All Tall and All Small at Craps

10 August 2013

By Donald Catlin

I recently received a letter from one of my readers, Michael Marmiani, from Laughlin asking about the Craps side bet that is mentioned in the title of this article. You can read about this side bet by referring to my January 1, 2011 article that is stored in the archives on this site. Here is part of Michael’s letter:


"I noticed in your article you mentioned that the side bet can only be made after a 7 rolls. Statistically speaking is there a reason for this, is it just a rule that Galaxy gaming devised for the bet, or do the same probabilities exist if the player makes the bet at any point besides after the 7 rolls? The bet doesn’t receive much action, so often the box man has nothing to track."


Well Michael, to start with, there is no reason that such a wager can’t be made on any roll. Craps rolls are independent events so whether a seven has occurred or not has no effect on future outcomes. There is, however, another consideration.

In your letter you seem to infer that the box man seldom has to monitor this wager (probably true) so that (my words) he would have little trouble keeping track of such a wager were it made after a non seven. The problem here is that though unlikely the box man could find himself in the position of monitoring several such wagers at once. This is not only a daunting scenario to imagine but I don’t really see how one could devise a simple scheme to keep track of several such wagers at the same time. So, I am quite sure that Galaxy Gaming included the requirement that the wager be made only after a seven occurs to insure against the box man having to keep track of several of these wagers at once. Makes sense to me. See you next month.


Donald Catlin can be reached at 711cat@comcast.net