Betting in Craps: Optimal Betting
Okay, here we go: Optimal betting is the strategy side of Craps betting, meant to maximize the odds to your favor.
But before we begin, let us keep in mind that when it comes to the house, they are always going to have the top advantage in an overall sense. It’s to be expected, so the best thing to do is accept it and move on. That’s not to say that the player is at a total disadvantage, however. With optimal betting, a player can actually lessen their losses per hourly play by placing bets that only have a small house advantage.
So what are the best bets that go against the house edge? For the line areas, that’s the Pass Line and Don’t Pass Line, as well as Come Line and Don’t Come Line. For Place Bets, 6 and 8 are the choices, and for Buy Bets, choose the 10. Keep in mind that this is done where casinos will actually charge for commission plays.
You can also place an odds bet on your Pass / Don’t Pass bets – actually, placing a minimum Pass Line Bet and then taking odds after the Come Out Roll gives you as close to “even money” as you are going to get.
Trying any other kind of bet will inevitably lose money due to various house edge differences. What’s the rate of loss? Anywhere between three and twelve times faster on average. Over an extended play session that can eat quickly and heavily into your savings, and you can also kiss those potential wins good-bye (as well as a lot of other things).
The worst bet - by far - is known as the “Any Seven Bet”. This particular bet has a 16.7 percent house advantage, which makes for one of the worst bets you can try in a casino (unless of course, you are actually the casino, in which prepare to make a nice little portion of money very quickly.) People take this bet because seven is common – well, maybe so, but when put up against the entire field of numbers, it really isn’t.
Each of these different types of optimal betting strategies will produce different results in the frequency of usage. They best thing to do is to study the percentages of which bets have the best chance of succeeding to win you a solid, steady stream of income.
The thing to remember with “optimal betting” is that if you asked ten people which way is best, you will probably get ten different answers. But for purposes of discussion, we feel the most optimum betting strategy is small pass lines, then odds after the come out roll.
Hang in there, and as always, good luck!
