It is the best of games; it is the worst of games – with apologies to Mr. Dickens. Craps has some of the best bets in the casino. Craps has some of the worst bets in the casino.Both statements are true.
And today, we’re going to look at the best bets you will find on a craps table.
And the worst ones, too.
If we don’t mention your favorite, it’s probably because it’s not that great a way for you to be playing.
And if you haven’t played craps much and always wondered what you should be betting, here are some tips for playing craps.
These are the best bets to make.
Once you finish this article, you will know what the best bets to make are, what the House Advantage is on all of them, how you should bet them, and why you should bet them.
Let’s get started.
The Pass Line is the most common bet on a crap game. The newbies play it, the grizzled old veterans play it, almost everybody plays it.
And the reason is because it’s a bet that the shooter is going to win.
So you become part of the crowd that’s supporting the shooter, so when he wins, most people playing win, and you get to feel the exhilaration of being part of a group that’s winning together.
The House Advantage (HA) on the Pass Line is a low 1.41%.
It’s an easy bet to understand, too.
On the first roll, the Come-Out roll, your Pass Line bet wins on a 7 or an 11 and loses on a 2, 3, or 12.
If the shooter rolls any other number, it becomes the point, and he must roll that number again before a 7 to win.
Pretty straightforward, isn’t it?
On the first roll, you have 8 ways to win, and only 4 ways to lose.
How do you know it’s a Come-Out roll?
Well, the stickman will be announcing it and the puck (a big aspirin with ON and OFF written on it, will be OFF side up in the Don’t Come.
Like this:
Probably the best bet in any casino is betting the odds on a Pass Line or Come bet. The casino’s HA on the odds bet is 0.00%. That’s right, zero.
It’s such a good bet, there is no spot marked on the layout to bet it.
But you will quickly learn that you place your odds bet about 3 inches (7 cms) away from your Pass Line bet.
Why, you ask? Because you need to leave a space wide enough for a die not to get hung up between the two.
The odds bet gets paid the true odds of the point number coming up before a 7.
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 |
So the smart move here is to bet a bit less on the Pass Line, so you have more to bet on your odds after the shooter makes their point.
Some casinos will allow you to take double odds – which means if you have a $10 Pass Line bet, you can bet up to $20 odds.
But then some other casinos decided that you could bet $25 odds on the 6 and 8, because the true odds are 6 to 5, so a $25 bet can get paid $30, without having to use $1 chips.
It was all really confusing. So now, many casinos have gone to what is called ‘3x, 4x, 5x Odds’.
Which means that you can bet the following amounts:
That’s a good question, and the answer is an easy one to understand.
With an HA of 1.36%, the Don’t Pass is a better bet than the Pass Line.
In theory.
So why am I recommending that you don’t bet on it, and choose the Pass Line instead?
Because if you bet the Don’t Pass, when you win, pretty much everyone else at the table is losing. And it’s no fun to be the guy who wins when everyone else is losing. It just isn’t.
Imagine, here’s you cheering because you just won, and everyone else is looking at you sideways because they just lost.
And here’s the deciding factor for me – with an HA that is 0.05% less than the Pass Line, you would have to play 8 hours a day for a few weeks for it to make any significant difference to your win/loss.
If you do decide to play the Don’t Pass, you can make the Odds bet. It’s called ‘Laying the Odds’ because you have to bet more to win less.
But I’m not recommending it.
A Come bet is exactly the same as the Pass Line, except it’s for the next roll once a point has been established.
And there’s a classic craps system you can bet to go with your Pass Line bet that includes the Come bet.
It’s called the Three Point Molly and it simply means you make two additional Come Bets once you have a point established on your Pass Line bet.
It’s an easy-to-understand system.
Once the point has been established and you’ve bet the odds on your Pass Line bet, you make two additional Come bets and once they’re moved to a number, bet the odds on them, too.
What that means is you end up with three numbers covered – which, worst case scenario, you have the 4, the 10, and either the 5 or 9 covered, which means there are 10 ways for you to win and only 6 ways to lose.
Best case scenario gives you the 6 and the 8, and either the 5 or 9 covered, which is 14 ways to win and 6 ways to lose.
When one of your numbers hits, you make another Come bet or Pass Line bet, so you’re back to having 3 bets on the layout.
Another good way to play is to place a bet on the box numbers of 6 and 8.
