Number Seven Made: Number Made True Odds
4 six ways to three ways two to one
5 six ways to four ways three to two
6 six ways to five ways six to five
8 six ways to five ways six to five
9 six ways to four ways three to two
10 six ways to three ways two to one

However, in the table-game the Pass Line bettor can help his cause somewhat by placing what are called Odds behind his Pass Line bet. The odds bets are paid off at true odds. Thus, if the point is four, and the shooter makes his point, the odds bet is paid off at two to one. The original Pass Line bet is only paid off at even money. It is usually recommended that Pass Line bettors take the maximum odds allowed. Unfortunately, all the versions of video-craps that I’ve researched for this book did not have the odds bet as a feature of their programming, nor did they have any version of place betting that paid the usual house odds of 9 to 5 on the four or ten; 7 to 5 on the five or nine; and 7 to 6 on the six or eight. All place bets were either unavailable or paid off at even money. That effectively eliminates playing any version of the Captain’s Supersystem or Five-Count Place Betting strategies at video craps.

There are two other types of bets of which you should be aware: Come Bets, and Don’t Come Bets With the knowledge of the Pass and Don’t Pass bets, these other two will form the framework for your playing of the machine. These bets function precisely as the Pass Line and Don’t Pass bets, usually with one exception-they must be placed after the shooter-in-the-machine has already established the point.

Let us say that the shooter-in-the-machine has established his point. You now place a bet in the Come area of the layout. If the shooter-in-the-machine rolls a seven or 11, you are a winner. If the shooter-in-the-machine rolls a two, three, or 12, you are a loser. Now, if the roll was a seven, the machine will pay off your Come bet and return both your original bet and its payoff since the shooter-in-the-machine has sevened out before making the point. However, if an 11 appears, you take your winnings and you have the option of leaving your original Come bet on the layout, increasing it, or taking it off. If a two, three, or 12 is thrown, your Come bet is lost and, if you wish to have another Come working, you must press the button on the layout.

Now, if and when the shooter-in-the-machine rolls a point number (four, five, six, eight, nine, or 10), the machine will take your Come bet and “place” it on the number. You will not be given the option of placing odds on it. To win a Come bet, the shooter must roll that number again before he rolls a seven.

The Don’t Come works in just the opposite fashion. When you place your bet in the Don’t Come box, a two or three will win even money but a seven or 11 will lose for you. A12 will be a push. However, should the shooter-in-the-machine roll a point number, your Don’t Come bet is “placed” in the lay portion of the number’s box and now a seven will win the bet for you. However, if the shooter-in-the-machine rolls that number before rolling a seven, you lose. Like the Don’t Pass, you can lay odds on the Don’t Come bets as well.

The mathematics of craps gives the casinos an edge of 1.414 percent on the Pass and Come bets, and 1.402 on the Don’t Pass and Don’t Come bets. These are the only bets you should make at video craps if you want a chance to achieve victory.

The rise of the online casino game
The 20th century has ushered in a totally new form of entertainment. It used to be that people would venture to casino’s only in the hope of making money. Today this is not so. People come just for the entertainment. Instead of going out to see a movie or to a sports event, one will come and spend there money at an online casino. This give you both the opportunity to be entertained and potentially make money at the same time. The indirect consequence of this is that entertainment has gone online.

Offline entertainment like going to movies or watching TV shows has become less popular. For example, who wants to be a millionaire, used to be a TV show, but now it is an online game which is as popular as ever. And the trend is continuing to grow with more and more people moving over to online games such as craps and roulette and other action and strategy games. People are going more and more into the cyberworld to be entertained.

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How the Numbers Are Made
Number Ways to Make Combinations
2 one 1:1
3 two 2:1, 1:2
4 three 3:1, 2:2, 1:3
5 four 4:1, 3:2, 2:3, 1:4
6 five 5:1, 4:2, 3:3, 2:4, 1:5
7 six 6:1, 5:2, 4:3, 3:4, 2:5, 1:6
8 five 6:2, 5:3, 4:4, 3:5, 2:6
9 four 6:3, 5:4, 4:5, 3:6
10 three 6:4, 5:5, 4:6
11 two 6:5, 5:6
12 one 6:6

The table game begins when the stickman pushes five dice to the new shooter for the Come Out roll. In the video version, you put in the number of coins that you want to bet. The machine automatically credits these coins to you and you can bet one, two or more (usually up to ten) on the bets you select. Just as in regular craps, the video-craps player can bet on more than one result.

In the video-craps game, you do not have to follow the procedure for the table-game which would be to place a bet on either the Pass Line or the Don't Pass Line, for the Come-Out roll. You can start the game with any bet just by pressing the ROLL THE DICE button. However, since the Pass Line or Don't Pass bets with a house edge of only 1.4 percent are two of the best bets in video craps (the others being the Come and Don't Come), either of these would be the bets to make initially. In machine language, any of the four bets mentioned would make the video-craps machine a 98.6 percent payback machine. Not bad at all!

