Craps

The are a huge range of different things to bet on in craps.  However the house edge on these bets does vary considerably, hence for the shrewd punter there are actually only a handful of bets that are relevant

  The Pass and Don't Pass line

The Pass and Don't Pass bets are a even money bets on whether the "shooter" will make the "point" or not.  

The shooter makes the point (Pass) by

throwing a 7 or 11 in the first roll

OR

throwing a 4,5,6,8,9,10 in the first roll, and then throwing the same number again BEFORE a 7 is thrown

The shooter fails to make the point (Don't Pass) by

throwing a 2,3,12 (craps) in the first roll

OR

throwing a 4,5,6,8,9,10 in the first roll, and then throwing a 7 BEFORE the same comes up number again

The first thing to appreciate is that your bet is not necessarily settled in a single roll of the dice.  If say you bet on the Pass line, then you would win on the first roll if it was a 7 or 11, and you would lose in the first roll if it was a 2,3 or 12.  However if the first roll is something else (say a 6) then the bet wont be settled until either a 6 (where you win) or a 7 (where you lose) is thrown.  Potentially this can take a lot of throws, and you cant remove the bet from the table once the first throw has been made.

One other thing to mention is that while you will see areas ("lines") on the table for Pass and Don't Pass bets the Don't Pass bet doesn't pay out on double 6 (hence if the first throw is 12 then Pass bets will lose and Don't Pass bets will push).  This is where the casino makes their margin.  Were it not for this then it would be a totally fair game (heaven forbid!).

If you look at a craps table you will see that there are dozen of other things you can bet on but the odds are never as good as this bet which has a house edge of about 1.4% (bets on the pass line) and 1.3% (bets on the Don't Pass line) - that's right, Pass and Don't Pass are not the same odds.

Whets more important is that you can improve your odds still further by placing side bets on your pass or Don't Pass bet.  The opportunity for this bet arises when you have a bet on the pass or Don't Pass line which isn't settled after the first throw.

When this happens you are able to add additional stakes behind your original bet (called an "odds bet" that pays at at TRUE ODDS.  This means that you can average the house edge down by making these true odds bet.    You can make this side bet any time after the first throw (and before the original bet is settled) and can adjust it from throw to throw.  In an ideal world youd want to stake as much at "odds" as possible to improve your overall odds, but in practice Casinos do restrict the amount you can bet in this way to a multiple of your initial bet (usually 2x)

The impact that these "odds bets" can have on the house edge are illustrated in the table below (approximate figures)

What this illustrates is that if you can get 2x or more odds then your getting a pretty fair game (by casino standards). 

Its good news then that pretty much all casinos offer 2x odds (although they don't make a big showing of helping you find it).  However if you just click behind your stake when the appropriate situation arises then you'll see that you can place these bets.

So far we've only found more than 2x odds at one casino, The Spin Room (part of Victor Chandler bookmakers), who offer 3x odds.  As you can see the difference between 2x and 3x is not that huge, but every little helps.  We have found one online casino Reef Club that offers 6x odds (gets you down to about 0.3% edge) which while a bit better may not be worth the risk of dealing with a lesser known brand.  

  Screen Shot

  Come and Don't Come

So the come bet has exactly the same rules as the Pass bet just that your bet is governed by the NEXT roll of the dice rather than needing to be the first.  So basically a Pass bet is just a Come bet on the very first roll.  If you place it on any other roll then you place it on "Come" on the table.  Similarly Don't Come works like Don't Pass for subsequent rolls.

Again just like the Pass and Dont Pass bets the Come and Dont Come bets can have "odds bets" by clicking next to the come stake, which if not settled in the next roll will have been moved to the relevant one of the number boxes corresponding to the number that was thrown immediately after you placed the bet.

  Other Bets