For years, my favorite casino game was roulette, but then I went through a blackjack phase. Both games were fun, but I’ve left them behind in favor of my favorite casino game of all time – craps.

The Best Craps Bets. The best bets in craps are the pass line bet, taking the odds, the don’t pass bar, the come bet, and placing the 6 or the 8. Let’s look at each: Pass Line. This is the most basic and popular of bets when playing Craps. It has one of the lowest house edges (1.41%) and it is very simple to place.

The game of craps doesn’t offer the best odds in the casino. That distinction belongs to blackjack (with video poker getting an honorable mention.)

• The winning bets are paid at 7:6 odds, which means that you’ll be paid out $7 when you bet $6 and the number hits. The 6 and 8 are the most frequently rolled numbers other than 7. Stay away from other place bets because the house edge is higher: 4% on 5 or 9 and 6.67% on 4 or 10.
• Beginner craps players, if you can remember only one bet, make it the pass line bet. This is the starting bet for all craps games and has one of the lowest house edges at 1.41% and highest odds of landing (251 to 244 to be exact). This is one of the best bets craps players can make, with payout odds of 1 to 1.
• So, to sum up, blackjack’s best if you’ve got the time to learn the game. If you want to drink and socialize and win all at the same time, play craps. And if you’ve got the bankroll and want a more refined gambling experience (still with great odds), baccarat’s the game for you.

Craps doesn’t have game-play decisions which challenge your mind, either. You also can’t win huge jackpots in a craps game.

What makes craps so special?

It’s the levels of excitement in the game.

If you want to improve in craps, here are seven tips that should take your game of dice to the next level.

1 – Stick With the Best Bets at the Craps Table

Craps has more bets available than most other games. And unlike many casino games, the house edge for those bets varies widely.

The house edge is just a way of measuring how much of an advantage the casino has over the player. The higher the house edge is, the more money you’ll lose on average over time.

The house edge for the most popular and easiest bet to play at the craps table is 1.41%, and that’s for the pass line bet.

The come bet works almost just like the pass line bet, and it also has a low 1.41% edge.

Wrong bettors – players who bet against the shooter – have slightly better odds. The house edge for the don’t pass and don’t come bets is 1.36%, which is marginally better.

Those are the four best bets at the table:

1. Pass
2. Don’t pass
3. Come
4. Don’t come

The other bet you must know about is the odds bet. This is the best bet in the casino because it has no edge. It’s a break-even bet in the long run because the odds bet pays off at the same odds as you have of winning it.

To place an odds bet (or take an odds bet, if you’re a wrong bettor), the shooter must first make a point. You place your odds bet in addition to the pass or don’t pass bet that you already have in action.

I won’t go into a lot of details about how those bets work. You can find other pages on the site that explain how craps works in detail.

Just know for now that those are the bets you want to stick with.

2 – Avoid the Worst Bets at the Craps Table

In some games, like roulette, all the bets at the table have the same edge. It doesn’t matter if you bet on red or black or on a single number, the house’s advantage is the same.

But in craps, some bets are much worse than others.

I recommend staying away from all the bets besides the ones in the previous bullet points, but if you are going to branch out, at least stay away from the bets that the stickman is trying to convince you to place.

In many cases, the house edge on those bets is well into the double digits. You’d almost be better off playing keno than placing those bets.

These bets are called the “proposition bets,” and they’re all terrible. Most of the time, they’re one-roll bets, which means they’re resolved based on the outcome of the next roll of the dice.

For your own good, just skip those bets.

3 – Try to Keep Your Head

Craps is an exciting game that stimulates a lot of action, and it’s easy to wind up with a lot of action on the table at any time. You can also see huge winning streaks when a shooter gets hot.

The downside to this streakiness is that you can also see all those bets washed away with a single roll of the dice.

A lot of craps gamblers like to place a new bet every time the dice are rolled. Others like to have multiple numbers working at a given time, but they limit themselves to having three or four numbers working at once.

My favorite technique, though, and the one I recommend to you, is this:

• Bet the pass line every time there’s a new come-out roll.
• Place the odds bet when the shooter sets a point.
• Wait until that series of rolls is completed before placing any additional bets.

Think of the house edge in a casino as being similar to compound interest. The more money you save in a bank account, the faster it grows.

Only the house edge in the casino is like compound interest in reverse. The more money you put into action, the more you lose – and faster.

It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and put too much money into action.

Keep your head, though, and keep your action reasonable even when it seems like you can’t lose.

4 – Don’t Bother With Foolish Betting Systems

Betting systems aren’t as popular in craps as in games like roulette, but they do get used sometimes.

What’s a betting system?

It’s a set of rules for raising and lowering the size of your bets based on what happened on your previous bets.

