Craps is one of the most popular games in the casino. This doesn’t mean that more people play craps than other games; it means that everyone around a normal craps table seems like they’re having more fun than at other games.

The house’s theoretical earnings due to edge for $10 bet flat on 35 Pass line bets, regardless of the Odds taken, would be 1.42 percent of the $10 or $0.142 per decision, which comes to $4.97 – just under $5 per hour. For 55 $12 bets on six or eight (for those not conversant with craps, you can only Place these numbers in multiples of $6. This number then permits calculation of rate of loss per hour, and per the 4 day/5 hour per day gambling trip: $10 Pass line bets 0.42% per roll, $4.28 per hour, $86 per trip; $10 Place 6,8 bets 0.46% per roll, $4.69 per hour, $94 per trip; $10 Place 5,9 bets 1.11% per roll, $11.32 per hour, $226 per trip. House edge on Pass Line bet per roll (bet resolved divided by average number of rolls) is as low as 0.42% and therefore considered to be a good bet. And what’s even better, since Pass Line Odds bets pay true odds, the house edge on these wagers is zero. Can you think of any other casino game or bet type with zero edge? Aug 18, 2013 Over the course of an hour, say 35 line bets, a flat pass bettor needs to win 18 or more of 35 to win. The pass+odds bettor needs to win fewer than 18 of 35 to come out ahead due to the payout ratios on the odds bets. With odds bets, you still need to get lucky to win, but not by as much as if you're just flat betting the line.

If this is your first time playing craps, it might look complicated. The craps table has many available bets and the people at the table use funny names for things. But you don’t have to worry about anything. Once you finish with this article you’re going to know how to make the best bets and how to avoid the top mistakes that craps players make. And don’t worry about the funny name; you’re going to learn them from other players every time you play craps.

1 – You Don’t Take Full Odds

After the come out roll, there’s a bet that some craps players don’t know about. The reason some craps players don’t know about this special bet is because there isn’t a spot on the felt that shows the bet. This special bet is called an odds bet, and it’s important because it’s one of the few fair bets available in the casino. I say it’s a fair bet because the odds bets pay out makes them have a zero house edge.

The most common odds bet is a pass line odds bet. Before you can make an odds bet you have to make either a pass line or don’t pass line wager. Once a point is set, you can back up your bet with an odds bet.

A common odds bet set up is called 3 – 4 – 5, and many casinos use this. This means you can place an odds bet up to three times your original bet size when the point is a four or 10, four times your original bet if the point is a five or nine, and five times your original wager amount if the point is a six or eight. When you make a bet on the pass line and a point is set on four, five, six, eight, nine, or 10, you can place an odds bet. You win the odds wager if the point is rolled before a seven.

If the point is a four or 10, the odds bet pays 2 to 1. When the point is a five or nine, the odds bet pays 3 to 2. When the point is a six or an eight, the odds bet pays 6 to 5. The reason why so many craps tables use a 3 – 4 – 5 odds bet structure is because it simplifies the payout amounts. When you make a maximum odds bet using the 3 – 4 – 5 structure, all winning odds bets pay six times the original pass line bet amount.

Some casinos accept higher odds bets, with some taking up to 100 times the size of your original wager or higher. The reason why you want to take the maximum odds is because when you make a zero house edge wager it effectively lowers the overall house edge for the game.

Craps Pass Line Bet

All of the other bets at the craps table have a casino house edge, but when you make a full odds wager it increases the amount you have in play, with a larger amount wagered with no house edge. The casino still has an overall edge, but taking max odds lowers the true edge against you.

The don’t pass line and pass line bets have the lowest house edges at the craps table. The house edge of the don’t pass line is 1.36%, and the house edge on the pass line is 1.41%. These are the only two bets you should ever make at the craps table other than the odds wagers.

You can’t place an odds bet without placing a pass line or don’t pass line wager. This way the casino guarantees that they always have an edge. The best way to play craps is to make the table minimum wager on the pass or don’t pass line and back it with full odds. This keeps the house edge as low as possible.

2 – You Make Inside Bets

In the last section I covered the best bets to make when you play craps. The odds bets have a zero house edge, and the pass line and don’t pass line wagers have a house edge of 1.41% and 1.36%. All of the other bets at the craps table should be avoided. The other bets run from worse to absolutely terrible.

The place six place eight bet has a house edge of 1.52%, which isn’t much worse than the pass and don’t pass wagers, but it’s still worse. Things quickly go downhill from there. The place five and place nine bet has a house edge of 4%. The field bet is at 5.56%, and the place four and place 10 comes in at 6.67%.

