change the odds.
Imagine if you spent 1000 hours trying to learn how to control the dice and coming up short. Maybe you just don't have the knack for it.
That doesn't sound like a good deal to me.
I'd rather learn to count cards in blackjack.
Conclusion
Those are the best and the worst of the strategies I know of for playing craps in the casino. I know plenty of people who would disagree with every recommendation I've made, but the math behind the game doesn't lie.
The best strategy is to stick with the bets with the lowest house edge and have as much fun as you can.
This is the 1st in a series of craps posts aimed at players who want to start winning more often. I'm including everything you need to know about craps to get the best odds of success. Most of the information in the posts in this series is not aimed at beginners. You should probably already understand the basics of craps before digging too deep into this series. The idea is not to provide how to play craps posts but to provide new information and ideas that might take your existing craps game to the next level.
Craps Is a Negative Expectation Game
Yes, craps is a 'negative expectation' game. But what does that mean, exactly? Gamblers and mathematicians like to talk about bets in terms of their 'expected value.' The expected value of a bet is a simple formula, too:
(The amount you stand to win X the probability of winning) – (The amount you stand lose X the probability of losing) = Expected value of a bet
You bet $2 on a coin flip, but if you win, you only get $1. You have a 50% chance of winning $1, which amounts to 50 cents in expected value. But you also have a 50% chance of losing $2, which amounts to -$1 in expected value. Subtract one from the other, and you get an expected value of -$0.50.
It should be obvious that if you flip a coin repeatedly long enough under those terms, you might get lucky in the short run, but you'll go broke in short order in the long run. ('In the long run' just means 'eventually.') All casino games design their odds of winnings and payouts to provide you with a negative expectation, by the way. That's how the casinos stay in business.
In some games, the expectation is the same no matter what. In other games, like craps, you can choose from an entire all-you-can-bet buffet of wagers. Some of these wagers have a bigger negative expectation than others. One of the subjects I'll cover in this series of posts is which bets are better and which bets are worse.
Why I Love Craps and Why You Should, Too
Blackjack has its fans, and I understand why. But craps is my game, and if you have the right personality, it's probably your game, too. It's fun, scary, exciting, suspenseful, and the most entertaining game in any casino which offers it. One of the reasons it's so great is this buffet of bets I just talked about, by the way.
At most craps tables, you'll find a huge crowd of players yelling, stuttering, and moaning over the results of any throw of the dice. Some players want to win a lot of money on a small bet. They might bet that the outcome of the next roll will be a 2 ('snake-eyes'). That pays off at 30 to 1, so even a measly $5 bet pays off at $150.
Other players like to play a close to even game with an even-money payoff. Those players will bet on the pass line and take as big an odds bet as they can. If you can find a casino offering you the option of betting 10X odds, the house edge for all the money you have in action on that combination of bets is only 0.184%.
The house edge, by the way, is just another way of expressing the expected value. In this case, it's the amount of money the casino expects to win from each bet over the long run. If the house edge for a bet is 1%, the casino expects to win $1 on average every time you bet $100. With a house edge of 0.184%, your expected loss on a $100 bet is only 18.4 cents—less than a quarter!
What I Hate about Craps, Though
The large variety of bets is a 2-edged sword. It's a feature but also a drawback. With such a large number of bets to choose from, it's easy to choose bad bets—wagers with a high negative expectation. In fact, when it comes to craps, there are far more bad choices you can bet on than good ones.
But if you choose the wrong bets—the wagers with the highest house edge—you can lose your entire bankroll faster than you ever thought possible. Lots of players make those bets, too, and the casinos even encourage their employees at the craps table to hustle those bets and encourage players to make them.
More about the House Edge and How the Casino Makes Its Money
The best way to think about how the casino makes its money at craps is to realize that one of 2 things is always happening with a craps bet:
- The casino wins more often than the player on an even money proposition
- The casino gets a cut of our winnings on any bets that you win
These are 2 sides of the same coin. Let me explain how those concepts work to make the casino a fortune:
The most common bets in craps are the pass line bet and the come bet. These are the most basics bets in the game—bets that the shooter will succeed. In the long run, over 495 'rounds,' the casino will win either of those bets on average 251 times. The player will only win an average of 244 of those bets. That's a difference of 7 bets over the course of 495 rounds of play (7/495 = 1.41%). By taking the odds bet, you can reduce that even further. In a casino where you can take 10X odds, the house edge is reduced to 0.18%, and in a casino where you can take 100X odds, the house edge is reduced to 0.02%.
