The 5 Best Bets in Craps You Can Make and the 5 You Should Avoid

In today’s article, we’re going to look at the best bets in craps. Craps appears to be a very complicated game, and many players give up on the game because it’s seems too difficult to understand. 

And that’s why it seems so complicated.

Once you separate them out, they become much easier to understand – especially when you realize that a few of the simple games are just the exact opposite of each other – so once you understand one, its ‘twin’ is just the opposite.

Once you have read this guide, you will know and understand the best bets to make in craps and why they’re the best bets in craps. 

You will also understand the worst bets to make, the bets that just suck up your bankroll and that you should stay well clear of.

Thank you to Nick and Chris, my instructors. 

I didn’t know how good you were until I taught my own students how to deal when I opened Grand Casino, in Biloxi, Mississippi, and the other dozen or so casinos I opened across the country.

Let’s get started.

Best craps bets:

1. The Pass Line
2. Taking the Odds
3. Don’t Pass and the Don’t Come
4. Buy the 4 and 10
5. Place the 6 and 8

Worst craps bets:

1. Any Seven
2. 2 and 12, plus any Hardway Hopping Bet
3. 3 and 11, and an Easy Way Hopping Bet
4. Any Craps (2, 3, or 12)
5. Big 6, Big 8, All the Hardway bets, and the Field

The 5 Best Bets in Craps

Here are the best bets for the players on a regular crap game. 

These are the bets that have the lowest house advantage and give you the best chance to win.

Having said that, they are not in the ‘lowest house advantage’ order, simply because that’s not the best way to learn them, and I truly believe it’s not the best way to bet them, either.

1. The Pass Line

The Pass Line is here first because it is the one bet that almost all players play. It does have a very low House Advantage (HA) at 1.41% but not the lowest, and I believe it is the best bet in craps.

It is the perfect bet for a beginner, and yet the grizzled veteran of 50 years of dice games will have a Pass Line bet, too.

The bet is made on a Come Out roll. It is a self-service bet – which means the player places it and the dealer doesn’t move it unless it loses.

You will know it’s the Come Out roll because the puck, a circular marker with ‘ON’ with a white background on one side, and ‘OFF’ with a black background on the other side, will be ‘OFF’ side up on the Don’t Come.

Like this:

The puck is OFF side up in the Don’t Come, with several bets on the Pass Line and the Don’t Pass. This is a clear indication that it is a Come Out roll.

The Pass Line bet wins if the first roll is a 7 or an 11. It loses if the first roll is a 2, 3, or 12.

Any other number (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10) becomes ‘The Point’, and the shooter must roll the point again before a 7 to win.

Let’s say the shooter rolls a 6. The dealer will take the puck and place it on the 6, with the ‘ON’ side up. Like this: 

Once the point is established, if the shooter rolls a 7, it means his Pass Line bet loses. 

If he rolls a 6, his Pass Line bet wins even money. 

Let’s say he bet $10, he would get paid $10 and keep his original bet, so now has a total of $20.

No other number affects his Pass Line bet. 

And he can roll until the cows come home, but nothing is going to happen to his Pass Line bet unless he rolls a 6 (he wins), or a 7 (he loses).

The House Advantage on a Pass Line bet is a low 1.41%, which makes it one of the best bets in the casino.

So the point is 6, but what if the player now wants to bet on the next roll, and not wait for the Pass Line to win or lose? What then?

He bets on the Come.

A bet on the Come is exactly the same as the Pass Line bet, except it is made after a point has been established for the Pass Line bet.

In this case, the point is 6 for the Pass Line bet. So our player now bets $15 in the Come.

If the shooter now rolls a 9, the dealer will move his $15 Come bet to the 9. 

And now, for the $15, only a 9 (he wins), or 7 (he loses) counts. 

No other number affects the $15 he has bet.

And he can continue to bet the Come if he wants to.

2. Taking the Odds

And here is the second ‘best bet’ for you. This one has zero as the House Advantage. That’s right – the casino gets no piece of the odds bet.

Any Pass Line bet can have the odds placed behind it, and any Come bet can have the odds placed on it. 

The odds allowed are at least double the initial line bet, and can be 3x, 4x, or 5x the initial line bet. Some casinos will allow 10x odds, and some even allow 100x odds.

