Hi and welcome to our instructional video that is designed to make
you were smarter gambler my name is Steve Bourie
and I'm the author of the American casino guide the number one bestselling book in the
US on the subject of casino gambling and travel
and the only book that comes with over one thousand dollars in casino coupons
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in this video we're going to take a look at the game of craps
because it's a somewhat complex game I'm going to break it down into three
different parts
in this video which is part one of a three part series
I'm going to tell you how the game is played which is actually very simple
and then I'm going to explain the two most popular bets you can make
which are pass and don't pass plus the free odds bet
later on in part two I'll explain some of the other bets that can be made
and finally in part 3 I'll talk about even
more bets plus I'm going to explain how you can win so if you're already to learn
about craps
let's begin The game of craps can look a little intimidating to the average
person because of all the various bets you can make
but actually the game itself is very simple everyone at the craps table gets
a turn to roll the dice
but you don't have to roll if you don't want to the dice are passed around the
table clockwise
and if it's your turn to roll you simply take two dice
and roll them to the opposite end of the table this is your first roll of the dice
which is also called the come out roll
If you roll 7 or 11 that's called a natural and you win
plus you get to roll again If you roll
a 2, 3 or 12 those are called craps
and you lose but you still get to roll again the only other possible numbers
you can roll
are 4, 5, 6, 8, nine or ten
and if one of those numbers shows up then that number becomes your point
and a dealer at the table will place a small white puck on that number
to let everyone know that number is your point then the object of the game is to
roll that number again
before you roll the seven If a seven shows up before your point number does
then you seven out which means that you have lost and the dice move on to the
next shooter
if your point number shows up before a seven does then you have made a pass
you then win your bet and you get to roll again and that is all there is to
the game of craps.
now that you know how to play the game let's find out about the different kinds
of bets you can make
two of the best bets you'll find on the craps table
are in the areas marked pass and don't pass when you bet on the pass line
you're betting that the shooter will win to make a pass line bet you put your bet
right in front of you on the pass line
Pass line bets are paid even money and the house edge on a pass line bet is 1.41
percent
you can also bet on the don't pass line
in which case you're betting that the shooter will lose to make a don't pass
bet
you put your bet in front of you in the don't pass area
don't pass bets are also paid even money and the house edge on them
is 1.40 percent in reality the odds are always 1.41 percent against the shooter
and in favor of the don't pass bettor by that same amount. Of course if you're a don't
pass bettor the casinos don't want to give you a bet where you have an edge
so they have a rule in effect on don't pass bets where on the come out roll
if the shooter throws a 12 you don't win you don't lose either
the bet is just considered a push (or tie) and nothing happens
in some cases they may make two instead of 12 the number that's a push
just look on the don't pass line and you'll see the word bar
and then the number that the casino considers a push in our illustration it
says bar 12 so in this casino
your bet on that don't pass line will be a push if the come out roll
is a 12 This rule is what gives the casino its advantage on don't pass bets
and it doesn't matter whether the casino bars the two or the 12
the result is the same 1.40 percent advantage for the house
all right let's say you put ten dollars on the pass line and you roll the dice
if you roll 7 or 11 you win ten dollars and if you roll 2, 3 or 12 you lose ten
dollars
so what happens if you roll any of the other numbers
well as I said before that number becomes your point
and you have to roll that number again before you roll a 7
in order to win your pass line bet
Once your point is established the dealer at each of the table
will move a marker into the box that corresponds to your point number
to let everyone at the table know what your point is
the marker that's used has two different sides one side is black with the word off
and the other side is white with the word on Before any point is established the
marker is kept in the don't come box with the black side facing up
until you roll the point number and then the dealer turns it over to the
white side and moves
it inside the box that contains your point number
for example let's say you come out roll is a 6
the dealer simply turns the marker over to the white side that says on
and places it in the six box this lets everyone know that six is your point
and that you will continue to roll the dice no matter how long it takes
until you roll a 6 which will make you a winner or seven which will make you a loser
Now keep in mind that once your point is established you can't remove your
pass line bet
until you either win by throwing your point or lose by rolling a 7
the reason for this is that on the come out roll the pass line bettor
has the advantage because there are 8 ways to win
by rolling a seven or 11 and only four ways to lose
by rolling a 2, 3 or 12 If a point number is rolled
the matter what number it is they are then more ways to lose
then to win and that's why the bad can't be removed
if you were allowed to remove your bed everyone would just wait for the come
out roll
if they didn't win they would take their bad back which would give them a big
advantage over the house
and as you know casinos don't like that so that's why can't remove your bet
as I mentioned before the pass line is on the best batch of i
but there is a way to make it even better because once a point number is
established
the casino will allow you to make another bet that will be paid off at the
true
odds this is a very good bet to make because the casino has no advantage on
this bet
in this instance since your point was 6 the true odds are 6-5
and that's what your bet will be paid off at six dollars for every five
dollars you bet
this is called an odds bet, taking the free odds, or betting behind the line
And to make this that you simply put your chips directly behind your pass