Because you haven’t put your money at risk through the Come, and you’ve chosen the numbers, not the dice, the Place bets pay slightly reduced odds.
And on the 6 and 8, they offer a very low House Advantage of 0.46% - which is a great bet.
Because these bets pay 7 to 6, you must make a bet that has 6 units. $6, $12 and so on.
Placing the 4, 5, 9, and 10 are also good bets, but they don’t have as low a House Advantage as the 6 and 8.
And if you’re going to place the 4 and 10, don’t...
Buy them, instead.
Place bets on the 4 and 10 have an HA of 1.67%. Not too bad, but not great.
If you Buy them, it costs 5% of what you bet to buy the true odds of them coming up before a 7 (2 to 1), versus the 9 to 5 you get by placing them.
So your $20 bet gets paid $40 instead of the $36 you would get with a place bet.
Which means the extra $1 vigorish (a fancy word for commission) you paid is getting paid 4 to 1, instead of the 2 to 1 true odds.
If you have to pay the vig up front, the HA is now down to 1.19% - much better than the 1.67% you were getting with the place bets.
Even better is if the casino allows you to pay the vig after the number has hit – and now the HA is down to 0.42% which is a terrific bet.
Ah yes, the sucker bets. The bets in front of the Stickman are the worst bets on the table.
The only reason they’re there is to separate the inexperienced players from their money faster.
But now that you know the best ways to play, that’s not you, right?
The sucker bets House Advantage can go as high as 16.67%.
That’s the HA on the Any 7 bet. Yikes!
And just to give you an idea of how bad that is, the Pass Line HA is 1.41%.
The House Edge on Big Red (the Seven)
It's almost 12 times worse than the Pass Line bet.
And the bets on the 2 and 12 are really bad at 13.89%
Even the lowly Any Craps, 3, and 11 are not good at 11.11%.
And they disguise them by calling them a Horn Bet.
And all the Hopping bets are bad, too.
Even though the Hardways have an HA of 2.78%, it’s still a bad deal when you consider that a Place bet on the 6 and 8 has an HA of 0.46% - a bit less than 1/5th of the HA of the Hardways.
So don’t go there.
The simple bets are easy to understand, easy to bet and generally have a low House Advantage working against you.
Stick to the Pass Line, the Come, Taking the Odds, Placing the 6 and 8 and Buying the 4 and 10 and you’re good to go.
Check out the guide about the 5 best bets and the 5 worst ones in craps.
Money Management is important in every casino game, and Craps is no different.
Make sure you know how much you’re willing to put at risk, and if you lose that amount, you must walk away.
And absolutely no chasing.
What is chasing?
Chasing your losses is a bad mistake to make, because you buy in another $100, then another and another, and before you know it, you’re stuck with $500 instead of the $100 you budgeted.
This is a classic mistake that inexperienced players make, and those of us in the business have seen it too many times.
An equally important money management technique is deciding how much you’re willing to win.
In my view, it’s actually a more important part of the money management equation because we’ve all had the friend come up to us and say, ‘I was winning $300 and gave it all back’.
Don’t be that guy!
Have a realistic goal – accept that you’re not going to win a couple of thousand from a $100 buy in. It just doesn’t work that way.
Doubling your money is doable, and on a good day, tripling it might happen.
But $2,000 from $100?
I don’t think so!
Many of the online casinos will let you play for free.
It makes perfect sense to play for free, because you can try out all the great (or maybe wacky) ideas you may have, and it doesn’t cost a thing.
And you can also try out different systems, different ways to bet, different number combinations and so on – like what happens when you play a Three Point Molly or Buy the 4 and 10 with a Super-Paroli system (a personal favorite, btw), and so on.
Craps has its own language and it’s good if you know how to talk to the dealers. Go here for our glossary, which will get you up to speed on how to ask for what you want.
You only need to learn the part of the game that appeals to you.
No need to know all about the Don’t Come if you’re never going to bet it.
What is a Lay Bet? And why do you care if you’re never going to bet it?
Craps is a great game!
It really is, and once you get your feet wet, you may find that you will never play anything else.
Take the principles we’ve looked at today to heart, try out a few different ways to play a free online game, and then when you’re ready, try a low-stakes live game.
You will find that a live busy crap game is the most fun you can have in a casino – once you understand what you’re doing, you will find it’s fast, loud, and when the dice get hot, absolutely exhilarating.
And as always, good luck.
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