Buying Numbers at Craps

27 August 2023

By John Grochowski

QUESTION: I'm fairly new to craps. My brother-in-law taught me all about pass, come and the odds, and that's all I play. I do OK, win some, lose some. Some of the wins have been pretty wonderful with the 3x, 4x, 5x odds I play. A hot roll will make up for a lot of little losses when the shooters are going point-7 around the table.

Sometimes, I'll hear another player want to '"buy" the 4 or 10. On a slow day with only a few players, I asked what that meant, and a patient dealer told me you pay a commission, but then winning bets pay true odds. I asked if you could do it for any number, and he said yes, but the only ones you want to buy are 4 or 10.

Why is that? You win on 6 or 8 a lot more often than 4 or 10. Why wouldn't you want to buy them?

ANSWER: The commission to buy a number is 5 percent. That's helpful if you're buying 4 or 10, where the house edge on a place bet is 6.67 percent. Buying the number reduces the edge to 4.76 percent.
But house edges on 6 or 8 and on 5 or 9 already are lower than the commission. Buying those numbers doesn't reduce the house edge. It increases it.

Place bets on 6 or 8 buck a house edge of 1.52 percent. On 5 or 9, the edge is 4 percent.

Buying those numbers increases the edge to 4.76 percent -- the house edge on all buy bets is 4.76 percent, regardless of number.

That assumes the house collects the commission on all buy bets. A minority of casinos collect the commission only if you win the bet. That reduces the edge on 4 or 10 still further to 1.67 percent. It also makes buying 5 or 9 a viable play with a 2 percent edge.

But even if the house takes a commission only on winners, the 2.27 percent edge on 6 or 8 is higher than the edge on place bets. Never buy 6 or 8.


QUESTION:: Two years ago, I played 50-cent and 25-cent video poker over a three day period and won more than $3,500. I hit four or five hand-pay jackpots (of $1,200 or more).

Last year, I played the same machine and won more than $6,000 with seven or eight jackpots.

This year, playing the exact machine and strategy in the same three-day period I hit nothing. and lost almost $5,000.

Where was the "I am due" factor?

What happened? Did the casino see that this machine was paying too much and adjusted the machine?

ANSWER: There is no such thing as a "due" factor in video poker -- or in slot machines, for that matter.

The cards that are dealt are determined by mapping numbers from a random number generator onto decks of cards. Every hand is a fresh deal, with all results possible. The RNG has no memory. It doesn't know your results from previous hands. It just keeps generating random numbers.

The odds of drawing winners and losers are the same on every hand, no matter what happened before.

Your big losing stretch is a part of normal probability. So were the winners. When the losing sessions happen, you have to be prepared to cut your sessions short if they stretch your bankroll. But the casino doesn't have to do anything to make losing streaks happen. Those streaks grow out of random results and the odds of the game, just as the winning streaks do.