line bet
There is a limit to how much you're allowed to bet and for many years most
casinos allowed a maximum of two times the amount of your pass line bet
nowadays however many casinos offer five times odds
and some casinos are even allowing up to 100 times odds
because the casino has no advantage on these bets you're effectively lowering the
house edge on your total pass line bet
by taking advantage of these free odds bets
for example the normal house edge on a pass line bet is 1.41 percent
but if you also make a single odds bet along with your pass line bet
you will lower the house edge on your total pass line bet
to .85 percent if the casino offers
double odds then the edge on your bet is lowered to
.61 percent with triple odds the edge is lowered to .47 percent
and if you were to play in a casino that allowed 10 times odds the edge would be
lowered
only .18 percent which means that statistically speaking
over time that casino would only make 18 cents out of every one hundred dollars you
bet on that table
As you can see the more the casino allows you to bet behind the line
the more it lowers their edge so it's always a good idea to take advantage of this bet
by the way free odds bets unlike regular pass line bets
can be removed or reduced at any time
all right let's make our free odds bet on our point number of six by putting
ten dollars behind the line
then we continue to roll until we either roll a 6
or seven. If a six came up we would get even money on the pass line bet
plus 6-5 on the free odds bet for a total win of twenty two dollars
but if we rolled a 7 we would lose both the pass line bet
and the free odds bet for a total loss of twenty dollars
in this example we used six as our point number
but there are five other numbers that appear
and here are the true odds for all the possible point numbers
the four and 10 are 2-1, the 5 and 9 are 3-2
and the 6 and 8 are 6-5 you'll notice that the numbers appear in pairs
and that's because each paired combination has the same probability of
occurring
As you can see there are six ways to make a seven
and only five ways to make a six or eight therefore the odds are 6-5
there are six ways to make a seven and only three ways to make a 4 or
10 so the true odds are 6-3 which is the same as
2-1 and finally there are six ways to make a seven but just
four ways to make a five or 9 so the true odds here
are 6-4 which is the same as 3-2
It's important to remember these numbers because number one
you want to make sure that you're paid the right amount when you do win
and number two you want to make sure that when you make your odds bet you
make them in amounts that are paid off evenly
As an example if your point is five and you have five dollars on the pass line
you wouldn't want to bet five dollars behind the line because at 3-2 odds
the casino would have to pay you 7.50 and they don't deal in change
when making the odds bet on the five or 9 you should always bet
in even amounts and in this situation just mentioned
most casinos would allow you to add an extra one dollar so you would have
six dollars out and they could pay you nine dollars if you won
the only other situation where this occurs is on the six and eight where the
payoff is 6-5
so on that instance you wanna make your bets in multiples of five dollars
we spent all this time talking about pass line betting so what about don't
pass betting?
Well everything applied to pass line betting works pretty much just the
opposite for don't pass betting If you put five dollars on don't pass
you would win on the come out roll if the shooter rolled a two or three
You would tie if the shooter rolled a 12 and you would lose if the shooter rolled a
7 or 11
If any other number comes up then that becomes the shooters point number
and if the rolls a 7 before he rolls that same point number
you will win. If he rolls his point number before he rolls a 7
you will lose Don't pass bettors are also allowed to make free odds bets to
back up their original bets
however because the odds are in their favor they must
lay odds rather than take odds This means that if the point is four or 10
the don't pass bettor must lay 2-1 or bet ten dollars
to win five dollars on five or nine you must lay 3-2
or bet six dollars to win four dollars and on the six or eight he must lay
6-5 or bet six dollars to win five dollars
by taking advantage of these free odds bets the casino advantage is slightly
lowered on the total
don't pass bets to .68 with single odds
.46 percent with double odds .34 percent with triple odds
and .12 percent with ten times odds
if you want to you can remove or reduce the amount of your free odds bets
at any time. To make a free odds bet on don't pass
you should place your odds bet right next to your original bet
and then put a chip on top to connect the two bets
keep in mind that when you make a free odds bet on don't pass the casino will
allow you to make your bet
based on the payoff rather than the original amount
of your don't pass bet. In other words if the casino offered double odds
the point was six and you had ten dollars on don't pass
you would be allowed to bet up to 24 dollars because you would only win
twenty dollars
which was double the amount of your original ten dollar bet
Since you have to put out more money than you'll be getting back laying out is not
very popular at the craps table
and you'll find that the vast majority of craps players would rather bet with
the shooter and take the odds
statistically speaking it makes no difference whether you are laying or
taking the odds
because they both have a zero advantage for the house
one last point about don't pass betting is that once the point is established
the casino will allow you to remove your don't pass bet if you want to
but don't do it. As noted before on the come out roll
the pass line bettor has the advantage because there are 8 rolls that can win
and only four that can lose but once the point is established
there are more ways the shooter can lose than win
so at that point the don't pass bettor has the advantage
and it would be foolish to remove your bet
That's it for part one of our video on how to play craps
Don't forget that in part two I'll explain about some of the
other bets you can make and in part 3 I'll give you details on even
more bets plus I'll tell you how to win at the game of craps
In the meantime best wishes for good luck in the casinos
Don't forget that you can see more of our educational gaming videos on our
YouTube channel
just go to youtube.com/americancasinoguide