Craps strategy – The odds
The secret for winning at craps is to have a craps strategy in your betting, and bring the odds as close to even as you can, where the house holds the lowest edge possible.
Let’s look at the best bets to incorporate in your craps strategy
On the table you will see a “pass” or “don’t pass” betting area. The pass line bet wins on an opening 7 or 11. The don’t pass line wins when the shooter throws a 2,3, or 12. This is known as “craps”.
There are many bets possible, but we will concentrate here on getting the odds in your favor. The bet is call Free Odds Bet and is the one your winning craps strategy should be based upon.
Free Odds Bet
This bet is available only after you put a bet on the pass line.
It’s called Free Odds because the house has no statistical advantage on the player in this bet. It must be remembered that if you MUST put a bet on the pass line, and so the house gets a small odds advantage there.
When the point is determined (the come out roll is not a 7 or 11, where you won anyway, or a 2,3, or 12 where you lost anyway), you can place a bet equal to your bet on the pass line. This bet reinforces your pass line bet.
This bet is safe, as if the point is “made” (the same number comes up once again before a 7), you will win on the pass line and the free odds line bet. It becomes slightly complicated here, as the point made will have it own odds based on the difficulty in achieving that number.
As points, 4 and 10 are the easiest, so they pay out 2 to 1. 5 and 9 are the next most difficult and the payout is set to 3 to 1. The hardest numbers to achieve are 6 and 8, so they pay out 6 to 5.
A typical "pass line" bet has a house edge of 1.41%. The house edge is the odds that the casino has against the players. The house edge is the difference between the true odds, which is the mathematical odds, and the payout odds, which is what the casino pays out. Ideally, a player wants to have payouts equal to the true odds, which means no one has any edge and the player wins just as frequently as the casino. You could think of this as betting on whether a flipped coin will land on heads or tails.
The free odds bet is pretty much the only bet out of all casino games that pays true odds! This means the house edge is zero percent. First you need to make a "pass line" or "don't pass" bet. The "don't pass" bet has a 1.36% house edge, which provides players with a slightly better advantage than the "pass line" bet in craps. Both of these bets are related to a roll of seven.
Since craps is a dice game based on rolling a pair of dice, the odds show that the number 7 gets rolled more frequently than any other number. The "pass line" bet wins when the dealer shoots a seven and looses on a craps or 2, 3, and 12. A "don't pass" bet wins on a roll of 2, 3 and loses on a 7 and ties on a roll of 12. Any other number becomes the "point".
It is only after the "point" number has been established that a player can make a free odds bet. Essentially the player is betting that this same number will be rolled before a 7 is rolled. It is more probable that the 7 will be rolled in this case but the wager you are making in the free odds bet is completely fair in mathematical terms because the payout is based on true odds!
Typically what happens during the free odds craps bet is you would be able to make an additional bet of some multiple of whatever you wagered on the "pass" or "don't pass" line. Casinos commonly allow multiples of three (3x) bet maximums for free odds. This means you could make a bet that is three times as large as your "pass" or "don't pass" wager. The strategy here is to make the maximum bet to reduce the house edge. Casinos in Las Vegas allow free odds bets of 10x, 20x and even 100x!
Remember that the house still has a small edge against you on the "pass" or "don't pass" wager that you originally made. By placing a maximum free odds bet, which has no edge against you, your average odds improve against the house. The more money (or weight) is placed on free odds, the more the house edge decreases on your initial wager.
In conclusion, the best possible bet in craps mathematically and strategically is to always wager on the "don't pass" line and wager the maximum limit on the free odds bet after the point has been established. This strategy is most efficient in reducing the house edge to a value so low that no other casino game can compare to the odds you now have.
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