When I play craps I see players making all kinds of bets. The craps table is a fun environment, and many players use a system that hedges bets or follows some method that doesn’t make any sense to me. I’ve had other players try to explain their complicated systems to me, but at the end of the day any bets you make other than the pass line or don’t pass line backed by full odds is a mistake. Every time you make a bet other than these you’re losing more money than you need to, so stop making them.

3 – You Play Online

Playing casino games online offers many advantages. You don’t have to travel to a land based casino, find a place to park, and fight the crowds of other gamblers. Sometimes you can even get a nice deposit bonus when you play craps online. But most craps players shouldn’t play online craps.

The reason why you shouldn’t play online craps doesn’t have anything to do with the safety of online play. You should only gamble online where you feel safe, so this shouldn’t stand in the way of online craps play. I’ve gambled at dozens of safe online casinos, and you can too.

Every game offered by the casinos is designed to win more than it loses. This includes craps, as you can see from the house edge examples I included above. With a house edge, the casino knows it makes money when players gamble on craps. The more you gamble, the more you lose on average.

This is where playing online for real money into play. When you play craps in a land based casino the number of rolls you can bet on every hour is limited based on how fast the casino personnel keep the game going and how fast players roll.

When you play craps online you can play almost as fast as you can press a button. Using some rough numbers, consider how this changes how much you can expect to lose playing craps in a land based casino and an online casino.

You make a pass line bet of $20, and can play 100 rolls every. When you play online, you might be able to make 400 or more rolls per hour. I realize that you’re not going to be making 100 and 400 come out rolls every hour, but the important ratio you need to understand here is that you can make four times as many rolls or more playing online craps.

Using round numbers, say you make 25 come out rolls and the rolls to resolve them every hour in a land based casino. This means that you make 100 come out rolls and resolve them online. Betting $20 on ever come out roll is a total of $500 in a land based casino and $2,000 online.

With a bet on the pass line with a house edge of 1.41% you can expect to lose, on average, $7.05 every hour in the land based casino.

Of course, you have control over how fast you play online craps. If you’re disciplined enough, you can even take fewer rolls playing online than you have to make in a land based casino. But few online players are disciplined enough to take fewer rolls.

If you decide to play online craps for real money, make sure you play at a slow pace. Try not to make more rolls than you see at a live craps table so you don’t lose more than normal.

Conclusion

The craps odds wager is the best in the casino. Any time you can make a bet with a zero house edge in a casino, you should jump on the chance. Stick with the pass or don’t pass line bets and back them with the full available odds and you keep the house edge as low as you can playing craps. The last thing to watch for is how many rolls you take every hour if you play online craps.

I’m writing a series of blog posts about casino games and the good and bad strategies for playing those games.

Craps is one of my favorite casino games, so I’ve been looking forward to writing this one.

And the beautiful thing about craps is that it’s a game of pure chance. The best strategy is just to choose the bets with the lowest edge for the house and have fun.

But I’ll have some things to say about some of the strategies and systems that other writers promote, too.

They’re mostly bad craps strategies.

Here’s the Only Craps Strategy You Need

When you’re dealing with an entirely random game – like craps – the only strategy that matters is choosing the bets with the lowest house edge and having fun.

I’ll have something to say about shooters and whether they have control over the outcomes later in this post, but for now, let’s just agree that games like craps are purely chance.

In other games that are entirely random, like slot machines, you don’t even really need to decide which bet to place. It’s chosen for you before you sit down.

When playing craps for real money, you have a handful of good bets you can make, but most of the bets on the table are bad. Just skip the bad bets, and you’re all set.

The Bests Bets at the Craps Table

The best bets at the craps table are the pass line bet and the don’t pass bet.

The come and don’t come bets are also great wagers.

I always advise casino gamblers to try to limit their gambling to games where the house edge is lower than 2% — preferably 1.5% or lower.

The house edge for the pass and come bets is the same, 1.41%, which means they qualify.

The house edge for the don’t pass and don’t come bets is even lower, 1.36%, but the 0.05% isn’t worth worrying about. Most people prefer to root for the shooter to succeed.

The other bet to think about at the craps table is the odds bet. This is a bet you can only place after making one of the 4 bets I already mentioned and when the shooter has set a point.

This is one of the only bets in the casino that has no house edge. It’s a break-even bet, but it can be expensive.

It can also drive the effective house edge on the money you have in action down to almost nothing.

Here’s how that works.

How the Odds Bet Changes the House Edge for the Better

If you’re betting on the pass line and the shooter sets a point, you can expect to lose $1.41 for every $100 you bet. That’s on average and in the long run.

If you’re playing at a casino that only allows you to place an odds bet at 1X the size of your pass line bet, you can put another $100 into action.

Your expected loss remains $1.41, though, which effectively cuts the house edge in half, from 1.41% to 0.71%.

