Craps Treat Playing Craps as a Business

First and foremost, treat playing craps as a business if you expect to make money. In any business or profession, most people would normally do research before investing their money. Do you think a person who purchases a Subway franchise or any other franchise is going to invest money without first learning how to operate the store and as much as possible about the business. So if you are planning to play craps as a profession or to make serious money, why wouldn't you learn as much as possible.

Professional craps players do exist. I have been fortunate enough to meet and play with some of them. Most of them do not advertise or tell other people how they make their living. They simply go about their business, quietly. They are not on message boards touting how great they are at winning. They are very secretive and reluctant to discuss their method of play.

Gambling establishments will gladly teach you how to play any casino game. In fact, many hold classes in the casino to teach people how to make bets at the craps table. What they don't teach you is the mathematics of the game, reasons to make or not make a bet, when to take your bets down (oh, you can take your bets down - - I didn't know that) or even turn your bets off. The casinos only teach you how to make bets! Do you actually believe casino personnel will actually teach you how to win their money? Of course not. Yet many newbies take the lessons expecting to win. Consider this: if a craps dealer actually knew how to win at the craps table do you think they would be working for the casino and putting up with the likes of us?

I deal craps for several casino entertainment companies in the Phoenix metropolitan area. I have dealt with several professional craps dealers who actually dealt for casinos in Vegas, Laughlin and Foxwood. They are incredible at paying the bets and collecting the losing bets. They all teach guest how to bet the same way. They have tunnel vision. Finally I asked one of them why they thought what I did was so wrong. They had no explanation. When they took the time to ask about a certain betting method and the reason I did it they admitted it made sense.

In my opinion, the most important thing to remember about winning at craps is to set a specific, realistic and attainable goal based on your buy-in. My personal goal is to win 20% of my buy-in. I know other players that want to make 30 or 40% of their buy-in. When you reach your goal - - STOP!!!!!! We all fall into the fallacy that if I made 20% in ten minutes of play I can make another 20% in the next few minutes. In the end, we give some or all of it back. If you plan to win as much as possible, this is not realistic or specific.
John Patrick in his book, John Patrick's Advanced Craps, writes: "Seventy percent of craps players get ahead at one point or another in their casino visits. Of that seventy percent, ninety percent give back their winnings . . . . and then some."

For example, if I buy-in for $500 my goal is to win $100 for that session. My usual daily goal is to win 3 sessions. That is $300 for the day. If you play for a three day weekend that is $900 for trip. Not a bad pay day. Of course, there will be times when you lose - - it happens. Most of the professional craps players I have met set a daily goal to win $300 to $500. Now some of you might not think that is a lot, but playing five days a week is averaging about $1,500 to $2,500 per week (between $75K and $100K per year). Does that sound more impressive?

My final piece of advice is to read books by at least these three authors: John Patrick, Sam Grafstein and John Scarne. If you take the time and make the effort to do that you will learn a great deal and increase your probability of winning on a consistent basis. Good luck at the craps table (it never hurts to have a little luck when playing).
David Medansky

 

David Medansky, I really like what you wrote. My only comment is that before you start betting at a table is to watch it/chart it for a while to see if the dice are acting as expected, or is the table cold with an abnormal amount of craps rolls. I have stated many times that: Not all dice are created equal.

Some casinos just use inferior dice that do not roll right.

Beware!

 

Hi Mark V, excellent question. First, I look for a table that has at least six players actually making bets and not standing around watching. Sometimes a table will look full or crowded when it is not. Next, I look to see if the shooter is in a middle of their roll, e.g., is a number marked with the puck or is it on the off position, are there come bets with odds, does it look like people have chips in their rack, etc. Once I determine this, then I wait until the next shooter. Rarely will I make bets in the middle of someone's roll, unless it appears they are a hot shooter (that is for another topic of discussion). Based on that initial criteria determines what I do next.

If I am with a DI I will wait to see how there first two or three rolls look before I decide to bet.

I rarely wait more than one or two shooters to start making bets at the table. Based on my experience, and as related to me by some of my students, I have noticed that if you wait to long to watch or chart a table, e.g., for four or five shooters, you might miss opportunities to bet and have the table turn cold or choppy. As many of you know I usually will bet on the first two rolls of a shooter and take my bets down or turn them off. By doing this I am often making money when others are losing money. And on the other hand, others make a lot more than I do because my bets are off and their bets are working. To me it doesn't matter how much you make as long as you are making money. Everyone has their own comfort level and their own preferred method of play.

