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The DOs & DON’Ts of Craps
by Frank Scoblete
Craps is as primitive as men standing around a sacred alter casting lots to decide the fate of the Canaanites. If the lots fall one way, the Canaanites will be absorbed into the tribe; if the lots fall another way, the Canaanites are toast. Craps is Lady Luck’s oldest flirtation with the minds and hearts of man and, unquestionably, her most exciting and seductive.
It’s no lie that players have died at craps tables and other players—ignoring them, even stepping over them to get to the now-vacant spot—have continued to play. I saw something similar to this happen with my own eyes at Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas in the summer of 2000. An older man fainted, sliding to the floor like thick mud down a California mountainside. The play continued while the Treasure Island emergency medical team helped the guy on the floor and watched as another callous guy (me!) stepped around him to get to the hot action at the table.
Of course, when the action at a craps table isn’t hot, as often happens, then craps can be the most depressing of games; then players are suddenly not warriors juiced up for battle but Canaanite toast waiting to be buttered and battered. Still, if riding the waves and roller coasters of Dame Fortune is your idea of fun, then craps is the quintessential casino game in America. It’s fast-paced, communal, has a host of betting opportunities and can win you or lose you a bundle faster than you can say: “Hot shooter on the come-out again!”
To enter the world of craps is often intimidating for the first timer as the table looks confusing, the language sounds foreign, and the customs seem unfathomable. But if you are going to play craps you must learn the customs of the table, otherwise you’ll be an unwelcome visitor. By way of analogy: If you were to go to the home of a friend who was strictly kosher, you would not ask for a ham and cheese sandwich with a big milkshake. If you were to go to the home of a Korean friend steeped in his culture, you would not insist on wearing your shoes in his living room. If you were going to become a professional boxer, you would not show up for your first fight and expect to be allowed to fight bar-knuckled while your opponent wore the regulation gloves. In fact, to make this short, when in Rome, you do as the Romans do; you obey their mores and customs for two reasons—out of respect and out of fear. People can become highly insulted if you ignore or belittle their ways and, worse, some people can get downright ugly when someone shows disdain for their “tried and true.”
The DON’Ts
1. Don’t utter that evil word. Once a shooter’s point has been established, never say the word “seven” at a table, it’s considered bad luck and ill mannered.
2. Don’t hang your hands over the table or place a bet once the shooter is about to roll. If the dice should hit your hand or your chips; or if the shooter should noticeably change his rhythm because of your activities, and then the seven shows (which it will about 17 percent of the time!), you will be the most hated person at the table.
3. Don’t talk to a person who is shooting. Don’t slap his back; don’t high-five him; don’t ask him to make your particular number or bet. This is tantamount to distracting a brain surgeon just as he’s reaching the area of the brain where the patient’s trouble is. If that seven shows while you’re screaming in the shooter’s ear, “Make my hard way;” the other players will want to use their hard fists on you.
4. Don’t be afraid to cheer when the shooter actually hits numbers; but, again, not into the shooter’s ears. Cheering is considered praise for the gods of fortune who will continue to bring good fortune if you continue to cheer them. In fact, cheering should make the seven only come up once every six rolls, on average.
5. Don’t change dice in the midst of a roll. If you are having a decent roll and one die should go off the table, always say: “Same dice.” Players will be upset if you switch dice in the middle of a hot hand. With new dice the seven is likely to come up about 17 percent of the time.
6. Don’t slow down the action when a shooter has been having a hot roll. (“Excuse me, dealer, but would you point out my bets? Can I go to $50 on that one? Is that my come bet or is it that fellow’s in the suit and tie over there? And, by the way, my name is Conrad Blabbermeister and what is the weather like outside?”) Slowing the action is like driving 20 miles per hour in the fast lane on a New York highway—expect road rage!
7. Don’t play the don’t side of the board unless, that is, you are a big burly chap with a ninth degree black belt in karate or a female Eastern European shot-putter. Most players wager with the shooter and with the dice. Don’t players, well, don’t. You will be considered a pariah, an outcast, a leper, if you start plunking down don’t-pass and don’t-come and lay-against bets. Unless you enjoy marching to a different drummer, stick with right betting, avoid wrong betting, and join the tribe.
