How To Play Craps

I love the game of craps. It’s a heady casino cocktail: the dice skipping across the baize, the frantic action around table and the jubilation that surrounds a point being made.

But there’s more to craps than just a great buzz. Craps also has the best odds of any casino game of chance. In fact, craps offers the player the opportunity to place a bet where the casino has NO edge. Yes, you read that right, there are bets on a craps table where the house will pay out the true odds of a bet you’ve made.

There must be a catch, right? Well, actually there is. To make a true-odds bet you need to already have a bet in play, a bet that carries a small house edge of around 1.4%. Even so, the true odds bet is the most critical weapon in a craps player’s armoury.

Before we go any further you will need to understand the mechanics of a craps table. You’ll find an excellent beginner’s guide on p68 of InsideEdge Issue Three and the same guide is online, at inside-edge-mag.co.uk. Look in the Alternatively, read ‘Craps In A Nutshell’, by checking out the box to the right of this article.

What’s the point?

So you’ve made your pass line bet – say £10 – and the come out roll is a 4. The point is therefore a 4 and you’re looking for another 4 to win double your money. Your first true-odds bet should be to place another bet behind your bet on the pass line. This bet will pay out according to the point made and, here’s the best bit, will pay out exactly what the true odds of making a point is before a 7 is rolled.

– On a point of a 4 or 10, this is 2/1.

– On a point of a 5 or 9, this is 3/2.

– On a point of a 6 or 8, this is 6/5.

For those who want the maths bit, here it is. On a point of a 4, you can make a 4 in three different ways (3+1, 2+2, 1+3) and a 7 six different ways (6+1, 5+2, 4+3, 3+4, 2+5, 1+6). Therefore the true odds of rolling a 4 before a 7 is 2/1.

Compare these to standard place bets. These pay 9/5 on a point of 4 or 10 (house edge of 6.66%), 7/5 on a 5 or 9 (house edge of 4%) and 7/6 on a 6 or 8 (house edge 1.5%). Once you know this, you’ll probably never waste money on place bets again, especially if the point is a 4 or a 10.

How much you stake behind the pass line is up to you, but the casino will always set a maximum. In most UK casinos and online, this is up to twice your original bet. In the gambling Mecca that is Las Vegas, you can often find tables that accept up to five times your original stake.

This is called odds at a craps table, which is why casinos advertise ’10x odds’, for instance, on their craps tables – the bigger the odds you can place, the less edge you give back to the house. For instance, if you have £10 on the pass line and £10 behind the line as an odds bet, the house edge drops from 1.41% to 0.85%. With a double odds bet behind the Pass Line, the house edge drops to a puny 0.61%.

Come on out!

The pass line bet may be the most prudent on the craps table, but if you’re anything like me, you want to see a bit more action when you’re playing. After all, when a table is hot and those around you are winning substantial stacks with their place and dumb hardways bets, you feel a bit of a lemon just waiting for your point to come in. Fortunately, Mr Casino and his stickmen have come up with just the thing to allow you to have more than one number working for you – the come bet.

The come bet is essentially a wager that allows you to start a pass line bet all over again. Just place your chips in the come box and, if you’re in a real rather than virtual casino, let the stickman know you have £10 ‘coming’. If the next roll comes a 7 or 11, the come bet pays 2/1. If it’s a 2, 3 or 12, you’ll lose it. If any other number hits you have another point working for you.

In this way you can have two, three or even four numbers (not for the timid) working for you. In other words, if the table is hot and the dreaded 7 isn’t seen, you’ll keep collecting your come bets.

The other advantage of come bets is that, like a pass line bet, you can place odds on them. These odds bets pay exactly the same true odds as your bets behind the pass line. To place odds on your come bet, just click on the chip online or, in a live casino, ask the stickman to give you ‘odds’ on the 5, 8 or whatever number(s) you have in play.

On a hot table, this should be your strategy. Keep up to three numbers working for you by placing come bets and make sure they are all carrying maximum odds bets. If this sounds too expensive (at this level you could have up to 12 times your original stake on the table), just lower your initial pass line or come bet stake. Remember on a double-odds craps table, this play strategy will more than halve the house edge from 1.41% to 0.61%.

True-odds tips

There is one fact worth remembering and it’s especially useful for the fainthearted. At any time before a dice roll, you can take all your true odds bets down. Just let the stickman know in good time, before the shooter rolls. This means you can dramatically reduce your position on the table (hopefully locking in some profit while you’re at it) at any time in the game.

The same is not true of come bets, which keep working until the point is made or a 7 is rolled. If a point is made, and you’re about to face another come out roll, you can elect to call off all of your odds bets on your come bets – in fact this is the default in most casinos. This essentially means that you won’t lose your odds bet(s) if a 7 is rolled, but you won’t win if your point is hit. Bear in mind that your come bets will still be working and will win or lose accordingly, irrespective of whether true odds bets are on or off.

Finally, I’ve assumed throughout this article that are you backing the shooter and not the house, as this is by far the most common play on the craps table. That said, all these bets work as well as don’t pass line bets and don’t come bets. Obviously, the pay-outs will change, but the principle is the same, as these bets also reduce the house advantage to zero.