The odds pay the true odds of that number coming up before a 7 as follows:

The Numbers	What The Odds Pay
6 and 8	6 for every 5 you bet
5 and 9	3 for every 2 you bet
4 and 10	2 for every 1 you bet

And of course, you get to keep the odds bet you made if it wins.

The right bet for you to make here is based on two things:

1. What is going to make the odds work the best for the dealer to pay you? 

If you have a $10 Pass Line bet, the casino will usually let you bet at least $25, because the odds pay 6 to 5, so the casino will let you bet 5 units so they can pay you 6 units. 

Which means you don’t have to worry about the $1 chips (the smash).

2. How much of your bankroll do you want to put into action?

It’s all very well saying ‘bet as much as you can on the odds’, but what if you are allowed to bet 10x odds?

Do you really want to bet $100 odds on your $10 Pass Line bet? 

Or even bet a $25 Pass Line bet? 

If you started with $200, $100 represents ½ of your bankroll – which may be more than you’re comfortable betting on one number. 

Even a $25 Pass Line bet may be more of your bankroll than you want to bet.

Here are the House Advantage percentages if you bet Single, Double, 10x or 100x odds when combined with your initial Pass Line or Come bet:

Amount of Odds Allowed	Cumulative House Advantage
Single	0.8%
Double	0.6%
10 x	0.2%
100 x	0.02%

3. Bet the Don’t Pass and the Don’t Come

In theory, these are better bets than the Pass Line and Come because at 1.36%, the House Advantage is marginally lower.

In practice, you would have to play for months for that tiny difference to show up with any significance in the win/loss column.

And meanwhile, as a ‘Dark Side’ bettor, you become one of the curmudgeonly men in gray suits who patrol the battlefield after a magnificent victory and tell you, ‘yeah, you won the battle, but you used way too many arrows’.

Playing the Don’t side is no fun at all. 

And what you lose is the camaraderie and exhilaration of being part of a big win when it comes.

I think Teddy Roosevelt said it best in his speech to the Sorbonne in 1910, ‘It is not the critic who counts […], the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena . . .’

And the man who is actually in the arena is the guy who’s betting the Pass Line, not the guy on the Don’t who is counting the arrows.

A bet on the Don’t Pass wins even money on the Come Out roll if the shooter rolls a 2 or 3. It loses if the shooter rolls a 7 or an 11, and it’s a push if the shooter rolls a 12. 

Which is why it says ‘Don’t Pass Bar 12’ – because the 12 is barred on the Come Out if the shooter rolls it.

Once the point is established, the Don’t Come works exactly like the Don’t Pass, except for the next roll. 

And once the point is established for your Don’t Come bet, it becomes a bet that the shooter will roll a 7 before the point that was just established.

Laying the odds means you are betting that the 7 will show up before the number that was just established. 

Because you’re betting on the favorite, you have to bet more, to win less.

And it’s the exact opposite of the Pass Line or Come bet odds:

• Laying the 6 and 8, you must bet 6 to win 5.
• Laying the 5 and 9, you must bet 3 to win 2.
• Laying the 4 and 10, you must bet 2 to win 1.

Here’s what happens to the overall House Advantage when you bet the Don’t and lay the odds:

Amount of Lay Bet Allowed	Cumulative House Advantage
Single	0.7%
Double	0.5%
10 x	0.1%
100 x	0.01%

4. Buy the 4 and 10

A Place bet on the 4 and 10 has a HA of 1.67%, which you can reduce to 1.19% if you Buy it. 

If the casino only takes the vigorish after the number hits, the HA is further reduced to 0.42%, which is as good a bet as you’re going to find just about anywhere. 

A Place bet on the 4 and 10 in the UK and Australia has a HA of 0.83%, because the bet pays 9.5 to 1, not the US payout of 9 to 5. 

As I recall, Buying the odds isn’t an option in the UK or AUS.

What does ‘Buying the Odds’ actually mean? 

In the US, a place bet on the 4 and 10 pays 9 to 5.

But a Buy bet pays 2 to 1 – which is 10 to 5, an increase of 10% in the payout, so you have to buy that increased payout. 

And it works even better in a casino that allows you to pay the juice after the number has hit – that reduces the House Advantage to 0.42%. A great bet if you can find it.

5. Place the 6 and 8

There are 5 ways to make a 6, and five ways to make an 8.

There are 6 ways to make a 7.

Which means the 6 and 8 are the most rolled numbers after a 7. 

