Craps offers some of the best odds in the casino. It also offers some of the worst. The best bet on the table doesn’t even appear on the layout, while the worst ones are some of the easiest to make. Every wager one the table is presented in such a way as to make it seem like the player could win big at any time. But unless you can influence the dice, the odds are always stacked against you in craps.

The Pass Line bet is the most common wager on the table. When you bet a Pass Line, the natural house edge is around 1.42%. If the Pass Line bet wins, it is paid even-money – a ten dollar bet wins ten dollars. The Free Odds bet is paid at true odds. For example, a winning $10 Free Odds bet on the point of four will be paid 2 to 1, or $20. The Free Odds bet has no house edge, but you cannot place it unless you have already made a bet that does have a house edge – either the Pass and Come, or the Don’t Pass and Don’t Come. When you back one of these bets with free odds, the overall effect is to reduce the house edge. The greater the proportion of your bet that is on free odds, the lower the edge will get. However, the casino always has an advantage over the player with this bet – albeit a small one.

A placard posted on the table will clearly state what proportion of your bet may be placed as a free odds bet. If the placard states that it is a $10 – 10X odds game, it means the minimum wager is $10, and you can take up to ten times your wager in Free Odds. Allowable odds may range from single to unlimited, up to the table’s maximum bet.

If you are playing a single odds game, you can place a free odds bet equal to your Pass Line wager. When playing the Don’ts, you can lay odds sufficient to win an amount equivalent to your Don’t Pass bet. The single odds game is commonly found on cruise ships and isolated vacation destinations like the Caribbean islands. They can get away with offering an inferior game because you are a captive player. It’s the only game available.

Hedging wagers is a fun way to get more action and create additional chances to win in each round. But don’t look at this as a way to boost your long-term odds of winning. Mistake #4: Relying on Craps Betting Systems. Most craps betting systems amount to complicated ways of hedging bets. A perfect example of this is the Iron Cross. The horn bet is found in the middle of the craps table where the proposition, or just “prop,” bets are. A horn bet is a bet split between the numbers 2, 3, 11 or 12. A $4 horn bet is a bet of $1 on each number. If one of your numbers hits, the 2 and 12 pay 30-to-one and the 3 and 11 pay 15-to-1.

Most land based casinos offer double odds or higher. In Las Vegas, the 3, 4, 5X odds game is the most common. This game allows you to take 3X odds on the four and ten, 4X odds on the five and nine, and 5X odds on the six and eight. For example, in a $5 game with 3, 4, 5X odds game, the maximum free odds you could take on the four or ten would be $15 – three times your $5 flat bet. You could wager $20 on the five and nine, and $25 on the six and eight. Casinos do this as much for their own convenience as for the players. In a $5 game with 3, 4, 5X odds, the correct payoff on every wager with full odds is $35.

Some casinos offer 5X, 10X, 20X, or even 100X odds. Some of the most sought after games are low limit tables with 100X odds. With those odds, the house’s edge over the players is miniscule. But as mentioned earlier, regardless of how large of a free odds bet they allow, the casino always has the edge. Remember, casinos rake in vast profits on margins as little as .07 %. That is not seven percent. It is seven-one-hundredths of a percent.

The pay offs on the Free Odds bets are calculated based on the relationship between the number of ways a particular bet can win versus the number of ways it can lose. The best way to understand this is to look at this chart, which demonstrates how many combinations of the various numbers there are on a pair of fair dice.

As you can see from the chart at the top of this page, the seven is the most common number on the dice. Six of thirty-six possible combinations of the dice add up to seven. There are more ways to make a seven with two dice than any other number. That means that on any given roll, there is a better chance a seven will come up before any other number.

Take a look at the odds of rolling a four. There are three ways to roll a four, compared to six ways to roll a seven. Reduce those 6 – 3 odds to their lowest common denominator and you come up with true odds of 2 – 1. A winning $10 Pass Line or Come bet established on the four with 3X or $30 in free odds would be paid a total of $70. The player would receive $10 for his winning Pass Line bet, which is paid at even money, and $60 for his winning $30 free odds bet, which is paid at 2 – 1.

Free Odds on the five and nine are always paid at 3-2. This can lead to some confusion for the novice player. For example, if you played a $5 Pass Line bet and then took single odds for $5, the casino could not give you a proper payout. The free odds bet has to be an even number – divisible by two – in order for them to pay true odds of 3-2. In this example, in addition to paying the $5 flat bet on the line, the casino would pay 3-2 on $4 of the free odds wager, plus even money on the extra $1 for a total of $7 on the free odds bet. Since the casinos do not generally pay fractions of dollars, they short you on your payout. The correct single odds wager on a $5 Pass Line bet on the five or nine is $6. In addition to the $5 Pass Line payout, the correct $6 free odds wager is paid $9.

The simplest way to remember the correct free odds wager is to memorize the old axiom: “Odd numbers get even odds.” The five and nine are the only “odd” box numbers on the layout, and in order to receive a correct payout you must bet an even amount of money on those numbers.

Last of all, remember that the Come Bet performs exactly like the Pass Line Bet and the same odds apply to both bets. Likewise, the Don’t Come bet performs exactly like the Don’t Pass bet and the same odds apply to both bets. On Pass Line, Come Bets, Don’t Pass or Don’t Come, the house’s ultimate edge comes from the even money payoff on the winning flat bet – not the Free Odds bet. For that reason, most players prefer to risk the minimum amount possible on the Pass or Don’t Pass, and risk more of their bankroll on the free odds wagers.

There are many more bets available to the player on the traditional banker’s craps layout. In every case, the house gets its edge by paying the player less than true odds. To get a better understanding of this, let’s look at place betting first. Many players prefer to place bet numbers for many reasons. It gives them immediate action in the game. They get to choose what numbers they play as opposed to letting the Come Bet decide which numbers they wager on. Their number only has to roll once for them to get paid. In exchange for these privileges, these players are willing to give up an additional edge to the house.

The most popular numbers to Place Bet are the six and eight. One look at the odds chart and it is easy to see why. There are five ways each to roll the six and eight compared to six ways to roll the seven. As we mentioned earlier, the true odds on the six or eight are 6 – 5. But if you want to Place Bet those numbers the house requires a wager in six-dollar increments. In a $5 game the correct Place Bet wager on the six or eight is a minimum of $6. In a $10 game it is a minimum of $12. And instead of being paid at true 6 – 5 odds, the Place Bet is paid 7 – 6. This “reduced” pay off is where the house gets its edge – in this case, 1.51% on the 6 and 8.

The five and nine are Place Bet in increments of five dollars, and are paid at 7 – 5. That gives the house an edge of 4% over the player. The story on the four and ten is even worse. These numbers are paid at 9 – 5, which yields a house edge of a whopping 6.67%.

Prominently located in the center of the layout are the Proposition or Prop Bets. These are the bets the stickman hawks like a carnival barker with his endless chatter, “Get your hops, props, hardways, high-lows, yos, horn bets, worlds.” These are all high-vigorish bets that generally should be avoided. Let’s take a look at them.

The Any Seven bet, sometimes called the Big Red bet, is usually located at the top of

Craps Betting Odds Horn