If the first roll is a seven or 11, the Pass Line wins even money. Those on the Don't Pass Line lose their bets. However, if the shooter-in-the-machine rolls a two or three on the Come Out roll, the Don't Pass wins even money, and the Pass loses. Should the shooter-in-the-machine roll a 12, the Pass loses but the Don't Pass pushes (no decision).
The shooter-in-the-machine will keep rolling Come Out rolls until it rolls a four, five, six, eight, nine, or 10. (Remember that you must press the ROLL button for a decision to be rendered.) These are called point numbers. Let us say the shooter-in-the-machine rolls a six. That now becomes the point and the machine will indicate either by lighting up the point number or, more likely, by entering the point (in this case a six) in a box labeled POINT NUMBER. For Pass Line bettors, the shooter-in-the-machine must roll another six before it rolls a seven in order to win. For Don't Pass bettors, the shooter-in-the-machine must roll the seven before a six for them to win.

Although in the long term mathematics of craps, the Don't Pass bettor has a slight edge over the Pass bettor, in reality this edge is so slight that it is essentially irrelevant. However, what is not irrelevant is the disparity of opportunity on or after a Come Out roll.

On the Come Out roll, the Pass Line bettor is in the driver's seat. That's because he wins on a seven or 11, and loses on a two, three or 12. Now, there are six ways to make a seven and two ways to make an 11, which gives the Pass Line bettor eight chances in 36 rolls for a win. However, there are four ways he can lose because the combined totals of two, three, and 12 can be made in four different ways. Thus, overall, the Pass Line shooter has a two to one advantage on the Come Out roll.

On the other hand, the Don't Pass bettor is at his most vulnerable on the Come Out because he theoretically loses eight times for every 36 rolls, but only wins three times on the two and three (remember, the Don't Pass bettor pushes on the 12—that's the casino's edge for this type of bet). Thus, the Don't Pass bettor faces odds of 8 to 3 against him on the Come Out.
Once the shooter-in-the-machine establishes a point, however, the nature of the game shifts dramatically in favor of the Don't Pass bettor. That's because the seven now becomes the standard for success or failure. The Pass Bettor must buck the odds against him, while the Don't Pass bettor has the odds heavily in his favor.

The following chart shows the relationship of every point number to the seven. Since most bettors are right bettors, that is they bet with the shooter-in-the-machine and against the seven, the chart is structured against the Pass Bettor. For example, the point number of four is made three ways in relation to the seven's six ways. The seven will come up six times for every three times of the four. Thus, the odds are two to one against the four. However, the Don't Pass bettor has odds of two to one in his favor!

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Crazy Crapper Bets
Crapper Bet True Odds Casino Odds Casino Edge
Hard 4 or 10 8 to 1 7 to 1 11.111%
Hard 6 or 8 10 to 1 9 to 1 9.090%
11 or 3 17 to 1 15 to 1 11.111%
12 or 2 35 to 1 30 to 1 1 3.890%
Any 7 5 to 1 4 to 1 16.667%
Any Craps 8 to 1 7 to 1 < 11.111%
Big 6 or Big 8 6 to 5 1 to 1 9.090%
Field Bet 19 to 1 7 1 to 1 (2 to 1 on 2,12)5.263%

You can see from the above list that many craps bets are crappy, to put it in plain gamblese. What's worse, some casinos, knowing the stupidity of the players, have increased their margin of thievery on some of the above bets by playing games with the English language. Thus, in Las Vegas many casinos will pay 30 for 1 on the one roll 12 or 2 bet instead of 30 to 1. What this means is the player receives 30 units back for his bet should he win but included in this 30 units is his original one unit bet! On the 30 to 1 proposition, you receive 31 units back— your 30 unit win plus your one unit bet. This simply makes the proposition have a greater percentage in favor of the house—a whopping 16.667 percent! Still more robber-baronly, some of the Mississippi riverboats pay off at 29 for one—a hideous 19.44 percent in favor of the plantation..ah, I mean, the house. You will find the same shenanigans existing on the video-craps machines.

Now, what does an edge of, say, 19.44 percent actually mean? Bluntly, for every $1,000 you bet on that proposition, you will lose $194.40 in the long run. Not a very attractive proposition is it? So watch for the "for" when you bet and remember that this "for" always includes the original bet in its payout.

However, many video-craps games give the players a break when it comes to the Field bet, which is a bet that the next roll will be one of the following numbers: 2,3,4,9,10,11,12. The usual payout is even money if any one of the numbers hit and two to one if the 2 or 12 is hit. This effectively gives the house an edge of 5.26 percent. In video-craps it is not unusual to see the 12 (or 2) being paid off at three to one. This cuts the house edge on the field to 2.56 percent. Considering the very high vigorish on the average slot machine and even most video-poker machines, this is not such a bad bet. If you were to play the Field exclusively you would be playing a machine that returned 97.44 percent of all money put in it. Not a bad machine. However, there is a much better way to play video craps than even this enhanced Field bet.