The Any 7 Bet Is a Great Example
The 'any 7' bet is a one-roll bet that the next roll will be a 7. You have 6 ways of making a 7 when rolling 2 dice:
- 1, 6
- 2, 5
- 3, 4
- 4, 3
- 5, 2
- 6, 1
That means the probability of winning this bet is 6 divided by 36. (There are 36 possible outcomes when you roll 2 6-sided dice.) This means you'll win 1 bet out of 6, which also means that your odds of winning are 5 to 1. If you bet $10 repeatedly on the 'any 7' bet, you'll lose $10 on 5 rolls out of 6, or $50.
Best Bets To Make On Craps Table Game
The house edge on that bet—the average that you mathematically expect to lose on it—is 16.67%. For every $100 you bet, you're expected to eventually lose an average of $16.67. That's a big sum compared to the $1.41 on the pass line bet, or the 61 cents on the pass line bet with 2X odds. This bet is often called 'big red.' (I have an ex-girlfriend with the same nickname, but I won't get into that here.) Since red is the color accountants use for negative numbers on a spreadsheet, this bet is appropriately named. You can analyze any bet in craps this way.
The Field Bet Is another Great Example
Another example is the 'field' bet. That's another one-roll bet, this time that the next number will be one of the following:
Best Bets To Make On Craps Table Top
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
You have a total of 16 ways to make those numbers, out of 36 possible outcomes. That sounds pretty good. Also, most casinos pay out 2 to 1 if you get a 2 or 12. The field bet is still a lousy wager, though. The casino still has 22 ways to win compared to your 16 ways to lose. Even with the doubled payouts on the 2 and the 12, the casino comes out way ahead here. The house edge for this bet is the same as the house edge for an American roulette game—5.26%.
The Hard Way Bets
Some craps players love long odds, though. These guys make 'hard way' bets. A popular fictional character who does this is featured in the movie Hard Eight, which I recommend you see if you haven't already.
You can make the following hard way bets:
- Hard 4
- Hard 6
- Hard 8
- Hard 10
These are called 'hard way' bets because you're betting that the corresponding total will be rolled as doubles—a pair of 2s for a total of 4, a pair of 3s for a total of 6, a pair of 4s for a total of 8, or a pair of 5s for a total of 10. You're also betting that this will happen BEFORE the shooter rolls either a 7 or the corresponding total the 'easy way.' For example, if you bet on '6 the hard way,' if the shooter rolls a 1, 5; a 2, 4; a 4, 2; or a 5, 1.
Right Bettor Wagers, Payoffs, and the House Edge
A 'right bettor' is someone who bets with the shooter. (It's the opposite of a 'wrong bettor.') Basically, all the right bettor wagers are bets that the shooter will succeed before rolling a 7.
Whirl – This is the horn bet and the any 7 bet combined.
It's actually more complicated than some other craps bets, because the payoffs depend on which number wins. For example, if you roll a 7, the payoff is actually nothing, because it's treated as a push. (This is a tie where your bet is returned to you without any winnings.) That's because when you win the any 7 bet, you're still losing the horn bet.
On the other hand, the 2 or 12 pay off at 26 to 5, and the 3 or 11 pay off at 11 to 5. It's a complicated bet, and the house edge is high. Don't bet it. Some casinos and players call it the 'world' bet. Your odds of winning are 2 to 1. The house edge is 13.33%.
2 – This is a one-roll bet that the next number rolled will be a 2. The odds of winning are 35 to 1, but it only pays off at 30 to 1. The house edge is 13.89%. This is also called 'snake eyes.'
Best Bets To Make On Craps Tables
12 – This is a one-roll bet that the next number rolled will be a 12. The odds of winning are 35 to 1, but it only pays off at 30 to 1. The house edge is 13.89%. You'll notice that the odds are the same as for the 2 bet.
Hop (doubles) – The hop bet isn't listed on the table. It's one of those 'secret' craps bets. A hop bet is a wager that the dice will fall on a specific combination. In this case, we're looking at doubles, so a 4 on the hop (doubles) would be a bet that the dice would land on 2, 2. (Yes, this is the same as a 4 the hard way.)
