Happy New Year to all. I can play basic strategy BJ and have average knowledge of craps, but still not ready to count at Vegas tables. I get confused when there is alot of action and lose track. Which would be the best game to play overall on the strip without getting burned while in Vegas for 4 days? Thanks for your input.
Playing BS on a game with decent rules means that (statistically) you should drop less that $5/hour, not too bad.
Craps is a tricky game, you can be very little or a lot...so that depends, I happen to be a sucker for craps...I know the odds are against me and I only play expecting to lose...but damn it is fun.
If you just play a Pass line bet a craps with some odds behind it the house edge is fairly low, but you still have worse odds than strict BS at a decent game.
That's my 2 cents...Or you could always learn low-limit hold 'em...you can play that for hours with little cash.
I never heard of anyone counting craps, how do you do that?
< The Captain's approach (as explained by John Patrick in his book) is to "qualify" the shooters by waiting till they roll 5 times without making craps before you put up your place bets and odds bet. So, here is the way I play sometimes:
Place pass line bet with shooter, when shooter makes a point this counts as roll 1,
The house edge on the 6 and 8 is very small, the difference between 7 to 6 and 6 to 5, and the edge on the pass line bet with 10X odds is extremely small.
Playing this way you will miss out on all the shooters who have the horrible rolls where they establish a point and then crap out after 1 or 2 rolls, and you will be around with two or three bets up when someone gets hot.
I've made a lot of money playing this way. Of course, I've also had nights where everytime someone 'qualified' and I put my place bets and odds bet up the player got craps after 1 or 2 rolls too LOL. I guess that is why they call it gambling.
Try to find a casino that is having a special promotion where they give true odds on place bets over a certain $$ amount, one of the casinos in Reno used to do this sometimes.
The house edge if you play this way is comparable to, if not slightly better than, the house edge using BS on shoe games if you are not counting.
Of course, if you play craps instead of blackjack you won't be getting any practice in playing blackjack.
One thing I am curious about though, the pace at the craps table is extremely fast and most people find it very confusing to play craps, how is it that you find craps less confusing than blackjack?
Regardless of waht you play, I wish you well.
Steve
wait until the shooter has rolled 4 more times without crapping out,
now make place bets on 6 and 8 (if the pass line bet was the 6 or 8, don't make a place bet on it, play with two bets instead of three)
place 10X odds bet on pass line bet
I believe is your less expensive game if you are not an advantage player. The house edge, even on 6 & 8 bets, is really about the same as basic strategy bj.* They don't count pushes in craps when computing the edge, which is why the house edge looks higher. BJ is a faster game with more decisions per hour. Making only pass line bets, odds bets, and place bets on 6 or 8 will probably result in about the same house expectation for total action as basic strategy bj.
Heads up craps is much faster. You shoot the dice, nothing hits, and they slide the dice back to you. This could be faster than heads up bj. You want a full table with lots of payoffs for each throw of the dice.
*Making a $6 place bet on 6 you win $7 five times in 36 rolls and lose $6 six times. This is a $1 loss per 36 rolls, or .0278 per roll. -.00463 on total action, about the same as $5 basic strategy bj.
did not mean to imply that i could count craps. now way. just more comfortable with the odds, lay, buy and come bets and their payoffs. Meant to say that at the BJ table when it gets crowded and cards are flying out a mile a minute...it gets hard to keep track of the count. thanks.
I play craps when I win on BJ. I play the "Don't Come", not the Don't pass (can get killed when the same shooter gets consecutive 7's and 11's). If I get a 7, the dice passes to another shooter. I play two numbers, and when I lose a number, I place a lay bet on the other number. You can last a long time that way, and it's a hell of a way to get rated. Like Ian Andersen says, if he gets a hot shooter, he'll just wait without betting, and he still gets rated. It also helps to show the house you are not only a BJ player. Of course you will have some odd looks from the other players, but playing the "don't come" I tell them I am not betting against the main number, and this way you lose your bets one at a time, you don't get devastated by the 7, and when you win, you often win both bets if nobody knocks you off.
and when it doesn't work it is also devestating! for you the player, that is. This is a variation of Patrick's "Captain" approach (see any of Patrick's books on craps).
Patrick says to "qualify" the shooter by counting five rolls till you put money at risk. I used to do this and I would watch shooter after shooter seven out after a few rolls - the "average" number of rolls, after a point is established before the shooter sevens out, is 3.5 - so I started thinking "how can I take advantage of this?". So, I did what Patrick says, used the "dooey - don't" (I hate that name), you simply bet the same amount on the do and the don't at the same time, but instead of waiting for five rolls to put the odds up on the do side, I immediately lay odds on the don't Pass. I then played the don't come until I either had been through five rolls of the shooter or until I got "taken" off the don't side three times, or, of course, until the shooter sevened out. On the shooter's sixth roll, I moved the don't come and don't pass lay odds to the do come and do pass side. This approach pays off when shooters are sevening out right away and it puts you on the do side when a shooter gets hot, so when it works, it is devestating. so, if the table is cold, you will do well, if the table is hot, you will do well, if the table switches from cold to hot or hot to cold, you will do well.
