Winning Craps- How To Play The Best Deal In The Casino

This lesson looks at what numbers you can roll or "make" as we say in Craps, with two dice.

This lecture is about looking at the number of ways to make (make=have it show up on the rolled dice) any given individual number, with two dice. It is the foundation to learning what your chances are on the crap table, and how to calculate odds.

As we learn more about the game, it will be useful to relate the number Seven to those numbers we call the "Points." Because when you bet on a point, and a Seven is rolled, you lose. This lecture shows you the math behind the odds, and then tells you what to memorize :)

Craps is a game that anyone can play. Although it looks complicated, it is actually one of the easiest games in the casino to understand and master. In this lesson, we discuss the basics of the game.

This lecture is a brief overview of what the "game" of craps "board" looks like. Even thought it is played at a table, craps really just uses a game board. We also show that you can ignore a number of things on the board, leaving the "good" bets visible, i.e., the one that give you a player a real shot for you money There is a supplementary slide, below, you can print as a guide to what bets we will be working with. Anything grayed out, you can ignore.

The lecture describes the underlying idea behind the game of craps at a very simple level.

Depending on where you are in the game play, two different sets of rules apply to your bet. If your bet is waiting to be linked to a point, you have one set of rules whereby a 2,3,12, lose your bet, and an 11 or 7 wins your bet. You then retake the same bet, because you are trying to get your bet linked to a "point" or number. If your bet is linked to a point (4,5,6,8,9,10), a 2,3,12 or 11 does not affect it, rolling another point doesn't affect it, rolling the point your number is linked to wins your bet, and rolling a 7 loses your bet. In the upcoming lessons, we separate that out and look at what happens to a given bet during what I call the "Two State Of The Game" conditions. For simplicity, we do this at a brand new crap table, in other words, like the game had just opened and no other bets were in progress on the table. Later we will learn how to walk up right in the middle of a game, and see that all these rules still apply. You just need to learn to keep track of your bet, and where to bet, when.

The whole object of craps is to place a bet, either on the Pass Line (or the COME, to be discussed later in the course - which is in some ways interchangeable from the pass line), have it linked by a roll of the dice to one of the points, 4 5 6 8 9 10, and then roll that same number again. However, when a bet is placed and waiting to be linked to a point, other numbers such as 2 3 12 7 11 can be rolled. These numbers have their own rules, which apply to unlinked bets, as well, in the case of 7, to linked bets. Here we separate out the game and show how these latter numbers work, as opposed to the previous lecture, which showed what happens when a bet links to a point.

This lesson looks at what happens once your pass line bet is linked to a point. In other words, you have placed a bet on the pass line, the dice are rolled, and one of the "points" shows up on the dice, that is, either a 4,5,6 or 8,9,10. Essentially, the bet is only responsive to two numbers - if the "point" that was rolled comes up again, you win the bet. If a 7 is rolled prior to the point coming up a second time, you lose the bet.

All professional gamblers know, that unless you learn how to take odds on your money (a second bet, taken after the point is rolled and placed behind the first) the casino will statistically grind you out of your money. Here we learn about the most important bet on the crap table. And, the only one with which the casino has NO advantage over you.

Here we learn and review what the odds are for each of the points, in order to calculate how much to money to bet, which is different for different numbers (points). The casino doesn't pay in half dollars, so your odds bet must be divisible by the actual odds relating to a given point. When in doubt, you can always ask a table dealer "what would be the "full odds bet" for my pass line bet." They are obliged to answer you correctly, and often are quite helpful when the see you actually are trying to play the game well. I always tip a helpful dealer.

Here we take a look at actual play, where we are taking odds bets on our points. The main idea to understand in this lecture is that odds bets best serve you when you take "full odds." This means, for example, if the odds are 3:2 against you, your odds bet should be divisible by 2, as the casino can't pay you in anything but whole dollar amounts.

Here we actually apply all the rules we've learned, while still only making one bet to clearly see how this little pattern of betting operates.

