Let's talk about playing craps, Colorado (part 1 of 3)

The basic rules of craps are pretty simple and the game, despite lots of lingo, is easy to learn. The dice are rolled by a player, and everyone at the table bets on a variety of outcomes. The person rolling is just facilitating the dice. They can bet any way they want to. There are lots of places to place chips on the table, but we’ll focus first on the basic bet called the “Pass Line.”

Think of craps as a game that happens in two stages. Stage One is the first roll by any individual at the table. This first roll is called a “come-out roll.” If it’s a 7 or an 11, everyone with bets on the Pass Line is paid even money. Bet $10, win $10. If the dice come up a 2, 3, or 12 all the Pass Line bets are lost.

Anything else takes us to Stage Two. The 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10 become what’s called the “point,” and the roller now has to roll that point again before they roll a 7. If they accomplish that, the Pass Line wins even money. Then we go back to Stage One for a new come-out roll.
When a 7 eventually comes up, everyone on the Pass Line loses and the dice are passed to the next roller. Anything else may affect other bets on the table but has no bearing on our Pass Line bet. That’s the basic game. We’ll get into all the stuff in the middle of the table later as well as combining types of bets.

So let’s look at some odds.

The number of ways to roll any number on the dice is easy to calculate without having to think about all the different combinations. Think of the following pyramid:

In this diagram, the blue number is what you might roll and the yellow number is the number of combinations possible to make that number. Notice how there are more ways of rolling a seven than any other number?

Want to check the chart? To keep things simple, picture a pair of dice, one white and one black. We can roll a 7 the following ways: B1W6, B2W5, B3W4, B4W3, B5W2 and B6W1.

Also, if you pick up a pair of dice you’ll find that on the opposite side of any combination that makes a 6 is a combination that makes an 8. On the opposite side of any combination that makes a 5 is a combination that makes a 9. Same for 4, 3 and 2 in regards to 10, 11 and 12. If we add up all the combinations, we’ll get 36 possible outcomes for a pair of dice. The math is really six outcomes on each die squared, since there are two die, but addition works fine here too.

(craps table image goes here)

Probability can be thought of by the following statement: “What I want over all” or simply,

Want/All

If I want a 7 or 11 on the first roll to win, the probability of that happening is (6+2)/36 or 2/9 (22 percent). I would lose with a 2, 3, or 12 so the chance of losing on the first roll is (1+2+1)/36 or 1/9 (11 percent). That looks like I have twice the chance of winning than losing. Well, that’s good news but only partially true. On that first roll, I do in fact have twice the ways to win than to lose, but there are also 24 remaining combinations or 2/3 (66 percent) where I don’t win or lose, but instead establish a “point” number that I have to roll again.

Remember Stage Two from earlier? Now we get into that stage and probabilities depend on what the “point” is. Let’s say the point is 6. Well, there are five ways to make a 6 to win and there are still six ways to make a 7 where we would lose. Now the odds favor the casino. By how much? By 6:5. If the point was a 10, then we’d have three ways to win and six ways to lose, making the casino a 2:1 favorite. It’s not as bad as it sounds. Since we have the advantage on the come-out roll it all sort of evens out. What this works out to in the long run for a Pass Line bet is about a 1.41 percent edge for the casino. If you are making simple $10 pass line bets you will on average lose about 14 cents each time you wager $10. A very reasonable expense for entertainment. Of course, make sure you’re earning comps when you play for even more value.

In the next issue, we’ll talk about the bet not even listed on the table that we call “the odds.” Short of counting cards in blackjack, this is the best bet in the entire casino. No wonder it’s not listed on the craps felt! With this bet we can get the house edge down to as little as .23 percent.

~ Mark B. Lasser is Denver writer and international poker player. He regularly plays in Colorado, Arizona, California, Missouri and Nevada. His work has appeared in Bikini Magazine, Blue Travel and Warp. Readers can send questions and comments to him at ColoradoPokerMark@comcast.net.