Gambling Tips

Craps is the most fun game with the best house edge that you probably don’t know how to play. To begin with, craps is unfortunately not available in most casinos in Europe. You can find it in a select few British casinos, but otherwise you have to play the game in the United States.

Craps is played with dice. Hopefully, you already knew that. If you didn’t, well, let’s just say it’s nice to play a gambling game every now and then that isn’t cards! Also, you get to throw the dice, so it’s fun to play with the gambling instrument.

Here’s how the game is played. The shooter throws the dice. If a 2,3,7,11, or 12 lands. He keeps shooting. If another number comes (4,5,6,8,9,10), he then tries to hit that number before a seven. So once he his the number again or hits a seven, the turn is over.

The basic bet is the ‘pass line’ bet. Basically, on that first roll, if you hit a 7 or 11, you win your bet. If you hit a 2,3, or 12, you lose.

Now, if you hit a 4,5,6,8,9, or 10, it goes to the second round. This time, you want to hit that number before hitting a seven. So, if during the first roll, you throw a 4, you want to then throw a 4 again on the second round before throwing a seven. If, during the second round, you throw any other number, like a 10, 11, or 2, it doesn’t matter. The only number that matters in the second round is the number you threw in the first round (in this case, a 4) and the 7.

Sound complicated? It’s not really. Just remember, seven good first round. Seven bad second round.

The ‘don’t pass’ bet is basically the opposite of this bet. Win on the 2 or 3 first round, lose on the 7 or 11 (the 12 is just a push). If you hit say, a 6, you then want a 7 to come on the second round before the 6.

There are a lot of other bets in craps, but they are almost always sucker bets and should be avoided. Stuff like field, hard 6, the yo bet, whatever. Just don’t bet them. They have huge house edges.

The house edge on the pass line is a low 1.4%. That is already just slightly worse than basic strategy blackjack house edge. But, it gets even better.

After the first round in craps, after the point has been set (the point is the number you are trying to hit), you can make a bet that has no house edge whatsover, called the ‘odds’ bet.

Remember, how you want to hit the number you threw on the first round again on the second round before you hit a seven? For example, if you threw a 4, you want to throw a 4 again on the second round before a seven. Now, if you succeed in doing this, you just win 1:1 on your pass line bet. However, your odds bet would pay you 2:1. Why is this? Basically, there are 6 ways to make a 7: 16,25,34,43,52,61 but only 3 ways to make a 4: 13,22,31. Since you are twice as likely to throw a 7 before a 4, you get paid 2:1 on your 4.

The other numbers pay differently on the odds bet. On the 9/5, you get 3:2. On the 6/8, you get 6:5. The point to remember is that on the odds bet, there is no house edge whatsoever. It’s a totally fair bet; the casino makes no money long-term off the bet.

Because this is essentially a ‘free’ bet, the casino will often limit how much you can bet on the odds. Most of the time, it is somewhere between 2-5X what you bet ont he pass line. Some casinos are nicer and let you bet 10-20X what you bet on the pass line.