Craps Strategy & Systems

A lot of players are searching for a craps strategy or system that will win all of the time. The fact of the matter is that there is no way to win at craps every single tim you play. This is because there is nothing you can do to change the fact that the house always has an edge.

While there is no way to guarantee you will win when playing craps there are still a few things that you can do to keep the house edge as low as possible. By only making bets with a low house edge you give yourself the best chance of winning which is all you can really want.

Craps Strategies That Work

Your best move is to go for the bets with a low house edge and avoid those with a high house advantage. Our Craps House Edge section has the actual edge of all of the bets listed but you only really need to know a handful of different bets.

The two lowest edge bets are the Pass Line and the Don't Pass Line which come in at 1.41% and 1.36% respectively. Obviously you only make one or the other and online you have the advantage of being able to place bets on the Don't Pass without causing any tension between you and the other players because you are betting against them.

The next most important bets to know are Taking the Odds and Laying the Odds. These bets in themselves do not have any house edge but do require either a Pass or Don't Pass bet to be able to make them. The amount you can bet on the odds varies from casino to casino but the higher the odds available the lower the house edge gets.

The Odds bets are the key to keeping the house edge low. For example if you combine the Pass Line and Taking the Odds on a table with 2X odds the house edge drops to 0.61%. On the opposite the Don't Pass and Laying the Odds bet comes in at a combined 0.46%.

Why Craps Systems Don't Work

There are two constant facts with a crap game. One you cannot change the pay outs and two you cannot control the dice*. This means hat no matter what you do the casino will always have an edge. There is no betting pattern or style that can change this.

Some craps systems use a progression betting method where you bet on a 1 to 1 outcome and double you bet after each loss. These systems have been for sale for many years and players are still buying into the great myth that these work. Lets take a look at an example.

You have a table with $5 to $100 limits. You bet $5 on pass line and lose. You then bet $10 and lose, $20 and lose, $40 and lose, $80 and lose and then ... you can't bet any more than $100 so the system stops working. Even if you did win on the $80 bet you are only actually winning $5 as you have lost $75 trying to get a win.

Even if you did not run into the table limits issue the problem is that by doubling your bets you can get a big losing streak that wipes you out in quick time. Could a pass line bet lose 10 times in a row? Of course - while the odds of rolling a win are quite high this does not stop a run of losing rolls from happening.

* Craps dice control is a hotly debated topic. There are several schools of thought on the subject and while it may or may not work it is irrelevant when playing online as there are no dice to throw.