They show up a lot.

And by placing a bet on them, the casino will pay you 7 to 6. You should bet 6 units to win 7.

Which gives you a House Advantage working against you of only 0.46%.

Which is a great bet to make.

The 5 craps bets you should avoid

The worst bets in craps are the bets in front of the stickman – the Proposition Bets.

Some are a one-roll bet, so you get a win/lose decision immediately, and the others are an ‘all-day’ bet – or at least until they lose.

And in the UK and Australia, they pay back a bit more than in the US, so the House Advantage there is less.

The five worst craps bets in the US are listed below, and where the HA is included, the UK and Australian HA will be in brackets behind it, like this:

Hard 6 and 8 2.78% (1.39%)

And the reason the HA is half of the US HA in the example, is because in the UK and Australia it pays 9.5 to 1, but in the US it only pays 9 to 1. 

Check what they pay on a game that is not in the USA, because it might have a much lower HA than you’re used to.

Here are the worst bets on a crap game:

1. Any Seven

It’s a one-roll bet that the 7 will be rolled on the next roll. It pays 4 to 1 (4.5 to 1), but with the House Advantage a whopping 16.67% (8.33%), you may as well just mail your money to the casino and save yourself the travel expenses.

Don’t make the any seven bet. Ever.

2. 2 and 12, plus any Hardway Hopping Bet

Again, this is a one-roll Proposition bet. It wins or loses on the next roll.

What is a Hardway Hopping bet? It’s a pair of 2s, 3s, 4s, or 5s. 

The bet could be ‘$5 on a hard eight hopping’, which is a bet on the next roll being a pair of 4s.

The HA on all these bets is 13.89% (5.56%). 

The bet pays 30 to 1 in the US, but if I remember correctly, it pays 33 to 1 in the UK and Australia, so the HA is significantly reduced.

With a HA of 5.56%, it’s still not a good bet in the UK or Australia.

3. 3 and 11, and an Easy Way Hopping Bet

A one-roll Proposition bet, it’s a bet that either 3, 11, or a specific number combination (such as 5/1) will be rolled next.

A roll of 5/1 pays 15 to 1 in the US. 

The 3 and 11 both pay the same, 15 to 1. 

The HA on this bet is 11.11% (5.56%) in the US, but because it pays 16 to 1 in the UK and Australia, the HA there is 5.56%.

4. Any Craps (2, 3, or 12)

This bet doesn’t differentiate between the 2, 3 or 12. If any of them show up, the player gets paid 7 to 1 in the US, and 7.5 to 1 in the UK or Australia. 

Which means it has a HA of 11.11% in the US, and 5.56% in the UK and Australia.

And with an HA of 5.56%, it’s still a very poor bet to make.

5. Big 6, Big 8, All the Hardway bets, and the Field

The House Advantage on these bets is 2.78% for the Hardways and the Big 6 and 8, and 5.56% if the Field pays 2 to 1 for both the 2 and the 12.

If the Field pays 3 to 1 for the 2 or the 12, it reduces the HA on the Field to 2.78%.

Now 2.78% isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to you, but when you can place the box number 6 and 8 with a HA of 0.46% (less than 1/5th the HA of the Big 6 and 8), why wouldn’t you?

Expert’s Advice

If you read my other articles, you will know that I mentioned that the use of the Paroli system on a crap game once got me a job as the Director of Gaming Operations at a casino in New Mexico.

And I promised that I would include all the juicy details of how to play the Paroli in conjunction with buying the 4 and 10. 

And the Paroli (also called a Reverse Martingale) I use is a Super Paroli, so the bet isn’t just doubled, all the winnings are bet back at the casino.

If you prefer to get to the details of the Super-Paroli and the Buy bets, scroll down to where it says: The shooter hit a point of 9.

And here it is:

I was flown into Albuquerque and put up in the casino hotel, prior to my meeting for the third interview with the GM the following morning.

Right on cue at 10am, I showed up in his office and we chatted for about an hour about management philosophy, how to motivate staff members, how to deal with Tribal issues, and the myriad other things that are part of the responsibilities of a Director of both Slots and Table Games.

The casino had 28 gaming tables, and over 1,000 machines that I would be overseeing.

The GM was a very cool guy, (let’s call him Sam – not his real name) and I was looking forward to working with Sam because we agreed on many things about how the gaming departments should be run, and the best way forward for this casino.

