How To Win More Money When The Shooter's Hot!

The Crapshooter
© 2000 by Larry Edell

Many Crapshooters approach each bet as a singular objective and fail to see the whole game as one money-making goal. If you have been betting each wager unrelated to your previous bets, then perhaps you should take a look at betting progressions.

If you utilize progressions in your play, you can recoup small losses and hopefully get ahead if you have sufficient bankroll and plan your bets in advance. Even in progressions, however, the key thing to remember is to increase your bets only when winning. If you are in a catch-up mode, you need to use decreased bets until you are even, and then increase your bets. Remember, you have just one goal in playing craps--to make money!

You probably know that there are a lot of different progressive systems out there. You also probably know that most of them are difficult to remember and challenging to implement.

So, let’s look at something easy to use. The simplest way to play is just to use a one unit progression--up one unit when you are winning and down one unit when you are losing.

Let’s say you are a very conservative $5-unit player and only play the pass line with double odds. You buy in with $500 and have a $225 win and loss limit. Your first bet is for five units ($25) and you take double odds. You win, so your next flat bet is for $30, also with double odds. Now you lose, so you go down to $25 (plus odds). If you win again, you go back up to a $30 flat bet (with odds).

Remember, up one unit on both the flat bet and odds when you are winning, and down one unit on both the flat bet and odds when you are losing.

There are four main advantages to this method over just betting the same amount each time.

1. You are betting more when winning and less when losing, so you can make more money!
2. You will be able to take advantage of a hot streak when it comes along, so you can make more money!
3. Your bankroll will last longer, allowing you to recoup your losses, so you can make more money!
4. It is twice as easy (on the average) to make your win goal than your loss limit, so you can make more money!

Let’s look at this last point for a minute. Say you have $25 plus 2X odds on two successive 5 or 9 points. You would win $100 ($25 flat + $75 odds payoff) for the first, and $120 ($30 flat + $90 odds payoff) for the second. This is a total of $220, which is close enough to your win goal of $225, so you stop playing.

Now, let’s say you bet on three successive 5 or 9 points, and you lose all three wagers. You’d lose $75 ($25 flat + $50 odds) for the first, $60 ($20 flat + $40 odds) for the second, and $45 ($15 flat + $30 odds) for the third--a total of only $180 for three plays--well within your loss limit. You can still bet at least two extra times in an effort to catch up ($10 flat + $20 odds and $5 flat + $10 odds), so you don’t lose five consecutive points. But how many times will five shooters in a row not make any of their points?

In this case (5 or 9 points) you can have up to five losses before you hit your loss limit, but you need only two wins to hit your win goal. You will win slightly more for 4 or 10 points, and slightly less for 6 or 8 points. But no matter what the point, you will be more profitable with this system than just making the same bet every time.

Give this method a try the next time you play--so you can make more money when the shooter's hot!

And, as always, good luck at the tables!

For more information about craps, we recommend: