Taking Down Place Bet of 6 or 8

13 September 2020

By John Grochowski

QUESTION: Is there a right time to take down your place bets on 6 and 8 in craps?

I always leave my up until I win or lose. But I know these guys who are always taking their bets up and down. One takes his down whenever the shooter makes a point, even if it doesn’t affect his place bets. The other leaves his up, but has them not working on the comeout. Then if the shooter rolls 7 on the comeout, he takes the place bets down.

Those are the main patterns, but sometimes they take them down in a way that seems willy-nilly to me. No apparent reason. They just take them down.

ANSWER: The right time to take place bets down is when you feel like it.

There’s nothing in the odds of the game that dictates a time to take down place bets on 6 and 8. The 1.52 percent house edge is in effect on every roll in which the bets are in action.

If a player feels better about his bankroll discipline in starting fresh on every point, there’s no harm in his taking bets down. If he just doesn’t want as much money on the table, that’s OK, too. There’s no imperative to bet.

When I make place bets, I almost always leave them in action until there’s a decision. There’s an exception that’s more a personal quirk than it is a guide to other players.

That quirk comes when I’m short bankrolled and betting on pass with minimal odds and following with place bets on 6 and 8, if they’re not the point. If the shooter makes a point while I have one or two place bets in action, then establishes one of my place numbers as the new point, I’ll take that place bet down.

Example: The point is 9 and I have $5 on pass backed with $5 in odds. I follow with $6 place bets on 6 and 8. The shooter makes his point 9, the on the comeout rolls 6 as the new point.

On my short-bankrolled days, I take the place bet on 6 down. I have a better bet on 6 in the pass line plus odds, so I just go with that and the 8.

But as I say, that’s a personal quirk. There’s nothing in the odds of the game that would make the place bet on 6 any more or less likely to win just because the point is also 6.

If you take down place bets on 6 or 8, don’t use the money to make weaker bets instead. Don’t exchange a 1.52 percent bet on 6 with a 4 percent-edge bet on 5, for example. But taken by itself, the decision to leave up or take down place bets is driven by personal preference, not by any change in the house edge.


QUESTION: You know what I miss in casinos? Those plastic coin cups and buckets. I used to go casino hopping, carrying my buckets of quarters, picking up new cups wherever I went. Sometimes the buckets I picked up weren’t even from the casino where I was playing.

Cups from other casinos used to make their way into the stacks. I was in a casino in downtown Las Vegas once and the cup on the top of the stack was from Montreal. They were great souvenirs.

ANSWER: Coin buckets remain at a few casinos with older machines that still take coins, but mostly, they’re relics of a different age – fun to remember, but not needed in modern casinos.