As I have said hundreds of times, not only can betting systems not beat games like craps, they can’t even dent the house edge. I have a question about a series of bets in craps. The strategy is called the 'Iron Cross.' It involves a bet on the 5, 6, 8, and the field. I read up on this, and found that this particular bet will pay on every roll. There have been studies done on baccarat and some say it can be beaten, but the systems are highly complex. Apparently craps can be manipulated if you are the thrower, but not holding my breath on that one. Most games follow an average probability with odds balanced in the casinos favour. Roulette pays at 35:1 which means.

Although I have tested a lot of systems, I don't need to test all of them to know they are all worthless. No system can ever pass the test of time. It is not unusual to win for a while with a system, but if you keep playing the odds will eventually catch up to you and you will fall behind.
For more information about the futility of betting systems, please see The Truth about Betting Systems.

That is known as 3-4-5X odds, and is now pretty common. The following table shows all the possible outcomes, for the pass and odds combined, with full odds.

Return Table with 3-4-5X Odds

Unlike most gambling writers, I don't put much emphasis on betting strategies. Assuming the same game and bet, there is no one right or wrong strategy. They all behave differently in the short run, but in the long run you will give the house the same percentage of total money bet.

This is similar to a question I got last week. Yes, it is true that there are ten ways to roll a 6 or 8, and six ways to roll a 7. However, one must not look at the probabilities alone, but weight them against the payoffs. The place bet on the 6 and 8 pays 7 to 6 odds when fair odds would pay 6 to 5. By making six unit place bets on the 6 and 8, and taking the other down if one wins, the probability of winning 7 units is 62.5% and the probability of losing 12 units is 37.5%. If the player must cover both the 6 and 8, then the place bet is the way to go. This rate of return isn't bad but could be better. For the player who puts a priority on minimizing the overall house edge, the best strategy is to make combinations of pass, don't pass, come, and don't come bets, and always take the maximum allowable odds.

The better system is to bet on the don't pass only and take full odds. Yes, betting on both does increase you chances of winning on any one bet. However you are suffering a higher combined house edge by betting on both the pass and don't pass and it will cost you in the long run.

Yes, it was luck. It helped that you stuck to the low house edge bets. However, next time, make the line bets with odds only, and don't bet the field, especially if it pays 2 to 1 only on both the 2 and 12.

No combination of bets can give the player an advantage. In your example you would lose one unit for every 12 on the come out roll. You don't make up for it laying the odds. While you usually win laying the odds, you have to risk more. In the end, laying the odds has zero house edge.

As long as you are backing up your pass and come bets with full odds, it doesn't make any difference how many come bets you make. However, it does reduce the overall house edge to keep the odds on your come bets working on the come out roll.

You should never remove a don't pass bet after a point is made! Once a point is made of 6 or 8 the don't pass has equity of 9.09% of the bet amount, which you would be throwing away by taking the bet down. The equity of a don't pass bet on a point of 5 or 9 is 20%, and on a 4 or 10 is 33.33%.

Thanks for the compliment on my site. The best thing I can say about this system is that it composed of low house edge bets. Yes, a 12 will lose the pass bet and push the don’t pass on the come out roll, this is where the house edge is. By making the pass bet you are increasing the overall house edge. If you’re afraid losing you shouldn’t be playing at all. Never hedge your bets. So my advice is to stick to just the don’t pass and laying odds. Yes, you’ll lose some on the come out roll. However if you don’t lose on the come out roll the don’t pass bet will usually win.

1. Wait until the shooter establishes a point.
2. Play both come/don’t come (same amount). Until you have a maximum of four numbers
3. After the shooter has rolled five times without rolling a 7, take odds on all your numbers on the front side.

The rationale: Limit your exposure until you find a 'qualified' (five rolls without a 7) shooter. Only betting the odds so there is no 'house edge'! Can you compare this system with just playing pass/come and taking the odds?

As I stated in the other craps strategy question you are only mixing another house edge bet into the game by betting on both the pass and don’t pass, or come and don’t come. It is also not going to help to wait until a shooter hits five points. The probability of making a point is the same for me and you as it is for somebody who just threw 100 points in a row. In other words, the past does not matter. As I stated to the person who asked the other question (whom I think may also be you) don’t make opposite bets, just stick to either the do or don’t side and always back up your bets with the odds.

Unless bankroll preservation is very important to you then Kelly betting won’t help. I would just flat bet. Nice strategy to milk the comp system.

