Craps Players and the roll of the dice
by Frank Scoblete
This
Learn to Play Craps lesson
is about
craps players and the roll of the dice.
Many
of you have heard that craps
is a great game, as the
house does not
have a large edge. While some bets are the best in the casino, others
range from awful to “awfuller”.
Most players are not only
long-term losers; they are long-term major losers because they make
bets with house edges ranging from 5 percent to almost 17 percent. Yes,
these bets are just bad bets, yet craps players make them all the time.
Most craps players have a vague understanding of the math of the
game; but many have no understanding of the math at all.
They just throw their money down and play as if what they are betting
isn’t money at all but just chips.
A craps game will have about 100-120 rolls of the dice every hour.
Some
of the bets at the game are not decided on every roll and some of the
bets are decided on each and every roll – the “one-roll” bets or Crazy
Crapper bets - that are the absolutely worst bets in the game.
You
have the low end, the Field, coming in with a 5.26 percent house edge,
going all the way up to the Any 7 or Big Red, which tips the edge
scales at 16.67 percent.
Some of the other non-one-roll bets, such
as the Hardways, and the Placing of the 4 and 10, 5 and 9, come in with
house edges starting at about 4 percent and going to almost 12 percent.
If
you play the game of craps for any length of time, betting into such
high house edges will cripple your bankroll and might prevent you from
playing craps as often as you would like.
One of the reasons that
craps players tend to get into such bad betting habits can be traced to
the adrenaline-soaked thrill of the game. At a craps table, especially
during a hot roll, the players exhibit a kind of primitive
consciousness – which translates into little thought, a lot of
feelings.
As number after number is hit, the tendency is to start
betting every which way to try to cover all the possible ways numbers
can be made.
Unfortunately, most of the bets that craps player make at the tables
are so bad that even during a hot roll; the craps players tend
to win less than he really should. Even if the player does actually hit
the odd large payoff, betting stupidly tends to carry over during other
shooters’ rolls – shooters who are not having long rolls.
Bad betting habits are hard to break but these habits can really break
the player.
So
what are the good bets to make at craps? The very best bets are the
Pass Line for a minimum amount, with as much as you can afford to place
in odds when the point is established.
In a double odds game, the house will have about a half percent edge
over the player.
In other craps games, the house will have even smaller edges.
The
Come bet, with odds, the Don’t Pass bet, with odds, and the Don’t Come
bet, with odds, are the other three top bets at the game.
Craps
players should keep the house edge at 1.5 percent or lower, so the
Placing of the 6 and 8 are also good bets as the house has a 1.5
percent edge on such placements.
If you can afford to make bets
at the $25/$30 level, you might consider buying the 4 and/or 10, if the
commission on the buy bet is only paid off on a winning wager.
The
house edge in such a case will be around 1.3 percent. Some casinos
allow you to buy the 5 and 9 at $30 and only pay the $1 commission on a
winning wager. This reduces the house edge from 6.67 percent on these
numbers to a mere 1 percent.
That’s about it for the really good bets at craps.
Some
players might think that limiting oneself to such a few bets is a
foolish thing to do, that it takes away the thrill of the game.
That
reasoning is, of course, nonsense. It is much more fun to play a game
where the house only has a little edge than it is to play a game where
the house has a big edge over you.
Obviously, the closer the game, the better the chance that you have of
winning tonight.
The
fact of the matter is that the player is really in control of his
destiny at a craps game. He decides whether the house has a small edge,
a medium edge or a monstrous edge. His losses are a direct result of
his choices.
I always recommend craps as a great game to play, if the player does so
astutely. Making low house edge bets is the way to go. Your bankroll
will thank you, too!
Craps
Players is followed by Craps Shooters
OR
Return
to Learn
to Play Craps Program
Gambling
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