Then Sam suggested that we should go and have dinner at our major competitor, Sandia, the ‘big dog’ of the market. 

He said, ‘come back at 5:00pm and we’ll take a walk around their casino, and you can tell me what you see, and we’ll have dinner, and in the meanwhile, put on some jeans and a polo shirt and take an undercover look around here and we’ll compare notes at dinnertime’.

So I did, and later, during the short drive to Sandia, he told me that he was actually an HR guy with limited casino experience, and he was very interested to hear what I had to say about how they had set up their casino compared to what he had inherited at ours.

As we were walking around Sandia, we talked about the various design features they had in place, and why they would have made those choices, why they had slant-top machines in certain areas to improve their sight lines, which table games pits were in the best locations and why they were there, why the pathways

through the casino were curved and what happens to the players’ perception if they’re straight lines, why some slot banks are rounds and some are rectangular, how well-trained their dealers were, and the myriad decisions that go into laying out a casino floor.

It was a fun hour or so, and then during dinner, he said he’d never understood craps and could we go and play for a while.

So we did.

He bought in for $200 on a $5 game, and I asked him if he wanted to play it safe, or if he wanted to GFTT (go for the throat!). He laughed and told me he usually played $1 slots and was a ‘win big or go home’ guy.

I explained that craps looks really complicated, but in fact it’s ten or so really simple games that are all going on at the same time – and that’s why it looks so complicated.

Then I showed him how to play a Super-Paroli system while buying the 4 and 10 and explained the simple game we were going to play. 

Basically it means that the bets pay 2 to 1, and we’re going to bet all the winnings back at the casino.

Here’s how it went:

The shooter hit a point of 9

I told Sam:

1. Drop $52 on the layout, and say, ‘Buy the 4 and 10 for $25 each’.

And the shooter came straight back with a Hard 4.

2. Tell the dealer, ‘Buy it for $75’ and I told Sam to give the dealer $3 and explained about ‘the vig’.

The shooter rolled a 6. No action required from us.

The shooter then rolled an Easy 4.

3. Tell the dealer, ‘Buy it for $200’. You will receive $15 change.

The shooter rolled a 12. No action required from us.

The shooter rolled an 8.

The shooter rolled a 4.

4. Tell the dealer, ‘Buy it for $600’.

And this is where my plan went south. 

The dealer said, ‘Sir, I’m sorry but the maximum is $500’. So we bought it for $500.

The shooter rolled another 4.

So we said to the dealer, ‘Buy the 10 for $500’, and got our $450 change.

And the shooter rolled a 10.

So we took the $1,000 payout and put it in the rack with the $450 and the remainder of the original $200 buy-in and ‘the smash’ – the change from the previous transactions.

Then the shooter rolled a 7-out.

5. At that point, Sam said to me, ‘Wow, that was amazing!’ How long did you deal this game? Where did you learn that? Oh my God, that was so much fun!’

6. And then he gave me $200. I refused, of course, but we went back and forth with it for a minute or two, and I finally accepted it because he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

And the next morning, he offered me the job as Director of Gaming Operations at the casino.

Some days are better than others...

Conclusion

So there you have the best (and the worst) bets in craps.

Here are a couple of recommendations:

1. Steer clear of the bets in the middle of the table with the Stickman.
2. Bet the Pass Line and take odds of somewhere between double and five times your Pass Line bet.
3. Bet two Come bets and take the same odds are your Pass Line bet.
4. Once you become more familiar with the betting options, you may consider branching out into some more adventurous bets.
5. Start with a couple of place bets – perhaps the 6 and 8 are good places to start.

Once you get comfortable and understand the ‘why’ of the game, it’s a very cool game to play. Given the choice of what game to play, I’ll take craps every time. 

I can recommend sticking with it as you’re trying to learn how to play, because it really is an incredible feeling when the shooter gets hot and suddenly, he’s made three or four passes, he’s been rolling for 15 minutes, the table is packed and everyone’s winning a lot and going crazy.

Take a look at our Craps guides in the Academy. There are several recommendations on how to play. 

When I go to play, I will either bet the Pass Line and two Come bets with odds, or Buy the 4 and 10 with the Super-Paroli system and GFTT philosophy listed above.

There are reasons why I do it that way – and perhaps we’ll address that in another article.

And good luck.