How To Beat Craps

• 5- place $5
• 6- place $6
• 8- place $6
• field- $5
• total= $22

Good question. To confirm their math I made the following table, based on a field bet paying 3 to 1 on a 12. The lower right cell does shows an expected loss of 25 cents over $22 bet. So the house edge is indeed .25/22 = 1.136%.

Mensa Anything but Seven Combo

The reason the overall house edge appears to be less than the house edge of each individual bet is because the house edge on place bets is generally measured as expected player loss per bet resolved.
However, in this case the player is only keeping the place bets up for one roll. This significantly reduces the house edge on the place bets from 4.00% to 1.11% on the 5 and 9, and from 1.52% to 0.46% on the 6 and 8.
For you purists who think I am inconsistent in measuring the house edge on place bets as per bet resolved (or ignoring ties) then I invite you to visit my craps appendix 2 where all craps bets are measured per roll (including ties).

Craig from Los Angeles

No. I had to Google this to find out what this is. This appears to me to be an amusing urban legend about some young scientists who developed a winning craps system. The story is told at Quatloos. I would file this under other fictional stories that have become mistaken for fact, like Joshua’s missing day. As I have said hundreds of times, not only can betting systems not beat games like craps, they can’t even dent the house edge.

If the player bets $5 on the field and 5, and $6 on the 6 and 8, then he will have a net win of $2 on the 5, 6, and 8, $10 on the 2, $15 on the 12, and $5 on the other field numbers, assuming that the 12 pays 3 to 1 on the field. The player will lose $22 on a 7. On a per roll basis, the player can expect to lose 25 cents compared to $22 in bets, for a house edge of 1.136%.

This begs the question, why is this lower than the individual house edge of each bet made? It’s not. The reason it seems that way is the result of comparing apples to oranges. The house edge of place bets is usually expressed as the expected loss per bet resolved. Looking at the individual bets on a per-roll basis, the house edge on the 5 is 1.11%, and on the 6 and 8 is 0.46%, according to my craps appendix 2. Comparing apples to apples, the house edge is a weighted average of the house edge on the field, 5, 6, and 8, on a per-roll basis, or (5/22)×2.778% + (5/22)×1.111% + (6/22)×0.463% + (6/22)×0.463% = 1.136%.

For the benefit of other readers, the 5-Count is a method of slow-playing craps, as discussed in ’Golden Touch Dice Control Revolution’ by Frank Scoblete and Dominator. As the book states, it is a way of betting nothing on some rolls, reducing your expected loss on random shooters, while still getting the full comp value of table time.

The way the 5-Count works is you start counting rolls as soon as a new shooter throws any point number. When you get to five rolls after you start counting, the shooter is deemed worthy, and you start betting. However, you if the 5th roll is not a point number, it doesn’t count.

The book says you will only be betting 43% of the time, which I agree with. It is common for craps players to not bet, bet small, or bet the don’t pass on new shooters, as a way to qualify him. Once a shooter has made a point, or thrown lots of point numbers, the other players will gain confidence in him, and start betting with him. So, this kind of strategy seems natural. When casinos rate your average bet, they don’t lower the average for betting nothing some of the time. However, sometimes they will dock your time, especially if you are betting big.

An alternative strategy is to wait until the shooter makes a point. Under this strategy you will only be betting 40.6% of the time, less than the 43.5% with the 5-Count.

Yes! I’ve said many times that betting systems not only can’t beat a house edge game, they can’t even dent it. That includes denting it in the house’s favor. In other words, even if he tried to lose, he still only gives up 0.18% over the long-run, under your assumptions. Over a shorter time, he probably could do this, but not over 'years.' Some might argue that to deliberately lose, the player should do an anti-Martingale, where the player kept pressing his bets until he lost. However, a problem there is that a winning player will eventually reach the table maximum, which is rather low in craps. It just goes to show how futile betting systems are.

I recently wrote a couple of blog posts about how to become a professional gambler. In those 2 posts, I listed several gambling activities where you could get a theoretical long-term mathematical edge. That’s what you’d need to be able to play those games for a living.

Those activities include blackjack, horse betting, poker, progressive slots, sports betting, and video poker. (And progressive slots are debatable—a serious professional gambler would probably avoid most of those games because of the high chance of never hitting the progressive at all.)

Most casino games, though, are completely impossible to beat in the long run. This post explains why in general in the section about probability and the house edge. I look at specific games and why they have an edge in separate sections devoted to each game.

