Bankrolling

The Crapshooter
© 2000 by Larry Edell

Bankrolling is one of the most important things to keep in mind BEFORE you play craps. There is really nothing like being at a hot table during a long winning streak! But you need to have sufficient capital to stay in the game and, at the same time, produce a small profit until the streak presents itself.

The way to do this is to figure out your bankrolling BEFORE you start playing. Let's say you have a session buy-in of $300, and want to make it last for an hour. If you bet $50 pass line with double odds ($100) you will spend $150 per bet, so your money might last just a few minutes. This probably is not quite enough time to latch onto a good hot streak.

Further, if you bring just $300 to gamble over a three-day weekend and plan to have six sessions, that gives you only $50 per session. Unless you find a $1 table, you're not likely to see any streaks at all.

On the other hand, if you bring $900 with you and want to play three sessions, that gives you $300 per session. If you bet $5 pass line with double odds ($10), your bet total is only $15. There might be one pass line decision every 2-3 minutes, so your $300 buy-in will now last for at least twenty decisions, or about an hour. This longer time at the table will enable you to look for a streak of multiple passes, so you can increase your bets while you're winning and make even more money.

If you wager this way, your buy-in ($300) would be twenty times your bet size, which is considered more than adequate. In fact, many Crapshooters would prefer a 10X ratio, which would allow you to either increase your individual bets, or buy-in for a smaller amount.

But what are you really looking for when you play craps? Are you looking for scattered small wins with no game plan? Or are you looking for a consistent method to increase your profits on a regular basis?

Since the casino has a built-in edge on all craps bets, the only way you can profit consistently is to stay in the game as long as possible, and hope for a streak so you can increase your bets - and your profits!

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