Understanding House Edges In Online Craps

• Published: June 2, 2016
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The criteria for accepting or rejecting any bet in online casino gaming is the house edge. It is simply defined as the percent of a wager that goes to the online casino in the long run. Therefore the higher the house edge the less favourable is the wager is. Unfortunately online casinos do not reveal the house edges for the different bets so you must know how to compute them. This assumes greater importance in online craps where there are a large number of bets with vastly different house edges.

You need to know the payout and probability of the outcome of a bet in order to compute the house edge. The payouts are obviously given. Calculating probabilities is quite simple in online craps. In craps the outcomes are the totals of the numbers shown on the two dice. There are eleven outcomes, which are the totals from 2 to 12. These eleven outcomes can be achieved in 36 different ways. A total of 2 can be achieved in only one way with 1 on each die. The probability of achieving a 2 is 1/36. A total of 9 can be achieved in four ways (3+6, 4+5, 5+4 and 6+3). Therefore the probability of achieving a 9 is 4/36 or 1/9.

We now proceed to compute the house edge for the Any Craps bet which wins if the total is 2, 3 or 12. The payout for this bet at most online casinos is 7 to 1. If you bet $1 on Any Craps and win then you will win $7. If any other total is rolled then you lose the $1 bet. A total of 2 can be obtained in one way, a total of 3 in two ways and a total of 12 in one way. So there are four ways in which you can win in Any Craps bet. This results in a probability of 4/36 or 1/9. For the sake of simplicity let us assume that you place nine $1 wagers on the Any Craps bet or $9 in all. You will win once (in the long run) and get $7 from the online casino. But you will lose eight times and give $8 to the online casino. Therefore in the long run you will lose $1 on an investment of $9. The house edge for the Any Craps bet is 1/9. It is usually expressed as a percentage, which is 11.11%.

This is an atrocious house edge when compared to other online casino games. European Roulette bets have a house edge of 2.7% and online slots of 5%.