To understand how the casino makes money, you need at least a rudimentary understanding of probability. Luckily, probability is pretty easy to understand. It’s just a mathematical way of expressing how likely an event is to occur.

The probability of something is just a number between 0 and 1. Something that’s impossible has a probability of 0. Something that’s a sure thing has a probability of 1. Anything else has a probability of between 0 and 1.

This number can be expressed as a fraction, as odds, a decimal, or as a percentage. To calculate the probability of something, divide the number of successful outcomes by the number of total possible outcomes. It’s that simple.

Let’s take another example—you’re rolling a 6-sided die and want to know the probability of rolling a 1. There are 6 possible outcomes, and only 1 of them constitutes a success. That’s a probability of 1/6, or 16.67%, or 0.167, or 5 to 1.

The house edge comes in when you compare the payoff for a winning bet to the probability of winning. Many casino game bets, like a bet on red or black in roulette, are even-money propositions. This means the payoff odds are 1 to 1. You risk a unit, and if you win, you win a single unit.

If the probability of winning were 50%, you’d have a theoretically break even game in the long run. You wouldn’t win, and neither would the casino.

But the probability of winning that bet on an American roulette wheel is only 47.37%, which means you’ll win a single unit 47.37% of the time, and the casino will win a single unit 52.63% of the time. The difference between the 2 is the house edge: 52.63% – 47.37% = 5.26%

Other games have different payoffs, but those payoffs are always lower than the odds of winning. For example, in craps, if you bet that the next roll of the dice will result in a 7, you have a 5 to 1 probability of winning. But that bet only pays off at 4 to 1 odds.

Of course, in the short run, you’ll rarely see results that mirror your long-term expectation. But in the long run, your results will get closer to the expectation. This is called the Law of Large Numbers.

Now let’s look at betting systems, then I’ll follow that up with a discussion of some specific casino games.

Why Betting Systems Can’t Overcome the House Edge in the Long Run

Lots of people think you can beat a game with a house edge by using betting systems. In this context, a betting system is just a way of raising and lowering your bets based on what happened on the previous bet or bets. Depending on the system, you might raise the size of your bets when you’re winning. Or you might raise the size of your bets when you’re losing. It depends on the system.

Either way, it doesn’t matter. Every bet you place on a casino game is a separate event, independent of the previous bet. If the individual bet has you at a mathematical disadvantage, the sum of all those bets will also have a mathematical disadvantage. Think of it as adding up a series of negative numbers. No matter how you do it, if those numbers are all negative, the sum of those numbers will also be negative.

Here’s an example: You’re using a betting system where you raise the size of your bets when you’re losing. Your goal is to recover your losses from the previous bets. (The Martingale System is a good example of this kind of system.)

The problem is that no matter what kind of casino game you’re playing, you’re eventually going to hit a big losing streak. That’s the nature of random chance. The longer you play, the likelier it is that you’ll hit that losing streak, too. When you do, it will wipe out any small winnings you gained from your betting system.

But no matter what anyone says, no one is winning at any of these negative expectation games using a betting system. There are no professional baccarat players, no professional craps players, and no professional roulette players.

You might find some people who claim to be able to affect the odds of a craps roll with controlled throwing, but I’m skeptical of that. And sure, you might be able to find a biased roulette wheel, but that’s unlikely and impractical. Neither of those techniques uses a betting system, either.

You should still understand how such negative expectation games work, though. For one thing, you might want to play them recreationally. If so, you should learn to minimize your losses. Also, sometimes casinos put together promotions where they give the player the best of it. You can’t recognize such opportunities unless you understand the math behind the games to begin with.

You can find some good bets at the craps table, as long as you define “good” as meaning bets with a house edge lower than average. If you define “good” as meaning you have an edge over the house, you won’t find any bets at the craps table that qualify.

You can also find a whole lot of bad bets at the craps table. These are bets where the house edge is so much higher than average that it’s scary. No matter which category of bet you choose at the craps table, you’ll eventually lose all your money if you keep playing.

A mathematical edge of 13.89% is way higher than you’ll see at most casino games, or, in fact, most bets at the craps table. If you’re the kind of person who makes a bet when the house edge is that high, you’re probably never going to be a professional gambler.

What about an actual hardway bet? A hardway bet is one in which you get an even total by rolling doubles. For example, you can bet on “10 the hard way” or on a “hard 10.” This is a bet that a roll will come up with a 5 on each die, for a total of 10.

