Expert Craps Opinions

17 November 2022

By Royal Flushes

CINDY: We both admit that we find craps a great game, maybe the most exciting in the casino – certainly when a shooter is on a hot roll.

ABBY: Of course, most shooters do not have hot rolls. That can be a problem for many, if not most, craps players.

CINDY: How do you define a hot roll?

ABBY: Most players would probably think of about twenty rolls without the seven showing up as a hot roll.

CINDY: But you know that one of the writers for this site and someone who has sold countless books on craps – great books by the way – will advocate for some players to just bet one bet at the game. That would mean one hit and the player is ahead. Two hits the player has more than doubled his bet. Would you call that a hot roll?

ABBY: In a relative universe, yes, for that player two hits would be a hot roll. You win enough to be ahead. That's a hot roll to me. Yet, if a player were betting more than one bet, he or she would need a few hits to be ahead. If you were to only place the six or eight, then the payout is $7 to $6. You’d have five ways to win and six ways to lose. You’d have 11 possible decisions and 25 non decisions where your money wasn’t acted upon.

CINDY: Most of the game would be spent in anticipation, which to me a a fun thing about casino play. The emotional element builds up as you anticipate possible wins on your one bet or dread the seven, which all right bettors worry about.

ABBY: Oh, I agree with that.

CINDY: But, still, we know that most craps players make many bets. Some make bets on every roll. They start off with a pass line bet and then place numbers and make proposition bets. In these cases, the player needs many hits to be ahead before he or she would consider that a hot roll.

ABBY: Some experts do recommend making constant bets but of the better bet variety if you will.

CINDY: Correct. You do the pass line and then you just keep making come bets until the shooter sevens out. You add odds to these bets as well. This particular expert does not recommend making any of the high-edge bets at craps. He wants you to just make those low house-edge bets. But a lot of them can get up there if you are constantly making come bets with odds but you aren't getting a lot of hits.

ABBY: It would take a lot of winning decisions for the shooter to have a hot roll in this case. I think of it as every early bet requires one hit and as you get up on more numbers then you can go under one hit per bet but of course, you are risking a lot of money in this case.

CINDY: A seven-out can be crippling if a player’s bets don’t really duplicate themselves. I doubt the craps players who just keep shoveling bets out there can really beat the game during many sessions.

ABBY: Next week let’s talk about our approaches to craps. I think we have differing opinions. Yes?

CUNDY: Oh, yes, indeed!