Conversely, if the table is very choppy, you will get murdered.
Please do not think I am promoting this as an "advantage" play, it isn't. The house still has an edge. When you play the dooey don't the house edge is the bar twelve, which I think is something like 2%.
Oh, one more thing, the dealers at the craps table HATE it when you play this way. Moving your odds around from laying them to taking them, playing the do and the dont at the same time. You better tip well or they will lynch you.
Steve
The system you describe is not John Patrick's system, but one that Frank Scoblete has popularized in a couple of his books.
...pretty much meaningless, IMHO.
Again, IMHO, the *only* number that matters is the ROI. This number, of course, is unaffected by the non-decision rolls in craps.
Non-decision rolls in craps are not, IMHO, the same as "push" in 21. I consider a push to be a *decision* of zero. The primary difference is that a non-decision roll in craps does not end the pass, but a "push" in 21 does end the round. Also, non-decision rolls in craps do not measurably wear out the spots on the dice, but pushes in 21 do consume cards, sometimes to the player's advantage, sometimes to his disadvantage. In short, pushes (i.e., the cards consumed by them) can and do have an effect on the game, non-decision rolls in craps cannot and do not. Just MHO.
For the fellow who doesn't want to or isn't able to count, my advice would be to go to the lowest minimum bet tables he can find, and either play the Ponzi system for craps or use a betting progression in 21, and hope for some pure luck.
In the short term (which is the context here set forth in his query), anything can happen; so long-term average loss rates are not, IMHO, really the best criteria upon which to base the decision.
In the short term, even with only moderate "luck," he has a much better chance of getting a decent win pressing bets (in both craps and 21, but especially in 21) than playing craps the extremely conservative way you suggested.
In the long term, all these methods are losers, but given the fact we're talking exclusively about the short term, I would suggest he set definite loss limits and win goals, and use a moderately agressive betting progression at the low-limit 21 tables.
For pass line bets you are locked in and I agree with what you say. But this is not the case with place bets. You can put these up and take them down any time. Effectively, each roll of the dice is another bet. A seven is a loss, if the number hits it is a win, anything else is a push. Now it is time for the next roll, and you again make the decision of whether to keep your bet up or take it down. Any way you look at it, on 6 & 8, you lose a sixth of a unit every 36 rolls, or 1/216 per roll. To me this is a house edge of .463%. I realize you have the gambling books on your side, but I disagree.
>To me this is a house edge of .463%.<
Nope. That's the long term loss rate, NOT the "house edge."
The house edge is:
5 ways to win $7: $35
6 ways to lose $6: $-36
11 decisions in the "cycle" for average net of $-1.
House edge is $1 / 11 / $6 = 1.51512%.
I do understand your position, especially in the context of the original query where average loss rates are an actual consideration.
I just don't agree with it, either from a math perspective or from an efficacy perspective.
Also, you supplied the EV for blackjack instead of the actual house edge. They *are* different. Basic Strategy, under typical Gulf Coast rules (6D, 75% pen, SAP-3, DAS, RSA, S17) for example, gives the house an edge of about 0.25%, not the ~0.4% EV.
This fact alone makes 21, even without card counting, a *far* better choice than even the most conservative bets in craps.
if you calculated it the way you do above. Nothing wrong with your way. I'm just saying that it is inconsistent. Normally that is not any problem. It is only when you have a negative expectation player who wants to compare bj to craps. With the normal ways that they compute house edge for the two games the comparison is unfair and makes basic strategy bj looks superior. If you computed your bj edge based on a bet staying up until it won or lost the edge would be different. If you computed edge based on total action, rather than on initial bet only the edge would be different. I compute edge as the amount you expect to win or lose on a bet divided by the amount you put at risk. This is what I did for the 6 or 8 place bets. You expect to lose .0277777 cents on a $6 bet. .027777/6=.463%. If I walk up, place a bet, and pick it up and walk away after one roll, .463% was the house edge on that bet. If you decide to leave the $6 bet up until it wins or loses then the house edge is 1.51%, like you say. Because it takes an average of 3.2727 rolls (36/11). And of course, my .463 times 3.2727 is your 1.51.
We are not really arguing math, we're arguing terminology. And I'll concede that you are correct as far as common usage in literature. I just feel it is misleading. You may even notice in some books they compute the edge on don't pass differently depending on whether you count a 12 as a push or a non-event.
True what you said about different games. Good rules double deck would have a lower expected loss rate for the bs player, although the house edge would not be as small as you quote if you removed the 8% pushes from the distribution and computed the edge on total action rather than initial wager.
just a note to the above. Your double deck game with the .25% edge is still good no matter how you compute edge. But total action is about 14% greater than initial wager with proper splits and doubles. If we compute and take pushes out of the distribution, instead of losing 25 cents for each $100 bet, we lose 28.5 cents for every 92 dollars bet. The house edge would then go from .25% to .291%. Not a huge difference, but consistent with the way you are quoting the edge from craps.