There are 2 big differences between betting on the hop and the hard way. A bet on the hop is a one-roll bet—you win or lose on the next roll. A normal hard way bet stays in action until it's won or until the total is rolled (or a 7 is rolled.) That's the 1st difference.
The 2nd difference is that the hop bet has a different payout. The odds of winning a hop bet are 35 to 1, but it pays off at 30 to 1. The house edge is 13.89% on this one, too.
Horn – This is a bet that the dice will land on 2, 3, 11, or 12. The odds of winning are 5 to 1. The payoff depends on the specific total, though. A 2 or 12 pays off at 27 to 4. A 3 or an 11 pays off at 3 to 1. The house edge on the horn bet is 12.5%.
Hop (not doubles) – This is a bet on a specific combination, like 4 on the hop that consists of a 3 and a 1. Since you don't have to roll doubles, you have twice as many ways to win on the hop if you don't choose doubles. This makes the odds of winning 17 to 1, and the payoff is 15 to 1. The house edge is 11.11%.
3 – This bet, like the hop bet that isn't based on doubles, has odds of 17 to 1 of winning. The payoff is also 15 to 1, and the house edge is also 11.11%. This bet is also called 'ace deuce.'
11 – This is the same as the bet on 3, but it wins if you roll an 11. The odds are the same as for a bet on 3.
Any Craps – This is also called the '3 way.' It's a bet that the dice will land on 2, 3, or 12. The odds of winning are 8 to 1, and the payoff is 7 to 1. The house edge is 11.11%. Any craps is a one-roll bet.
Hard 4 – This is a bet that the dice will come up 2, 2 before coming up with a total of 7 or another total of 4 not comprised of doubles. The odds of winning are 8 to 1, the payoff is 7 to 1, and the house edge is 11.11%.
Hard 10 – This has the same odds of winning and same payoff odds as a hard 4, but you're betting on the dice coming up 5, 5 instead of 2, 2.
C&E – This is a combination of the any craps bet and the yo bet. The any craps portion of the bet pays off if you hit 2, 3, or 12. The yo bet pays off if you hit an 11. The overall probability of winning is 5 to 1. The payout is 3 to 1 if the craps numbers come up, but it's 7 to 1 if the 11 comes up. The house edge is 11.11%
Hard 6 – The hard 6 is the same as a hard 4 or a hard 10, but there are more ways to lose. (There are more ways to roll a 6 than there are ways to roll a 4.) The odds of winning are 10 to 1, but the payoff odds are 9 to 1. The house edge is 9.09%.
Hard 8 – Almost everything I wrote about hard 6 applies to hard 8, too. The only difference is that you're betting on the dice coming up 4, 4 instead of 3, 3.
Big 6 – This is just a bet that the shooter will roll a 6 before rolling a 7. The odds of winning are 6 to 5, and the payoff is even money. The house edge is 9.09%.
Big 8 – This is just a bet that the shooter will roll an 8 before rolling a 7. The odds are the same for big 8 as they are for big 6.
Place 4 – This is a bet that the 4 will come up before the shooter rolls a 7. The odds of winning are 2 to 1, and the payoff is 9 to 5. The house edge is 6.67%.
Place 10 – The odds are the same as for the place 4 bet, but you're betting on a total of 10 coming up before the shooter rolls a 7.
The Field – I wrote about the field bet earlier in this post. It's a bet that the dice will land on 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 or 12. The odds of winning are 5 to 4, and the payoff is even money, unless you roll a 2 or 12. If you roll one of those, you get a 2 to 1 payoff. The house edge is 5.26%.
Place 5- This is a bet that the 5 will come up before the shooter rolls a 7. The odds of winning are 3 to 2. The payoff is 7 to 5. The house edge is 4%.
In the next post in this series, I'm going to look at some more of your betting options. That's right. Craps has so many betting options that I can't cover them all in a single post. More importantly, I'll start offering some advice about which bets you should actually be placing on a regular basis.
For now, take this away from this post: Craps is a negative expectation game, but if you stick with the right bets, the house edge is so low that you can often walk away a winner. The larger number of bets available at the craps table is one of the more confusing aspects of the game. The casino makes its money from craps by making sure they're going to win more often than you do or by paying you at odds lower than the odds of actually winning. Depending on the bet, the house edge can be as low as 0.18% or as high as 16.67%.
