Craps Question

Ok, Ok, I'm sorry! I know this is the baseball section but there isn't exactly a "craps" section and no one's really viewing the poker room right now. It's a quick question....

I was reading a book the other day on craps strategies and an interesting scenario came up and I'm trying to see if I'm missing something on this one. Anyway, here it is...

If I play $5 on the pass line and $5 on the don't pass on the come out roll, and then put say a buck on 12. If a point is established (and I take the odds), aren't I guaranteeing myself true odds,since the initial pass and don't will cancel out (obviously if the 12 comes up on the first role I am even better off)? Why wouldn't someone do this?<!-- / message -->

very interesting...hopefully someone can do the math on this:modemman:

The problem is that you're taking a $1 loss on the come out roll every time. Playing pass and don't pass at the same time is stupid.

by playing pass and dont pass you are eliminating the front line bets. but you are still taking advantage of the full odds in the back. if the 12 comes out once every 30 come out rolls the $1 12 doesnt come into play. wish i had the time to do the math :think2:

daboyzinblue said:

by playing pass and dont pass you are eliminating the front line bets. but you are still taking advantage of the full odds in the back. if the 12 comes out once every 30 come out rolls the $1 12 doesnt come into play. wish i had the time to do the math :think2:

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12 comes out once every 36 come out rolls. That's why it's a bad bet. But I guess every bet on a craps table is bad. My advice is to not ever play craps unless you feel like blowing money. If you do feel like gambling and having a great time, buy in, have a few drinks, and live it up. Placing 6 and 8 and buying 4 and 10 are just about comparable to playing the pass line anyway.

bet 220 inside when a 5,6,8,9 hits, reduce 9 to 25. when 568 hits again reduce 5 to 25. now you have 50 on 6 and 8, and 25 on 5 and 9, and have recovered 190 of your 220. Table gets hot, you"re in great shape, plus keeps losses down on a cold table.

You see where I'm coming from. And yes, as Illini points out, on average a 12 should come up 1 in every 36 rolls. With that in mind, if you're putting a buck on the twelve and say $5 on the pass and don't pass, you will be out $6 + $5 = $11 every 36 rolls (the $5 is on the pass line bet that you lose with the 12...push on the don't). I'm wondering if a commission of $11 is a fair price to pay for the option of being paid true odds for every wager you put down. I imagine it would have a lot to do with multiples you can put down on the odds since some casinos only allow 2x odds and others allow 100x.

daboyzinblue said:

by playing pass and dont pass you are eliminating the front line bets. but you are still taking advantage of the full odds in the back. if the 12 comes out once every 30 come out rolls the $1 12 doesnt come into play. wish i had the time to do the math :think2:

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In response to Illini, there is no game in Vegas that isn't a negative expectation game, but craps is by far the best to play since there are no single deck blackjack games anymore (or at least none that pay 1 1/2 to 1 for a blackjack). In fact shy of being an expert poker player, I can't think of too many people that could make a living gambling so I guess we should all stop, right? Even looking at the Prescription, we had Ace that was on fire two years ago but loss last year. Same thing for Chop (except the other way around). Most of us do it for recreation (just makes it fun to have a rooting interest on a game and I guess the commission we pay to the house/book in the long run is worth it to some of us for the excitement).

When I do play craps I want to give the house as little an advantage as possible. Although the house advantage is small for place wagers on the 6/8 or buying the 4/10 (1.52% and 1.59% respectively), you can reduce the house advantage from .18 to .02 percent if they do 10x to 100x odds on your pass line wager (which is closer to where I would want to be)

Originally Posted by illini
"12 comes out once every 36 come out rolls. That's why it's a bad bet. But I guess every bet on a craps table is bad. My advice is to not ever play craps unless you feel like blowing money. If you do feel like gambling and having a great time, buy in, have a few drinks, and live it up. Placing 6 and 8 and buying 4 and 10 are just about comparable to playing the pass line anyway."