Question of the Day - 09 February 2024

Being a "better crap player" is a pretty fluid concept.

If you mean would you understand the game better, absolutely. Does that translate into being a “better” player? Let’s take a look.

First things first. Craps is a wholly negative-expectation game. Though some bets have a very low house advantage, there’s no way (other than dice control or cheating) to overcome with any strategy the edge against the player. Thus, over time, all crap players are losers. As legendary gambler Nick “the Greek” Dandolos used to say, “The best long-term attack at craps I know of is to play the don’t-pass line and lay the odds. Using that system, I’ve lost millions of dollars.” And as Peter Griffin, author of the blackjack bible Theory of Blackjack, used to say, “An expert crap player is akin to an expert cigarette smoker.”

Now, as far as the short term and entertainment are concerned, even if you spend the money on attending dealer school and learn not only the ins and outs of the game, but the technical skills to deal it, you still need the discipline not to throw your money on the really bad bets. You can go to school and become the best crap dealer in Vegas, but if you can't resist the urge to put $100 on the field and make a $10 hard-10 hop bet, knowing how to pay off complicated wagers quickly and accurately won’t do you much good.

A few things often happen to crap dealers -- or any dealers for that matter -- when they play the game. One, they forget everything they know about craps when they belly up to the table and end up playing like any other gambler. Two, they know the game so well that they devise their own "foolproof strategy" to beat the game.

One dice crew we knew of designed the "perfect betting strategy." Everyone pitched in for a buy-in of $5,000, then spread it over many different bets, some bets hedging others. With all the bets they put out, the only roll that would break them was a 10. If any other number rolled, they'd make something like $1,000.

Of course, 10s roll all the time.

Needless to say, things didn't go according to plan.

So you can see that being a dealer doesn't necessarily translate into playing the game well. It might, on occasion, allow you to identify mistakes in the payouts for winning bets; that would definitely be a plus. But If you want to understand craps better, you can peruse a plethora of websites and books out there that’ll give you good solid information about how to lose less.