Craps Tips and Advice

The best kind of advice you can get when playing a game of craps is to take the opportunity to find the best bet on the table whenever possible. And "free odds" is that opportunity.

Remember that there are many combinations of dice that can be thrown to come up with all the possible numbers. All of these are accompanied by a certain probability, which can be translated into the odds against the number being rolled. Whatever those odds are, the house pays off on those numbers at odds that are slightly lower than their true value. In other words, a number might be 6-to-5 against being rolled but only pay off at even money.

In the bets at a craps table that have "free odds" attached to them, the house actually pays off at the true odds; that is, at the odds the numbers actually are to be rolled. The one caveat is that no free odds bet can be placed independently; it has to go on top of a bet you already have on the table. What's good about it is that the amount of money you bet with free odds can actually exceed the original bet you made, by as many times as the casino will allow. As you can imagine, this is a great option for you to have at your disposal.

Let's give an example. Let's say your intention is to make a Pass line bet with odds. The first thing you have to do, of course, is to make your Pass line bet, and then wait as the point gets established. At that point you can put more chips down, behind the Pass line bet. Indeed, you should put more money down than you originally had there. Certainly there is going to be a limit, and that will be designated by the casino. But you may be able to, say, place five times the amount of your bet, which would be signified by "5x" and all the way down the line - 10X, 25x, whatever.

The effect of having free odds is that you could conceivably have a very small percentage of your bet paying off at the house odds if successful, and a much larger percentage of it paying off at the true odds; i.e., the actual odds of the number occurring. This adds an awful lot of value to your game, and will have a definite impact on your bottom line.