Nine To One or Ten For All?

The Crapshooter
©2000 by Larry Edell

My friends Stephanie and Bob have read a lot of craps books recently and said they found a system for choosing the very best casino. I had heard about this for months and was afraid they stumbled across something relatively unimportant, like whether the layout had a Big 6 and 8 or not.

Now that we were finally in a casino, I looked down at the craps table and wondered aloud if we should play here.

They both looked at the layout, and said together, "No."

Shaking my head, I asked, "Why? I've ALWAYS played here!"

They looked at each other and nodded. "We'll tell you our secret," Steph said.

I sighed. "Okay, I can't wait."

Bob took over. "Look down at the table. See where the proposition bets are? They all pay off 'For one.' For example, the hard way six pays 'Ten For One.'

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, one of the books I read said that the casino is unfair in its payoffs, because the FOR notation means you get paid off INCLUDING your bet. If the bet said TO instead of FOR you would get more money."

"This is your great system?"

"That's it," Bob said triumphantly.

"So you go to all the casinos and play only in the ones that say TO instead of FOR on the proposition bets?"

"You got it."

"Let's go across the street to another casino."

We did and found another casino's craps tables. We looked down and, sure enough, the felt said TO instead of FOR in the payoffs for the proposition bets.

I smiled. "Want to play here?"

"Yes!" they said together.

"Um, did you happen to notice the payoffs for the hard six in the evil, cheating casino across the street?"

"Yes!" They always seem to talk at once.

Bob thought for a second and remembered. "The hard six paid ten FOR one!"

I pointed down at the layout. "And in this nice, friendly, fair casino that says TO instead of FOR, what are the payoffs?"

They looked. Now Steph replied. "The hard six pays nine to one."

"Oh?" I asked helpfully.

"Hmmmm," they said together.

I pointed out the door. "So over there, across the street at the 'Ten For One' casino, if we put $1 on the hard six and win, we would win $10. This is nine dollars plus the returned $1 of our bet. Want to guess what we would win here at the 'Nine To One' casino?"

"Hmmmm....same thing?" asked Steph.

"Yep. Ten For One odds is the same as Nine To One. Look, the casinos are not out to gyp you. They make enough just on the house edge on most of the bets. They're all honest. Maybe you should find a different way of choosing the best casino to bet at."

"Oh," said Steph. "How about whether they have the big six and eight?"

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