Craps Systems Rated

by Frank Scoblete

With craps systems, the goal is a betting scheme that tries to overcome the math of the game. This Learn to Play Craps lesson is about craps systems rated as the ridiculous, superficial and hedging.
Some seem to work until you realize they aren’t saving you money--they are losing you even more money.

The Ridiculous Craps Systems
These are based on the gambler’s fallacy that if something hasn’t happened for a while it must be due.
Examples are players who bet the hardways and those one-roll Crazy Crapper proposition bets. Crazy Crapper bets have casino house edges at 10% or higher.
The yo-eleven has an uncanny 11.11 percent edge. You’ll lose $11.11 for every $100 wagered on the eleven-eleven.
Additionally, there’s the “Fallacy of the Small Wager-Big Payoff.” Take that bet mentioned--yo-eleven and let’s say our player bets it on every single roll of the dice but only for one lousy dollar.
After an hour of play and about 120 rolls, that’s $120 dollars wagered into that 11.11% t house edge equaling a loss of $13.33 -- per hour!
If this player is looking to receive comps and play for four hours in a day, the expected loss for one lousy dollar over that time is $53.32.
You may win these bets, but make them enough over a long time and the casino house edge will cut your bankroll to shreds.

The Superficial Craps Systems
While technically correct, these are based on a kind of superficial logic. One example relates how to win 80 percent of my bets.
I bet $64, or multiples of this number, on six numbers. Yes, by betting $64 across ($10 on the 4, $10 on the 5, $12 on the 6, $12 on the 8, $10 on the 9 and $10 on the 10) I will win a whopping 24 times for every six times I lose (80 percent).
In those 24 wins, I will accumulate $360. Wow!
However, here’s the truth about the math. In those six losses I will lose $384 (6 X $64 = $384) for a net loss of $24. Not good.

Another of the outrageous craps systems states how to win 99 percent of our betting sequences. And, in fact, these systems do just that -- but we still wind up losing just the same.
Here’s why: by utilizing a Martingale betting system, which calls for doubling up a bet after a loss, you can win 99 percent of your betting sequences. This suggests making a Pass Line bet of $5 and then doubling it each time, it loses until we finally win a bet.
The theory is that we have to win a bet eventually and, when we do, we get all our losses back plus the initial $5 wager.
However, the casino does not allow wagers to exceed a certain amount. This usually stops a Martingale player somewhere around the eighth or ninth step as the table maximums are $1,000 or $2,000 when the table minimum is $5.
Since this bet only has a slight house edge, it’s almost a 50-50 proposition. So, let’s go with that 50-50 proposition.
Your first bet is $5. Now, here are the probabilities and the odds of a run of losses.
            

Losses -Run	Bet	Probability	Odds
1	$5	1 out of 2	1 to 1
2	10	1 out of 4	3 to 1
3	20	1 out of 8	7 to 1
4	40	1 out of 16	15 to 1
5	80	1 out of 32	31 to 1
6	160	1 out of 64	63 to 1
7	320	1 out of 128	127 to 1
8	640	1 out of 256	255 to 1
9	1,280	1 out of 512	511 to 1

The above shows why it can be claimed that I will win 99 percent of my betting sequences with an 8-step Martingale craps systems once every 256 decisions.
I could go to an eight-step the first time or I could play for days without hitting eight losses in a row. Eventually, I will hit 8 consecutive losses and wind up losing all my wins back and more.
However, the casino’s edge on all the money I bet will still be only 1.41 percent, which is the Pass Line bet’s house edge without taking full odds. While the total loss will be the same as if I had bet $5 on each and every Pass Line decision, the patterns of the wins and losses will be different. For a Martingale player, there will be a lot of little wins and a few devastating losses.

Hedging Craps Systems
These craps systems theorize that by hedging this bet with that bet they can overcome the edge on both bets and beat the game.
Craps players will place a Pass Line bet and an Any Craps bet in order to protect their Pass Line bet from the 2, 3 or 12 being rolled -- all losers on the Come-Out part of the game for a right bettor. Are the bets really protected? On the contrary, they lose more!
Here’s the result if a $25 Pass Line bettor protects his bet by hedging it with a $5 Any Craps. On the Come-Out roll, the 7 or 11 will win the $25 Pass Line player $25, but he will lose $5 on the Any Craps.
How often will he win on the Pass Line? Eight times in 36 rolls for a win of $200 minus $40 for the losses on Any Craps. So, he's up $160.
 
Alternatively, if he hits the Any Craps, he wins seven times his $5 bet for a win of $35. He’ll do this four times every 36 Come-Out rolls for a total of $140. But he lost $25 on each of those four rolls, so his net profit was only $40.
Still, he’s ahead of the game at this point because he won $160 on the Come-Out 7s and 11s, and he won $40 on the Any Craps. He’s ahead a total of $200.
What if the bets were not protected? He would have won $200 but lost $100 when the 2, 3, and 12 rolled. He’d have only been up $100. But by hedging, he is up $200, not $100.

If the game stopped there, it would be great. But craps doesn’t stop there.
Every time the shooter establishes his point -- the numbers 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 -- our hedger loses his $5.
And the shooter will establish his point 24 times. That’s a loss of $120 for the point numbers. Our player who hedges on the Come-Out roll -- where he has a 2-1 edge over the casino and would be up $100 after the 36 Come-Out rolls on average -- is now up only $80. That is $20 less than he would have won had he not protected his Pass Line bet and just let it stand alone.
So hedging on the Do side of the board is a don’t, and you can use the same kind of analysis for all possible hedges at craps and the result will be the same -- you’ll actually lose more by trying to protect otherwise good bets with otherwise bad bets.
The Any Craps is a bad bet because it has a house edge of 11.11%, whereas the Pass Line bet only faces a small 1.41% house edge.
In the end, a bad bet can’t protect a good bet.
If you have been playing the wrong way all these years, switch right now because -- better late than never!
I discuss the best craps betting and systems in this lesson.

Craps Systems Rated is followed by Craps Tips
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