(Craps continued)

Craps Play Examples

     

Example 1: You and a friend come to a dice table and there is no one playing but the table is open for business. You buy $200 of chips and you place $5 on the pass line. Your friend buys in also but makes a wager on don't pass. (There are not many people that play don't pass and don't come. They are called "wrong bettors" because they bet against the dice. However, don't pass and don't come does provide a very slight mathematical edge over the pass and come bets.) You roll the dice and it comes up 2. 2 is craps, therefore you lose your $5 pass line wager. Your friend, however, won $5 on don't pass. It is still your roll because the only way you loose control of the dice is to 7-out. Rolling craps on the come out does not cause you to lose control of the dice. Therefore, you place another $5 chip on the pass line and your friend again bets on don't pass. This time you roll a 7. Like craps, a 7 is not a point. However, unlike craps it is a front line winner. So, you win $5 on your pass line wager while your friend loses. You still control the dice and both you and your friend make wagers like before. This time you roll a 5. A 5 is a point and the game moves into the point play stage. In order for your $5 pass line wager to win now, you have to roll a 5 before you roll a 7. On the next roll a 3 appears. A 3 is craps. So what happens now? Nothing. Rolling a craps during point play has no effect on your pass line wager. You roll again and this time you roll a 6. Since the point in this case is 5, the 6 is meaningless in regard to the pass line and don't pass wagers. You roll one more time and it comes up 5. This means you have made your point and have won the $5 bet you made on the pass line. Your friend has lost the $5 he bet on don't pass. Note that you only won even money on your pass line wager. You would have been paid 3:2 for bets made behind the line (re: craps section toward the bottom) on a 5

The game then starts over at the come out stage with you still controlling the dice. After making your wager you roll a 8 which is a point. On the very next roll, you roll a 7. You lose all money you had on the pass line and any bets you may have made behind the line. You also lose control of the dice for the next come out roll.

Example 2: On the come out roll, you bet $5 on the pass line. Your friend is rolling the dice and he rolls a 8 on the come out. Therefore, the point is 8. You then take $50 odds behind the line (directly behind your $5 bet on the pass line). You are allowed to bet this much behind the line because this particular casino allows for 10 times odds. (Traditionally, casinos have only allowed 2 x odds. This has changed somewhat over the last 10 years.) Your friend is betting $5 on the don't pass line with $60 odds. Don't pass odds are placed on the don't pass line beside the original bet. Your friend then rolls a series of several totals that don't have any effect on the pass line and don't pass wagers. Finally, after sometime, your friend rolls an 8. The point is made and the dice pass. You are paid $5 for your wager on the pass line and $60 for your wager behind the line. You are paid $60 for your $50 bet behind the line on an 8 because the odds of rolling an 8 before a 7 are 6:5. Unlike most casino games, behind the line bets in craps pay the true odds. The casino, therefore, only has a mathematical edge on the $5 you wagered on the pass line. This is why taking odds on the pass line, come, don't pass, and don't come wagers are called free odds bets.

Had your friend 7-out instead of making the point, you would have lost your bets and he would have won. Notice, however, that on his $60 free odds on the don't pass line he would have only been paid $50. This is because on the don't pass and don't come bets the bettor is laying odds. Remember that the don't pass line is betting against the point and on the 7. Instead of having the odds against him at 6:5 on the 8, he has the odds with him at 5 combinations of the 8 versus 6 combinations of the 7. Therefore, he has to lay 6 to win 5. This is why so few people bet the don't pass and don't come wagers.

Example 3: Again, you place $5 on the pass line. You then roll a 4 which becomes the point. You place $10 behind the line and place $5 in the come box. The next roll is a 9. 9 becomes another point just for your come bet. You put $10 down on the table and state "odds on the 9". Your come bet and the odds are placed just below the 9. Now you have a total of $30 bet. You then make several rolls with no decision on the pass line or the come bet. After a while you roll a 9. You are paid $5 for your come bet (even money) and $15 for the $10 odds you placed on the come bet. The next roll is a 4 which is the point. You are paid $5 for your pass line wager and the true odds (2:1) of $20 behind the line because a 4 has a 2:1 chance of coming up before a 7.

All you really need to know about placing bets in a casino craps game are the odds of each bet. Most of the bets are sucker bets because the house edge is to high. The optimal way to play the game is to make wagers on the pass line, come, don't pass, or don't come and take the maximal allowable odds behind the line (if you can afford to). The bigger the difference between the large wager behind the line and the small wager on the line, the smaller the edge the casino has on your wagers. If, for example, you bet $5 on the line and $50 behind the line, the casino will have an overall advantage on the bet of only .1845%, instead of the 1.41% of only a pass line wager. However, no matter how much more you bet behind the line, the house will always have at least a slight edge on the wager.