The classic example is the Martingale System, which is used on even-money bets. The idea with the Martingale is that you double the size of your bet after a losing bet. Eventually, with the bigger bets, you’ll win back what you’ve lost along with a profit.

The problem with these betting systems is that they don’t really change the math behind the game. The house still has a 1.41% edge, regardless of whether you bet $5, $10, or $20.

It can be fun to use some kind of betting system, and if it makes the game more interesting, indulge yourself.

Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that any betting system can overcome the house edge in the long run.

5 – Don’t Worry About “Rhythmic Rolling” or “Dice Control”

You’ll see people selling books and videos about how to control the dice, or set the dice, or how to roll the dice “rhythmically.”

You should save your money, and here’s why:

If such techniques really worked, the casino would institute countermeasures to stop them. Most casinos are comfortable with their existing countermeasures, which should tell you something right there.

Even if it were a possibility, most people aren’t talented enough to pull it off. And sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you practice. If you lack the talent for something, you just can’t make it happen.

Imagine being 5’1” and hoping to play professional basketball?

I don’t care how much you practice, your odds of succeeding in that quest are slim to none.

Most people just aren’t dedicated enough to pull that off, but even if you are – even if you’re willing to build a craps table in your basement and practice for 10,000 hours – there’s no guarantee that you’ll succeed.

You’re better off learning to count cards in blackjack.

Or try poker.

Stick with craps for recreational play and look for other advantage play opportunities.

6 – Use Sound Money Management Techniques

You’ll see varying opinions about money management techniques in gambling. I’m a believer in money management, but not from the perspective that it will improve your odds of winning money. No amount of money management can help you with that.

But the principles behind money management are crucial for craps players. Yes, you should have a bankroll set aside specifically for playing craps.

You should have a clear goal for how much money you hope to win during a session.

You should also have a limit to how much you’re willing to lose when playing.

That might sound like common sense, but why is it so uncommon?

7 – Don’t Forget to Join the Player’s Club

Some people think that the player’s club is just for slots players. They don’t realize that your player’s club should also be used at the table games, too.

All you have to do is present your card to the dealer, and he’ll make a note of how much you’re betting and how many bets per hour you’re placing.

Your card will be credited accordingly, and you’ll get the comps that you’ve earned this way.

Conclusion

Those are my seven best tips for improving your craps game, but maybe I left something out? Or maybe you disagree with one of these tips?

If so, let’s talk about it. Leave a comment with your suggestions about how to win more often shooting dice.

I’m writing a series of blog posts about casino games and the good and bad strategies for playing those games.

Craps is one of my favorite casino games, so I’ve been looking forward to writing this one.

And the beautiful thing about craps is that it’s a game of pure chance. The best strategy is just to choose the bets with the lowest edge for the house and have fun.

But I’ll have some things to say about some of the strategies and systems that other writers promote, too.

They’re mostly bad craps strategies.

Here’s the Only Craps Strategy You Need

When you’re dealing with an entirely random game – like craps – the only strategy that matters is choosing the bets with the lowest house edge and having fun.

I’ll have something to say about shooters and whether they have control over the outcomes later in this post, but for now, let’s just agree that games like craps are purely chance.

In other games that are entirely random, like slot machines, you don’t even really need to decide which bet to place. It’s chosen for you before you sit down.

When playing craps for real money, you have a handful of good bets you can make, but most of the bets on the table are bad. Just skip the bad bets, and you’re all set.

The Bests Bets at the Craps Table

The best bets at the craps table are the pass line bet and the don’t pass bet.

The come and don’t come bets are also great wagers.

I always advise casino gamblers to try to limit their gambling to games where the house edge is lower than 2% — preferably 1.5% or lower.

The house edge for the pass and come bets is the same, 1.41%, which means they qualify.

The house edge for the don’t pass and don’t come bets is even lower, 1.36%, but the 0.05% isn’t worth worrying about. Most people prefer to root for the shooter to succeed.

The other bet to think about at the craps table is the odds bet. This is a bet you can only place after making one of the 4 bets I already mentioned and when the shooter has set a point.

This is one of the only bets in the casino that has no house edge. It’s a break-even bet, but it can be expensive.

It can also drive the effective house edge on the money you have in action down to almost nothing.

Here’s how that works.

How the Odds Bet Changes the House Edge for the Better

If you’re betting on the pass line and the shooter sets a point, you can expect to lose $1.41 for every $100 you bet. That’s on average and in the long run.

If you’re playing at a casino that only allows you to place an odds bet at 1X the size of your pass line bet, you can put another $100 into action.

Your expected loss remains $1.41, though, which effectively cuts the house edge in half, from 1.41% to 0.71%.