8. Don’t make any bet with more than a 2 percent house edge. That means you should avoid all the one-roll Crazy Crapper proposition bets such as snake eyes (the 2); box cars (the 12); yo-eleven (the 11); the trinity (the 3); big red (the 7); and others. Also, forget about the hardways (2:2, 3:3, 4:4, 5:5); the field; and placing the 4, 5, 9 or 10. Hop away from hop bets and forget about giving the whirl a whirl and any craps is just that.
9. Don’t press your bets before you have at least won three times what you have on the board. So if you are spreading $45 ($5 on the pass line with $10 in odds; two come bets of $5 each with $10 each in odds), then don’t press until you’ve won around $135. Some players press and press and press and, even if the shooter had a very good roll, wind up losing money or winning a trifle when they should have won a bundle.
10. Don’t invest in “betting systems” that tell you the math of craps can be overcome by hedging this bet with that bet; by utilizing progressive betting techniques, whether negative or positive; or by figuring out if a number is “due.” Betting systems, that is, the manipulation of money, cannot overcome the math of craps.
The DOs
1. Do make the best bets at the table. That means pass with odds, come with odds. Placing the 6 and/or 8 in multiples of $6 is also a good bet. All these bets come in at well under a 2 percent house edge.
2. Do buy the 4 and/or 10 if you are allowed to pay the commission only on the winning bets. That means the casino edge on a $25 or $50 buy of these numbers is reduced from its place-betting abominable 6.7 percent, all the way down to a respectable 1.3 percent.
3. Do enjoy the camaraderie of a craps table. Avoid playing at a table where there are two or more don’t players. Generally, tables with don’t players (also known as darksiders) are downers. Usually, darksiders don’t hang around tables where they’ve been losing. So if you see them at a table, it probably means they are doing well, which probably means the other players are not doing so well. Joining such a table is like hooking up with a funeral procession—don’t expect too many laughs. Of course, in a random game, the table can change on a moment’s notice but given a choice of a happy table on the left and a miserable one on the right, go left, young man, go left.
4. Do be selective in the shooters you bet on. If craps is random, no matter how low the house edge is on all the bets you make, in the long run you are doomed to lose. However, what if some shooters have the ability to change the randomness of the game? Wouldn’t it be in your interest to eliminate as many of the random rollers as you could in order to find the ones who might be slightly altering the odds to favor the players? With that hypothesis in mind, I utilize the 5-Count of the Captain’s and the Golden Shooter criteria (see my book Forever Craps: The Five-Step Advantage-Play Method) before I wager any money on a shooter other than myself. I have, after considerable initial skepticism, become a true believer in the ability of some shooters to slightly alter the odds of craps because of controlled rolls (rhythmic rolling). These are the shooters you hope to find by utilizing the 5-Count and Golden Shooter criteria. If I am wrong in my assumption that such rhythmic rollers exist in sufficient numbers to make craps a positive expectation for those who utilize the two criteria above, then no harm done. You’re still playing the best bets in a random game as you always were. But if I am right—and I do think I’m right— then the craps landscape suddenly has a different, more positive shape.
5. Do develop your own rhythmic roll. Again, you have nothing to lose by attempting to alter the nature of a craps game by controlled shooting. The rudiments of the technique are now well known: careful and specific sets coupled with gentle throws that reduce banging and bouncing of the dice when they land. Currently there are two books on the market that I recommend reading to get a handle on this issue: my own Forever Craps noted above and Jerry Patterson’s Casino Gambling: A Winner’s Guide. In the fall of 2002, a new book will hit the stores titled Get the Edge at Craps: How to Control the Dice by Sharpshooter. This will be the most complete analysis of the concept of rhythmic rolling yet written.
6. Do attempt to maximize your comps at craps. Again, I do this by using the 5-Count, which gives me twice the table time for the same amount of risk since it eliminates approximately half the shooters. However, it is also important to know certain things before you play in a casino. For example, will the casino give you credit for the odds portion of your bet? If, for example, you bet $10 on the line and $20 in odds, are you considered a $30 player, a $10 player, or some combination thereof? Some casinos will not give you credit for odds; others will give you full credit for them. Some will give you half credit. You should know these things before you start playing and asking for comps.
7. Do know what value your play is in comping terms. If you are considered a $30 bettor at a casino, what does that translate into—the gourmet room, the cafe, the buffet, or a look that says, “Are you nuts thinking you’ll get a comp for that level of play?”
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