Suppose you are making a place bet on the 8. Your bet is $6. You take your bet down each time after one roll of the dice. You bet the entire cycle of the 36 possible numbers on the dice. You have bet a total of $216. There will be 25 non-decisions, or "pushes" as you call them. $150 will be returned to you on those non-decisions. Your net win is zero. There will be 5 winning decisions, for a total return of $65. Your net win will be $35. There will be 6 losses for a total loss of $36. Figuring total dollars wagered and your return you will have returned to you $215. By that reckoning, you will have lost 0.46296% of the total money you wagered.
However, $150 was returned to you on a non-decision. I would suggest that a non-decision is just that. It does not count as part of your return because you never finished the game. Your total action on finished games is $66. You will have returned to you $65. The house advantage in that case is 1.51515%.
You have to count the decisions, not the non-events that occured when you took your money down before a decision was rendered. Taking your money down after each roll and then re-placing your bet is an artificial construct. In effect, you aren't taking your money down, you are leaving it in action until an actual decision is made. This isn't the same thing as getting a push in blackjack. In the case of a blackjack push, you have completed the hand. In craps, your hand isn't completed until a decision is made.
Taking your bet down before the hand is completed would be more like putting your money in the betting circle at a blackjack table and then deciding to remove the bet before the cards are dealt. That wouldn't be a push, it would be a non-event. You wouldn't count the hand as a part of your total money wagered because you took your money down before the game was completed.
in generaly addresses it. As I say to Old Coot, my main objection is that it is inconsistent with the way we quote the edge for bj, which is expectation/action for each round dealt. If a $5 basic strategy player who was looking at playing a 6D shoe, no surr, asked about the bj edge vs the edge making $6 bets on 6 or 8, I'd have to say it was about the same. I consider one roll of the dice to equal one round dealt in cards.
One roll of the dice is meaningless unless the hand is completed. One round of blackjack ends in a completed hand. This wouldn't be a big deal, but your method would lead one to believe the house edge on the 6/8 place bets is equivalent to blackjack when it simply isn't.
Now in terms of hands per hour, a place bettor might lose less than a blackjack player because he will play far fewer hands to completion in the same amount of time. That may be worth something to a comp player.
One roll of the dice is meaningless unless the hand is completed. One round of blackjack ends in a completed hand.
This is not a fact but rather a point of view. Bets on the craps table differ. Some bets are locked in, others are not. With some bets you make the decision to leave it up or take it down after each roll. This essentially makes each roll a new bet. Not the case with line and come bets, these are locked in. Place bets are not locked in. You may "choose" to leave it up until it is won or lost. This is no different from playing a hand of bj and getting a push. You may choose to pick up your money and walk or you may choose to leave the bet until it wins or loses. It is not math but semantics.
This wouldn't be a big deal, but your method would lead one to believe the house edge on the 6/8 place bets is equivalent to blackjack when it simply isn't.
I think it is about the same, but I'll define it a little differently. The house edge on the 6 & 8 place bet in craps is approximately the same "per roll" as the same action "per round dealt" with basic strategy six deck bj.
Which has the higher hourly house expectation? That depends entirely on play speed, dice rolls per hour vs rounds dealt per hour.
DD' out. I have this same discussion at least once per year. It just bothers me that house edge is calculated differently on different casino games.
To compare the edge in both games, you have to compare them in a similar fashion: The result of a bet being resolved. In BJ, your bet has action until it is resolved. This happens one of three ways: Player Win, Player Loss, or Player Push. Any of those three would end that round. In Craps, a place bet is resolved one of 2 ways: Player win or player Lose. A round of place bets on 6 is only ended when the bet is resolved, not on the next roll. The bet will be resolved the next time the dice roll 6 or 7.
The player aboves example would be the one I most agree with. In BJ, you can't touch the money until it is resolved, compare craps in the same fashion. Besides, when you factor in the high edge bets, the overall edge of the craps game is much higher than BJ. However, one can argue that on a full craps table, the time it takes between rolls to resolve bets and tender new ones, that the per hour negative expectation of a pass/dont pass bet can be lower than that of a bet at BJ. Of course, this can change depending on the speed of the action.
Craps is nice when you want to escape the solitary confinement that can be BJ sometimes, and you just want to go to the casino for entertainment. Imagine that, some people actually still go to casinos for fun instead of finances.
The player aboves example would be the one I most agree with. In BJ, you can't touch the money until it is resolved, compare craps in the same fashion.
I agree. Judge them the same way. Some craps bets can't be touched until resolved, just like bj. You can't touch the money. But place bets can be taken down after any roll. A roll that results in neither a win or loss is effectively a push. You are not obligated to continue. If you choose to continue you are effectively deciding to bet on the next roll.