If you’re able to bet 2X your original bet on the odds bet, you can lower that even further to 0.36%. (You have $300 in action, but your expected loss is still only $1.41.)

The more you’re able to bet on the odds bet, the lower the house edge for all the money you have in action becomes.

It’s clear why betting on the pass line and taking the most odds that you can is an effective strategy. With the odds bet, you can get the house edge in craps lower than 0.5% at least some of the time at the table, making it an even better game than blackjack.

And what’s more, you don’t have to memorize basic strategy to get the low house edge at craps.

You just need a big enough casino bankroll to make the right bets, and you need enough sense to avoid the bad bets at the table – of which there are many.

Any Strategy that Involves Placing ANY Other Bets at the Craps Table Is a BAD Craps Strategy

There’s a reason gambling experts measure bets according to their house edge. That’s because it’s the single best indicator of how good or bad a bet is.

The house edge is a statistical estimate of how much money you’ll lose as a percentage of your original bet over the long run.

If the house edge is 1.41%, the casino expects to win an average of $1.41 every time you bet $100.

If the house edge is 16.66%, the casino expects to win an average of $16.66 every time you bet $100.

Which bet looks like the better bet for the casino?

And which one looks like the better bet for the gambler?

It shouldn’t be hard to make the distinction.

Even the best of the bad bets on the craps table are inferior to the 1.41% or 1.36% you can get from the pass, don’t pass, come, and don’t come bets.

And trust me on this:

You can have PLENTY of fun sticking with the basic bets at the craps table.

Betting Systems Where You Raise and Lower the Size of Your Bets Are Bad Strategies

The classic example of this kind of betting system is the Martingale System, where you double the size of your bets after each loss. When you do this repeatedly, you eventually win back the money you’ve lost along with a profit of one unit.

The problem with a system like the Martingale is that you’ll eventually run into a big enough losing streak that it will wipe out all those small profits and then some.

Most people underestimate how quickly a bet’s size gets when doubling after every loss.

They also overestimate how likely they are to avoid long losing streaks.

If you double a $5 bet once, that’s $10.

But if you run into a losing streak of 8 bets in a row, you’re looking at having to bet $640 to make up for your losses.

Also, every roll of the dice is an independent event. The odds don’t change based on how many times you’ve won or lost in a row.

You might think the probability of losing that 8^th bet is lower than the likelihood of losing the first one, but the truth is that the dice have no memory. They have the same 6 sides, no matter how many times you’ve lost in a row.

Each bet in craps is an independent event, and any betting system will assume that the odds are changing based on how many times in a row you’ve won or lost.

Money Management Strategies Don’t Hurt Anything, but They Won’t Improve Your Odds of Winning, Either

Money management strategies involve having strict gambling discipline about how much of your bankroll you’re willing to risk before quitting the game. They also require you to stop when you’ve won an arbitrary amount of money.

Money management techniques are often used in conjunction with betting systems.

Here’s an example of a money management strategy in craps:

You decide your bankroll for the session is $250, and you’re playing for $5 per roll of the dice.

Your stop-loss limit is $100, so, if your bankroll drops to $150, you must quit the craps session and go do something else.

Your win goal is $250, so once your bankroll gets up to $500, you must quit the game and go do something else.

This kind of strategy might increase your chances of walking away from the game a winner.

But that’s only because a lot of gamblers will just keep playing until they’ve lost their entire stake. They just don’t generally have a lot of sense about that sort of thing.

The Jury’s Out on Dice Setting or Dice Control

I’ve seen multiple reputable gambling writers express interest and some belief that some craps shooters can influence the probability of specific outcomes. I’m skeptical – in the extreme – but I’ll give it an appropriate amount of credence.

The idea is that you hold the dice a specific way – “setting” the dice – then throw with a minimum amount of force – just enough to hit the back wall and eliminate most of the rolling action.

A controlled shooting expert doesn’t have to be perfect. Instead, they’re trying to be like someone who’s playing darts. They improve the probability enough to change the negative expectation on a bet to a positive expectation.

You can buy books and videos explaining how to get an edge at craps this way, but I can’t imagine the amount of practice and record-keeping required to have any confidence in your ability to change the odds.

Imagine if you spent 1000 hours trying to learn how to control the dice and coming up short. Maybe you just don’t have the knack for it.

That doesn’t sound like a good deal to me.

I’d rather learn to count cards in blackjack.

Best Odds Of Winning At Craps Machine

Conclusion

Best Odds Of Winning At Craps Real Money

Those are the best and the worst of the strategies I know of for playing craps in the casino. I know plenty of people who would disagree with every recommendation I’ve made, but the math behind the game doesn’t lie.

Best Odds Of Winning At Craps Games

The best strategy is to stick with the bets with the lowest house edge and have as much fun as you can.