There is a singular truth about craps. It is a harsh truth and one that many craps players don’t know about, don’t care to know about, do know about but refuse to articulate or incorporate it into their strategies, or they just ignore it and pretend it has nothing to do with winning or losing or, strangely, with them.
That harsh truth is this: The best chance a player has to win is for him to make the very best bets in the game (and, sadly, there are only a few of them) as these bets will preserve a player’s bankroll. The worst chance the player has to win is to make what my mentor, the late Captain of Craps, called the Crazy Crapper bets – and these awful bets seem legion in the game and, yes, legions of players make them.
Since craps is dominated by rightside players – those betting with the shooter – the number of rightside bets are amazing and tantalizing and a waste of time and money.
Players hate it when gambling writers start throwing around math numbers and percentages and probabilities – America is, after all, a country where most of our students perform poorly in math so why should players think in numbers? Sadly, most folks might subscribe to the common saying, “I didn’t use any of the geometry or algebra or other math I learned in school.” They have no idea that math allows them to get in and out of their cars, to hit baseballs, to make baskets in basketball, to judge how much water to use to cook their pasta and, of course, to play a solid game of craps.
Some thickheaded craps players refer to other craps players who understand the true mathematical nature of the game as mathletes or math-ee-maniacs but such critics are – to put it plainly – ploppies. The casino makes most of its money on the errors players make in their betting strategies. Certainly, even the best bets have a house edge that players must overcome. To use a track and field analogy, it is easier to jump over a 1.41 inch edge on the pass line than to jump over a one-foot four-inch-plus edge on the Any Seven.
Now, go to a craps table and watch a game and you will see players making bets with that 16.67 percent house edge as in the Any Seven; along with bets that have other double-digit edges. A given session might see such a player win but those sessions will be few and probably far between. The player leaping that 1.41 percent edge on the pass line or come bet, or the player betting the don’t pass or don’t come bet has a much, much better chance of being ahead at the conclusion of every given session than does our Crazy Crapper. That is, as I’ve said, the harsh truth.
Let me put it in terms of money. If you bet the Any Seven your expectation is to lose $1.67 per $10 wagered. If you bet the pass line your expectation is to lose 14 cents. That is some big difference is it not? You can make these money adjustments on every bet but let me make this easy for you. Keep the house edge under two percent and that will give you a decent chance to come home a winner. (I’ve listed just about every craps bet in my book Casino Craps: Shoot to Win!)
Craps players should also get rid of their superstitions, especially those silly ideas right bettors have against wrong bettors (known as darksiders) and the ideas that darksiders have about the nature of the bets they are making.
Darksiders do not bring with them some evil magic that changes the math of the game. There is no way to bring magic to a craps table. A rightsider is playing against a stable house edge and that edge will not change because some darksider is rooting for the seven to appear to end the shooters turn. The darksider must also realize that he is not playing the house’s game as the house has a stable edge against him too. No magic can change that either.
Short of learning how to control the dice, there is no way to get the edge over the house in the game of craps. I know this is a truly harsh truth but to steal a phrase, “The truth can set you free.” Listen to it. Don’t fall for the baloney put forth by many players.
Think of all those craps ploppies moaning, groaning, yelling, whining and complaining about what is happening at the game when what is happening is just a small random sample of a far larger random sample which is also a small random sample of an incredibly larger random sample which is…you get the picture.
Craps players making the best bets have the best chance to win. That is not a hard truth to learn. We should all learn it then.
Author Bio: Frank Scoblete is one of the top craps and general gambling authors in the world. Visit Frank’s web-site at FrankScoblete.com. Frank’s latest books I am a Dice Controller, I am a Card Counter and Confessions of a Wayward Catholic are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, e-books and bookstores.