In my opinion, it shouldn't take too long to determine if a casino is using inferior dice. I have been to casinos where one table is using red dice and the other table is using blue dice. Based on my observations, the shooters using blue dice had much better rolls than those using red dice. In fact, I avoided the table with red dice on that particular trip. That doesn't mean that all blue dice are good and all red dice are bad - - it was just what I saw when I was there at that specific date and time.

My favorite casino to play is the Wynn. Yet, I'm not too fond of the Encore. Same owner just different experiences in play.
David Medansky

 

Like what you had to say

 

Hmm a cat makin the scene to b ump respond to a seven years old thread, hey hey????

 

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Math Professor Posted 03/20/06

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Someone quoted John Patrick as saying I don't win much but I don't lose much either.
Now he was critical of this statement but there is a reason for it.

We who have lived with gambling all our lives understand the relationship between what we win and what we lose.

The Equation is simple enough.
The magnitude of profit is usually a function of the magnitude of wagering.

One of the most common failures in gambling is progressive betting.
Several small wins are satisfying but when the next small win does not happen and it turns into a progression that often recovers the day but sometimes results in ruination.

Giving up on a progression is hard because losing can mean the erosion of several days work.

The gambling flaw is inherent in this.
Christopher Pawlicki highlighted this fact.
The equation for winning small returns often calls for a progression.
The progression ultimately however snatches away the previous wins.

For example 20 + 20 +20 +20 +20 has been achieved with 50 + 100 + 80 + 120 + 100 The final destructive act is a 100 that does not recover .
Even without a progression 100 absorbs the 5 sets of 20 + wins.

I call this the 20/100 flaw.

20 is therefore 20% of 100.
A good result by any standards.

In order to control the erosion of previous wins the ratio of win to wager
needs to be as close to parity as possible.

Say 80 + 80 +80 +80 + 80 with 100 + 100 + 100 + 100 + 100

If the 100 goes then we still have nearly 4 days work intact.
We can walk away and get them again another day.
Not many gamblers can achieve 80%.

This is the flaw.

There must be plenty of gamblers here who understand this but any replies should be better than 3 and out .
The math does not work.

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JOHN PATRICK Posted 03/20/06

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excellent point but go back to your opening paragraph and it is not clear ............You said "he was critical of this statement ................"

I THINK you meant he was CRITICIZED for this statement ...............

and you're right..................there were a couple of people who laughed at it as meaning I was content with small wins..........adn that ALL I wanted to do was lose a little each day.........

I am glad you picked up on what I really meant by saying that (naturally) I would like to win more, but I am more interested in holding losses down.........

and THAT point that you made about people who do NOT gamble every day , not realizing this is the total and complete point I try to embellish in their minds every day............

Someone else (I think it was Rick K., a few days ago), also touched on that fact .................how really hard it is to win..........and that you HAVE to somehow, someway, condition yourself to win small to ensure you don't lose big ..........to be able to stay alive in this journey called gambling..........

You showed the SERIES you use ..........

What is the LOSS LIMIT and WIN GOAL you advise...........(percentage-wise)

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Math Professor Posted 03/20/06

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" What is the LOSS LIMIT and WIN GOAL you advise...........(percentage-wise)"

Well, that is my question to everyone!
What I am doing here is highlighting the problem we have with the percentage we go for.

The greater the difference between the amount we wager and the amount we accept, as a win,the more of a problem we have.
Lets say (as you have stated) that 5% is a professional aspiration. So we wager 100 for 5 .

That might seem reasonable but look at the result say over 5 days.
+ 5 +5 +5 +5 +5 = 25 . that's great we are winning 5 each day and we haven't lost. Now on day six we wager 100 and bust out !

We are now - 75 !

We were going up and down with our 100.
But then we hit a bad spell and it eroded to 0.

The problem here is that we often have to go down to nearly zero
to make the continuous flow of 5's.

if our 5 day win was +60 +30 +20 + 120 +40 and this can be achieved with 100 and the 100 busts after 5 days we have .
won +170. (270 - 100) .

I often work on 100 or 70 from 200. That is I am prepared to lose 200 for these great returns and if I can manufacture 70 od chips every day with a wager of 200 chips then I am going to survive if the cumulative value exceeds 100 after bust out.

What I would like to know from yourself is what your wager is in relation
to what you accept for that session and how do you overcome this flaw.

This is where Pawlicki is making the case that the crash will come and steal away your cumulative gains. Its the problem that haunts all gamblers.
Gamblers ruin.

 

just reading post did not look at the date it was wrote. I did not see any new ones