If you’re able to bet 2X your original bet on the odds bet, you can lower that even further to 0.36%. (You have $300 in action, but your expected loss is still only $1.41.)

The more you’re able to bet on the odds bet, the lower the house edge for all the money you have in action becomes.

It’s clear why betting on the pass line and taking the most odds that you can is an effective strategy. With the odds bet, you can get the house edge in craps lower than 0.5% at least some of the time at the table, making it an even better game than blackjack.

And what’s more, you don’t have to memorize basic strategy to get the low house edge at craps.

You just need a big enough casino bankroll to make the right bets, and you need enough sense to avoid the bad bets at the table – of which there are many.

Any Strategy that Involves Placing ANY Other Bets at the Craps Table Is a BAD Craps Strategy

There’s a reason gambling experts measure bets according to their house edge. That’s because it’s the single best indicator of how good or bad a bet is.

The house edge is a statistical estimate of how much money you’ll lose as a percentage of your original bet over the long run.

If the house edge is 1.41%, the casino expects to win an average of $1.41 every time you bet $100.

If the house edge is 16.66%, the casino expects to win an average of $16.66 every time you bet $100.

Which bet looks like the better bet for the casino?

And which one looks like the better bet for the gambler?

It shouldn’t be hard to make the distinction.

Even the best of the bad bets on the craps table are inferior to the 1.41% or 1.36% you can get from the pass, don’t pass, come, and don’t come bets.

And trust me on this:

You can have PLENTY of fun sticking with the basic bets at the craps table.

Betting Systems Where You Raise and Lower the Size of Your Bets Are Bad Strategies

The classic example of this kind of betting system is the Martingale System, where you double the size of your bets after each loss. When you do this repeatedly, you eventually win back the money you’ve lost along with a profit of one unit.

The problem with a system like the Martingale is that you’ll eventually run into a big enough losing streak that it will wipe out all those small profits and then some.

Most people underestimate how quickly a bet’s size gets when doubling after every loss.

They also overestimate how likely they are to avoid long losing streaks.

If you double a $5 bet once, that’s $10.

Craps Pass Line Bets Per Hour Rule

But if you run into a losing streak of 8 bets in a row, you’re looking at having to bet $640 to make up for your losses.

Also, every roll of the dice is an independent event. The odds don’t change based on how many times you’ve won or lost in a row.

You might think the probability of losing that 8^th bet is lower than the likelihood of losing the first one, but the truth is that the dice have no memory. They have the same 6 sides, no matter how many times you’ve lost in a row.

Each bet in craps is an independent event, and any betting system will assume that the odds are changing based on how many times in a row you’ve won or lost.

Money Management Strategies Don’t Hurt Anything, but They Won’t Improve Your Odds of Winning, Either

Money management strategies involve having strict gambling discipline about how much of your bankroll you’re willing to risk before quitting the game. They also require you to stop when you’ve won an arbitrary amount of money.

Money management techniques are often used in conjunction with betting systems.

Here’s an example of a money management strategy in craps:

You decide your bankroll for the session is $250, and you’re playing for $5 per roll of the dice.

Your stop-loss limit is $100, so, if your bankroll drops to $150, you must quit the craps session and go do something else.

Your win goal is $250, so once your bankroll gets up to $500, you must quit the game and go do something else.

This kind of strategy might increase your chances of walking away from the game a winner.

But that’s only because a lot of gamblers will just keep playing until they’ve lost their entire stake. They just don’t generally have a lot of sense about that sort of thing.

The Jury’s Out on Dice Setting or Dice Control

I’ve seen multiple reputable gambling writers express interest and some belief that some craps shooters can influence the probability of specific outcomes. I’m skeptical – in the extreme – but I’ll give it an appropriate amount of credence.

The idea is that you hold the dice a specific way – “setting” the dice – then throw with a minimum amount of force – just enough to hit the back wall and eliminate most of the rolling action.

A controlled shooting expert doesn’t have to be perfect. Instead, they’re trying to be like someone who’s playing darts. They improve the probability enough to change the negative expectation on a bet to a positive expectation.

You can buy books and videos explaining how to get an edge at craps this way, but I can’t imagine the amount of practice and record-keeping required to have any confidence in your ability to change the odds.

Imagine if you spent 1000 hours trying to learn how to control the dice and coming up short. Maybe you just don’t have the knack for it.

That doesn’t sound like a good deal to me.

I’d rather learn to count cards in blackjack.

Any Craps Bet

Conclusion

Those are the best and the worst of the strategies I know of for playing craps in the casino. I know plenty of people who would disagree with every recommendation I’ve made, but the math behind the game doesn’t lie.

Craps Pass Line Bets Per Hour Online

The best strategy is to stick with the bets with the lowest house edge and have as much fun as you can.