Odds are Everything in Craps

When you play craps either online or at a local casino you always want to take odds behind your pass line or don’t pass line bet. Taking odds reduces the house edge and give you a better chance to win money playing craps.

The odds bet is where you are adding money to your original wager after the come out roll. When you make an odds bet you are getting true odds so there is no house edge. Let’s say that the point is 5. The chances of rolling a 5 against rolling a 7 are 3-2. If you roll the 5 first then your odds bet is paid at the true odds of 3-2. The reverse is true if you took odds behind the don’t pass bet with the odds of 6-4.

Some places will only let you take 2x odds in craps but other places will let you go up to 10x odds. What that means is that you can bet 10 times the original wager amount. Let’s see what that means to your bottom line.

If you just play the pass line bet with no odds the house edge against you is 1.41%. If you take odds behind that bet the house edge goes down to 0.85%. If you get 2x odds the house edge goes down to 0.61%. If you can find a place that allows 10x odds behind your bet then the house edge dwindles to only 0.18%. Let’s say you find the one place that lets you bet 100x odds. You would reduce the house edge to 0.02% which means the game is pretty much even.

Always take the maximum amount of odds available in online craps when betting the pass line and don’t pass line wagers.