Want to find out the best way to play craps? Discover our top 13 insider craps tips, provided by Bill Collins, professional dice shooter.
So, if you want to learn from an expert craps player’s mistakes and start your journey on the right foot, then you will love his actionable tips for playing craps.
Let’s dive right in!
Here are the best tips for craps:
If you are tossing chips out on the prop bets in the center of the table like you are buying penny candy, you can try to learn to quit bleeding so much of your money away on making those high odds, and rarely win prop bets.
That includes the hard way bets, too, unless you are using them to hedge your other bets.
Speaking of hedge betting, you will be a much stronger player if you can simply make all your bets stand on their own merit, without being hedged.
Recommendation
If you can’t win by making those bets, then hunt for better bets to make. There are big vigs built in to hedge bets that really add up over time.
Give yourself a decent chance to stay at the craps table long enough to have a good chance at winning. You can’t do that if you are playing craps on pocket change.
Decide how much you want your total bets to be each time you shoot, then multiply that by ten to give yourself some staying power.
Don’t bring a pea-shooter to a gunfight.
Learn to get the job done with only one buy-in, too. It helps keep losses in check. Don’t chase your losses. Keep from becoming addicted to the action of just playing.
Limit total bets to ten percent of your buy-in. Good money management will give you your best shot at winning at craps. Poor money management will usually drag you down.
Learn what bets best fit what your tosses produce and make just those bets.
Consider six and eight, inside, even numbers (four, six, eight, and ten), across, Three Point Molly betting, with pass line and two come bets with full odds.
If you want to bet three numbers, consider five, six, and eight or six, eight, and nine for their high hit frequencies.
You can find out more about improving your odds of winning in our craps strategy guide that covers five of the most popular strategies that pro shooters use at the table.
Pro tip
Never let greed join you at the craps table in your play. Learn when to quit, while you are ahead. Greed will make you pay dearly when you stay too long at the table, wanting to win just a little more.
Make all your bets out of it, placing everything you win, as you win it, in your rear chip rail.
When your front rack is finally empty from you having gone through betting all your chips once, count the chips in your rear chip rail to see if they total more than the chips you had in your front rail, as your buy-in.
This will tell you where you stand and how you are doing.
That will keep you in the game longer during cold streaks and get you a bigger win on hot streaks.
Rolling with the punches sometimes gets you nice rewards.
Don’t let anyone or anything take you out of your concentration zone. During the time you shoot you should be thinking about nothing but the toss you are about to make.
Interruptions happen at the table; don’t let them bother you, because if you do they will take you out of your mental game and end your turn shooting prematurely.
Pro tip
Learn how to bet the way you aim to be betting before ever going to the casino, so that it comes to you automatically, without you having to think about it. Trying to figure it out at the table will only break your concentration.
Know what your correct pay offs are for the bets you make so that you won’t get underpaid by the dealer. They are pushed to their limits and rushed during payoffs on a crowded craps table and do make mistakes on pay offs.
Is it trending cold, cool, choppy, warm, or hot?
Your play should be governed by the trends the table is taking. If the table is playing cold and shooting turns are short, don’t be afraid to switch over to betting don’t pass, and don’t come to take advantage of the trend.
The main danger on come-out rolls when playing don’t pass or don’t come is getting whacked by the seven or eleven.
You can hedge against the eleven with a YO bet on eleven, in about one-fifteenth the size of your don’t pass or don’t come bet.
A lot of people don’t like to bet against the shooter by betting that he won’t make his point.
Remember
This is how the casino makes the majority of its money at the craps tables. You can do the same thing, too, under the right conditions, and win right along with them.
When you have no bets out, stop and check how you are doing on money.
Ask yourself:
Should I increase or decrease bets based on how I am doing? Should I quit?
If you are a good shooter and want to get the dice returned to you soon after each of your turns ends, go early in the morning, somewhere in the middle of the week if you can. The craps table will be far less crowded during these slow times.
That gives you a much better chance of getting your toss warmed up, so you stand a better chance of producing some monster rolls.
It is hard to ever get warmed up on a crowded table, where you get the dice to shoot again only once every forty-five minutes or so.
If you have a busy schedule, you can always play at craps online casinos. Be aware that even though online craps is convenient, you won’t have any influence over the dice, since it is based on a Random Number Generator, and you don’t actually “throw” the dice yourself.
Keep in mind
The casino’s built-in advantage (the vig), is doing its best to be constantly eating into your buy-in. The longer you stay to get your win, the more it will usually end up eroding your bankroll. Hit and run is the best way to play craps. Get your win quickly and scram with it.
A twenty to twenty-five percent of your buy-in is considered a good, decent win. A loss limit of half of your buy-in will usually keep you out of trouble.
If observed and adhered to, it will keep you from feeling like you got kicked in your gut when you do suffer a loss. Keeping losses on the small side helps to protect your dedicated bankroll long term, by reducing your risk of ruin.
If you know any good shooters, whose toss always looks the same in the way they grip and toss the dice, in how their dice fly through the air, land, and roll, and who seem to have long turns shooting, see if you can play with them frequently.
Try to become friends with them. If you aren’t winning on your own in any given session, betting on their turns shooting might save the day and turn your session around.
A lot of good shooters get ahead on their own turns shooting, but end up losing it all back again by the time it is their turn to shoot again.
Qualify each shooter before betting on them, each time they shoot, so that if they seven out quickly, your chips will not have yet even left your rack to be bet on them. The Five Count is often used to qualify a shooter before wagering on him.
Once a point is established, count four more across hits, with that last toss before betting also being an across hit before betting.
This will keep you from betting on the majority of the players at the craps table and from betting on all those losing quick seven outs. But you will have your bets out on every monster roll that comes along.
That’s an indication that greed has gotten ahold of you. It’s much better to make getting the cost of your bets on the table back in your rack your main priority.
After that’s been accomplished, so that you won’t end up showing any loss for this turn betting, start using part of each win or every other win to raise your bet amounts on the bet that just hit.
Pro tip
Learn to bet only on what is most likely to happen, instead of betting on what might happen. That is what separates the pros from the weekend warriors.
If you’ve found yourself in a hole, money-wise, but you dug yourself out again, congratulate yourself and consider quitting with a much smaller win than your normal win craps goal.
Sometimes saving a loss is every bit as good in the long run as getting a win.
On your way home from the casino, replay your game in your mind and analyze it for mistakes that you can avoid making again in the future.
You can learn to play better by applying our craps tips.
Make yourself harder for the casino to beat, and learn to play craps the right way before you bet any money at the table.
And remember: life is like a dice, so watch the ones you’re rolling with!