The pass line bet, as we have been playing so far, is special, in that it marks the beginning and end of a "hand," which we can translate as "a run of the dice before they seven out." Seven out means, roll a 7 thus losing the pass line bet and any other similar bets linked to a point (4,5,6 or 8,9,10). Within the pass line bet, or run of dice, numerous other numbers can come up. We take advantage of these numbers using a bet on the crap table called the "Come Bar."

This lecture introduces multiple bets, and the use of the Come Bar. While you handle your bet on the pass line, the come bet, once you place it, is handled by the dealers.

Here we go beyond taking a single Pass Line bet and odds, and start using the COME bet more extensively to place bets on additional numbers, in order to take advantage of them as they come up during the play. This is getting close to the actual crap game pattern you should eventually learn to play in a casino. You also might recognize that once you are experienced, the game of craps can be run as a pattern, almost like a computer program. Once you learn the game, very little mental energy is needed to maintain the play.

It is fun and useful to think of craps, and gambling in general, like a miniature fast moving stock market investment. It makes sense then, to decide on the amount of money you need to have a fair shot in the "market," and then "invest" it or play. Here, we discuss a good beginning amount. Remember, if you are gambling with money you need for other things, you shouldn't be gambling with it. Not in a moralistic sense, but in a practical, less stressful, life sense. Gambling money should be extra money, not necessary money.

There is a classic mathematical idea called a "Function." It is a little input/output sort of machine. Functions have rules. For example, if we say the function F(x)=x+1, then for any number x you enter into it, it comes out with 1 added to it. I drop in a x=1, and therefore F(x) (the output)=2. I drop in a 10, out pops 11. The rules when to increase or decrease your bet in craps are similar to a Function. They don't require a lot of thought, just a bit of practice. Essentially, you bet more when you are winning, and drop back to your minimum bet when you lose. The rationale behind this is, good dice (a pattern of rolling numbers that win you money) come in different ways. Sometimes you just lose. Sometimes you win a few bets, or one bet, then lose. Sometimes you win and keep winning for a while, and this phenomena is called "the dice are passing." Given that we can't predict the dice, we can develop a little "machine" for what to do no matter what the dice are doing. This lecture gives you concrete rules to play with this concept. Doing so will maximize your time at the table for a given initial bankroll, and winnings if the dice are "hot."

The Vault is a concept by which after a period of play, you put some money away if you are ahead, with an eye towards not leaving the casino with any less money that you brought, and/or with some amount of winnings on top of your initial investment. The vault can be a pocket, purse, or a friend who will hold the chips for you. For the most part, once money goes into the vault, it does not come out. This might leave you with a certain amount of what I call "playing money." If you lose this playing money, you walk. If you win more, you add to your money in the vault, thus insuring you will go home that day winner. This takes practice and self-discipline, but will ultimately result in much more productive and profitable gambling.

This lesson is where we finally put everything we've learned into action, using traditional rules. This is exactly the type of play you would see at the table. We take 3 bets, take odds on our numbers, and use money management to increase when we win, and go back to our minimum bet when we lose.

For the most part, we have been learning how to make odds bet based on the simplest traditional rules possible, that is, the odds bet must be within a dollar of the flat bet. We could label this a 1X Craps (one times flat bet odds). However, many casinos, as a way of drawing in gamblers, will offer higher limits on odds bets. For example, the sign 10x odds means, for a $5 flat bet, you can take any amount of odds bet up to a $50 (or 10 times the flat (front) bet). Given that odds are paid "in full," that is, they are paid according to the actual difficulty in rolling these numbers vs. a seven which loses the bet, it pays, if possible when following our money management strategy of increasing a bet when we win, to increase the odds bet preferentially over the flat bet. This lesson demonstrates this pattern, which is available in some casinos. I suggest playing in these casinos if possible.

This is a variation in odds used by some casinos. It is not as good a set of rules as 10X odds, but still more advantageous over traditional craps odds one to one rules. It offers a way to take a variable odds bet, depending on what number you bet on. It is fairly common to see these rules on the Las Vegas strip amongst the big casinos.

This lesson is where we finally put everything we've learned into action, using ten times odds rules. This is exactly the type of play you would see at the table in a casino offering 10 times odds. We take 3 bets, take odds on our numbers, and use money management to increase when we win, and go back to our minimum bet when we lose.