Why no craps strategy beats the house edge
Every bet has a fixed price, and that price is set by the 36 ways two dice can land. A 7 rolls six ways, a 6 rolls five, and the casino pays a little less than those odds on almost everything. Whatever order you bet in, each wager keeps its own house edge, and the edges add up.
That is why no craps strategy turns a losing game into a winning one. A system can change when you win, how big the swings feel and how long your session lasts. It cannot change the average. Ten thousand hands at the Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas or online in New Jersey end in the same place.
The useful question is therefore narrower and far more practical. Which bets cost the least, and how much money do you push through them per hour? Those two numbers decide your result over any meaningful stretch. The rest is sequence. Good players accept this early, then spend their effort on the part of the game they actually control.
The dice have no memory
A table that has not seen a 7 for twenty rolls is no more likely to produce one on the next roll. Each throw is independent, with a 16.67% chance of a seven every single time. Systems that wait for a number to be “due” are betting on a pattern the dice cannot hold, however convincing the streak looks.
The best bets in craps, ranked by what they cost
Sort the layout by house edge and a short list of good bets appears, followed by a long tail of expensive ones. The odds bet behind a line bet costs nothing at all. Don’t Pass costs 1.36%, the pass line 1.41% and a place bet on the 6 or 8 costs 1.52%.
After that the prices climb quickly. A Field bet costs 5.56% of every wager, place bets on the 4 and 10 cost 6.67%, and the Big 6 costs 9.09% on a number a place bet covers far more cheaply. The center of the table, covered on our page about proposition bets, runs from about 11% to nearly 17%.
| Bet | Pays | House edge | Per roll |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pass Line | 1 to 1 | 1.41% | 0.42% |
| Don't Pass | 1 to 1 | 1.36% | 0.40% |
| Place 6 | 7 to 6 | 1.52% | 0.46% |
| Buy 4 | 2 to 1 less 5% | 1.67% | 0.42% |
| Place 5 | 7 to 5 | 4.00% | 1.11% |
| Field | 1 to 1; 2 pays 2 to 1; 12 pays 2 to 1 | 5.56% | 5.56% |
| Place 4 | 9 to 5 | 6.67% | 1.67% |
| Big 6 | 1 to 1 | 9.09% | 2.78% |
| Hard 8 | 9 to 1 | 9.09% | 2.78% |
| Any Seven | 4 to 1 | 16.67% | 16.67% |
Why the per-roll figure matters too
A line bet waits for a decision that takes about 3.4 rolls, so its cost per roll is only 0.42%. The Field and Any Seven are settled on every roll, which means their full edge is charged again each time the dice fly. Measured per roll, a Field bet costs roughly thirteen times what a pass line bet does.
The best craps strategy the math allows
Put those prices together and the best craps strategy fits on a chip. Make a pass line or Don’t Pass bet at the table minimum. When a point is set, take the largest odds you can afford. Add a place bet on the 6 or 8 for more action and leave the rest of the layout alone.
The odds are the engine. At 3-4-5x odds, pass line plus full odds carries a combined edge of 0.37% on every dollar wagered. Don’t Pass with full laid odds drops to 0.27%. At 10x odds the pass side falls to 0.18%, and at a rare 100x table it is 0.02%, as close to a fair game as a casino gets.
Pass line or Don’t Pass?
The dark side is slightly cheaper, but only by five cents per $100 decided. Most players prefer to win with the table, and that is a perfectly reasonable choice at such a small price. Our page on the Don’t Pass strategy covers the laying side, including why laid odds need more money on the felt for the same win.
Craps betting systems put to the test
Most named systems are a fixed pattern of bets or a rule for changing stakes. Neither touches the edge, but they differ hugely in how much they cost per hour and how wild the swings get. The race below runs four approaches over the same rolls, so you can watch cheap and expensive play pull apart.
Iron Cross
The Iron Cross combines a Field bet with place bets on the 5, 6 and 8, so every total except 7 pays something. It wins on 30 of the 36 possible rolls, which feels wonderful. The seven wipes out the whole spread in one throw, though, and the Field bet inside it charges 5.56% on every roll.
3-Point Molly
The 3-Point Molly is a pass line bet plus two come bets, each backed with odds, so you always have three numbers working. It is simply the cheapest bets on the layout used three times over. The edge stays low, but three times the action means roughly three times the hourly cost and much bigger swings.
Martingale
The Martingale doubles your stake after every loss so that one win recovers everything. It works until a losing streak meets the table maximum or your bankroll, and at that point it produces one very large loss. Eight losses in a row are uncommon in any single session, yet they happen to every regular player eventually.
5-Count and other waiting methods
The 5-Count, popularised by gaming writer Frank Scoblete, asks you to watch a new shooter for several rolls before betting. It does not predict a hot hand. What it really does is keep your money off the table for part of each hand, which lowers your hourly cost for exactly the same reason that betting less often always does.
Bankroll: the craps betting strategy nobody can skip
A sound craps betting strategy begins before the first chip moves. Decide the total you are prepared to lose in a session and treat it as the price of the evening. A common rule of thumb is to bring at least twenty to thirty times your flat bet once odds are included, because line bets with odds swing hard.
Here is a $200 craps strategy that follows that rule. At a $10 table you make a $10 pass line bet and take $20 in odds on every point. A cold run of sevens can still take the lot, but each loss costs $30 at most, so you normally see many shooters before the money runs low.
Stop points, both ways
Set a loss limit and a win goal before you sit down, and walk away when you hit either one. Neither limit changes the math. Both stop you from feeding a hot session back to the table or chasing a cold one with bigger bets. Our bankroll management guide walks through session sizing for different table minimums.
The same rule applies online, where a computer-dealt game can run far faster than a live pit. Licensed casinos in New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia offer deposit limits and time reminders in the account settings. Use them. A tool that stops play at a set point is the most reliable bankroll discipline there is.
How to win at craps, in the only sense that holds
So how do you win at craps if nothing beats the edge? You win in the short run, which is the only run a player ever sits through. The house edge describes thousands of decisions. A single evening is a few hundred rolls, and plenty of those evenings end with more chips than they started with.
How to win at craps comes down to three habits. Keep your money on bets with a low edge, so a hot shooter pays you close to fair value. Bet less per hour than the table tempts you to. Leave when you are ahead. None of that is exciting, and all of it makes a winning session more likely.
The best way to play craps as a beginner
The best way to play craps on your first visit is the easy craps strategy: pass line at the minimum, odds behind it, nothing else. It needs no chart and no memory. Once that feels natural, add a Come bet or a place bet on the 6 and 8, and run both through our strategy lab first.
Online and bubble craps: the same strategy, faster
Nothing in the math changes on a screen. Licensed online tables and live-dealer games such as Evolution Live Craps pay the same prices on the same bets, so the best craps strategy online is identical to the one in a Las Vegas pit. What changes is speed, and speed multiplies your hourly cost on every bet you make.
A bubble craps machine or an RNG table can deal more rolls per hour than a live game. On how to win at craps online, the honest answer is to slow down: fewer rolls, line bets with odds, and a pause between hands. Check the odds limit in the game rules before your first bet, since it varies by game.