Side bets aside, in reality, craps is a simple game—as it must be to lure all the fish who play it. It is largely a mathematically-oriented game completely based on a given number's probability of appearance in 36 rolls and/or its relationship to the probability of the seven appearing. Unless there is something wrong with the machine, the video version of the game is based purely on probability theory based on a random number generator—in our case, the shooter-in-the-machine! The following chart gives the numbers that can be made from two dice, each numbered one through six; how many ways these numbers are made, and the combinations that compose them. Remember that there are six sides to each die and thus 36 possible combinations that can be made from two dice.

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The pay structure of video craps reflects the pay structure of regular craps in most cases. That is, you are betting in relation to the seven's probability to show or, in the case of one-roll bets, the odds of that particular number being thrown in 36 trials. Thus, most craps bets are not even money affairs but offer interesting yet rarely generous odds.
But aren't the odds always fixed and based on pure mathematics?
Yes and no.

Unfortunately, as many of you know, there is a difference between "true odds" and "casino odds." In that difference lies the casinos' profits.

The true odds of a bet are based upon the probability of that particular event happening. For example, the number four can be made in three different ways with two dice—3:1; 2:2; 1:3—and thus it will theoretically come up once every 12 times because there are 36 possible combinations on two six-sided dice—6 x 6 = 36. So the true odds against a four coming up on the next roll are always 11 to one.

The true odds of the number seven coming up (and as you know the number seven is the single most significant number in the game) are five to one because the seven can be made six ways: 6:1; 5:2; 4:3; 3:4; 2:5; 6:1. Six goes into 36 six times and thus the odds are always 5 to one against a seven being the next number rolled.

You always get the true odds against something by figuring how many times an event won't occur as opposed to how many times the event will occur. (You get the odds for something the opposite way!) The seven won't be rolled 30 times in 36 rolls but it will be rolled six times. Thus, the odds against a seven are 30 to 6, or 5 to one! That's because six goes into six once and six goes into 30 five times.

Another thing to remember about probability and odds-making is this: we are only talking the theoretical likelihood of an event and not the predictive likelihood of an event. Theoretically, the seven will show six times for every 36 rolls but in actuality it might show ten times, or no times on the next 36 rolls. However, the longer the dice are rolled, as the total rolls approach the millions and billions, you will start to see numbers coming up with a frequency close to their probability. Probability theory is indicative and not predictive in the short run fluctuations of a game of chance.

Now, if the casinos were offering a fair game, theoretically at the end of an infinite number of rolls of the dice, neither the casino nor the player would be ahead. Everyone would be tied.

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T doubt if many casino gamblers would dis-X agree with the following statement: craps is the single most exciting table game in the casinos. Some writers have compared it to the gambling equivalent of hitting a home run in the World Series—when you're winning.

It can be exhilarating and exhausting. When you are losing it can be the gambling equivalent of the myth of Sisyphus, whose torment for all eternity was to roll a large boulder up a mountain and then, just as he got it to the top, see it roll all the way back down, where he had to start all over again. In a word, craps can be the ultimate in frustration." So I wrote in the opening of my chapter on craps in my book Guerrilla Gambling: How to Beat the Casinos at Their Own Games!

The video versions of craps are no less frustrating though somewhat less compelling and certainly less exciting to play. Gone is the sense of communion with the other players, and the shared, almost tribal, camaraderie of the "right" bettors as they root for their numbers to appear while simultaneously praying that that dreaded seven won't make its devastating appearance.

Like its table-game cousin, video craps is a game with a cornucopia of betting opportunities, most of them carrying an extremely large house edge. Just take a look at the craps layout on the screen and you can see that video craps is a bettor's paradise or hell. The craps layout has scared many a would-be player. Fortunately, for the astute craps player, there are only a few bets that are worth making. Unfortunately, for the video-craps player, several of these bets have been eliminated from the video version of the game including: the odds bets on Pass Line and Come wagers and place bets paying off at the house odds.

Still video-craps has a supermarket of betting options and this might lead some aficionados of the video scene to shy away from it. Don't. Video craps only looks complicated because of that host of essentially irrelevant bets marked on the screen. These bets take up most of the screen's space and are the junk food of video gambling. The Captain, the world's greatest craps player (see my book Beat the Craps Out of the Casinos: How to Play Craps and Win!), calls these bets Crazy Crapper bets because essentially you have to be crazy to make them. That's how high the house edge is on them. Indeed, some of the Crazy Crapper bets make some low-paying slot machines look overly generous!

With the exception of the bets mentioned previously and the inclusion of a better Field bet, the video version of craps has the same payouts, playing procedure and odds as its table-game namesake. Thus, an analysis of video-craps parallels an analysis of the table game version. (If the machine isn't rigged.)

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