Craps: Strategies Unveiled

In the past, I have discussed darkside, rightside and proper betting practices. I’ve discussed the players playing these ways socially – why they do what they do, why they don’t do this or that, and why they should. Now it’s time to let the players speak for themselves. How do they play? What is their secrets to success or failure?

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CRAPS: Deconstructing the Constructors


There are many different kinds of bets at the game of craps and most of them go from bad to worse. You can place a bet on the 5 or 9 and face a four percent house edge or take a chance on the 4 or 10 and face a 6.67 percent house edge or you can go nuts and face the astoundingly high house edge of 16.67 percent on the Any Seven.
Take a pick of the poison by facing disaster in the guise of attempting to win a lot of money. The fact that occasionally players win these amazingly negative expectation bets just fuels the desire of others to follow suit.

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CRAPS: Deconstructing Marty and Marvin

Last issue I offered to our readers a few players who articulated their craps strategies – some of these strategies were good, some were mediocre and some were awful. I didn’t comment on these strategies because I wanted our readers to savor them without my own strategic articulation – meaning “Hey, I’m right but I’ll let most of these poor souls have their moments in the sun.”
The next two issues will have me offer my opinions about these various strategies. My first player is Marty, our model of a smart player.

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Casino Strategy: Short-Run Decisions

When you read gambling books and articles, you sometimes see a distinction made between the “short run” (tonight, this weekend, this week, this month) of a few hundred or a few thousand decisions, and the “long run” (a few years or more) of millions of decisions. In the short run, anything can (and does) happen. Players can go on incredible streaks of improbable wins or equally improbable losses.

The long run is a very long time. Usually, it can be stated as the amount of time, or number 
of decisions, necessary for the probabilities to be within a given range of results. A coin flip will be, in the long run, faster than a roulette wheel because a coin flip has only two possible decisions and a roulette wheel has 37 or 38, depending on the type of wheel. As I stated, in the long run, the math of a game will win out over any aberrations that take place tonight. (more…)

Craps: The Darkside Dilemma

Last issue I discussed the feelings of rightside players when it came to darksider craps players. Darksider is another name for “don’t” players, which are those players who prefer to bet against the shooter’s point and often against the various box numbers rightside players want to be rolled.

The rightside players are the norm, maybe 95 percent of the players. They bet with the shooter and want long rolls and many points and box numbers rolled. Rightsiders, as a rule, tend to dislike darksiders; some even seem to hate them as they think darksiders are happy to see the other players lose their bets. (more…)