6 And 8 Craps System

This is a multi-roll bet. It stays in action until you either win, or until the shooter rolls a 7, or until the shooter rolls a 10 the easy way–in either of the latter 2 cases, you lose. The payoff for this bet is 7 to 1. The odds of winning this bet are 8 to 1, though.

It’s easy to calculate the edge here, too. You’ll lose an average of $100 over the course of 9 bets, for an average loss of 11.11% per bet. That’s still a huge house edge. But even the best bets at the craps table have a house edge of over 1%. The pass line bet is the most basic bet at the craps table, and it has a house edge of 1.41%. The come bet also has that same edge.

Some people contend that you can get an edge at craps by influencing how the dice land through controlled shooting. I’m skeptical of this in the extreme. But I’ve seen better-known and better-respected gambling writers than myself who believe that it’s possible.

The idea is that the house edge in craps is low enough that you don’t need to be super-accurate with your controlled shooting to flip that edge. You only need to be able to change the odds enough to overcome the house edge and get the odds into your favor.

You can find any number of videos and books explaining how to set the dice. I can’t guarantee that you’ll succeed, but if you’re going to try it, prepare to spend a LOT of time practicing.

The house has an edge over the player in roulette because of the green 0 and the green 00 on the wheel. You might find a tournament or a promotion that will help tilt the odds in your favor, though.

Here’s why the zeroes make such a big difference:

It’s not because you always lose when the ball lands on a 0 or 00. It’s because those 0s increase the number of possible outcomes from 36 to 38. All the payouts at the roulette table would be break-even payouts if there were 36 numbers on the wheel.

For example, a single number bet has a payoff of 35 to 1. If you had a 35 to 1 probability of hitting a single number, that would be a break-even (or “fair”) bet. But the actual probability of hitting that single number is 37 to 1. If you bet on 2 numbers (a 2-number bet), the payoff is 17 to 1, but the probability of hitting one of those 2 numbers is 18 to 1.

Of course, a roulette wheel with a 0 and a 00 is only one kind of roulette wheel—an American roulette wheel. You can also find roulette wheels that have only a single zero. These are called European roulette wheels. This reduces the house edge from 5.26% to 2.70%. That’s a big difference, but it’s still a bet that the house will win on in the long run.

One way to think about such a game is that it has only half a zero instead of one or 2 zeroes. You still can’t win such a game in the long run, though. Your money should just last longer.

But let’s say you find a casino that offers you $100 in free chips just for showing up, but you can only bet those free chips on even-money bets. Let’s say that once you’ve wagered those chips, they’re taken away by the casino.

If you gambled those chips on an even-money bet in roulette, you’d have a positive expectation, because the $100 in free chips didn’t cost you anything. You should, on a standard roulette wheel, win an even-money bet 47.37% of the time, so the expected value of that promotion is positive: $47.37.

Or suppose you find a casino that’s holding a promotion where they’re paying 39 to 1 for single number bets on the roulette wheel between the hours of 7pm and 9pm. Since the probability of winning is 37 to 1, you now have a positive expectation situation.

Theoretically, there’s one other way to beat roulette—find a wheel that isn’t working entirely right. This is called a “biased wheel.” The idea is that a mechanical imperfection in the roulette wheel causes it to land on some numbers more often than others.

If a wheel is so biased that some numbers come up 1/34 of the time, for example, and you knew which numbers they were, you’d have an edge over the casino as long as you stuck with those numbers. You’d have an edge, because now you’d win $3500 once while losing $3300, for a net win of $200 over 35 spins. That’s an average win of $5.71 per spin, meaning YOU’D have an edge of 5.71%.

To succeed at this, you’d need to record how often each number comes up over a huge number of spins. You’d need a huge sample size, though, because with a small sample size, some numbers are naturally going to come up more often than others.

On top of that difficulty, not all wheels have a bias. You could spend hours clocking a wheel’s results only to find that it’s perfectly accurate or so close to accurate that you can’t get an edge.

This makes finding a biased roulette wheel as an advantage play impractical, to say the least. I’m not even going to get into the idea of using a laser pointer and a computer to predict where the ball is going to fall. This would be illegal anyway, but I mention it for the sake of completeness. Anyway, that’s why you can’t beat roulette.

Baccarat is fun, but it’s also absurd. You go through a lot of rigmarole for what is basically a coin toss with no skill involved. It’s a card game where you compare your score with the banker’s. You can bet on the banker or the player, but either way, the house has an edge of at least 1%. Card counting is of no help in baccarat, either.

Other casino card games, like Casino Holdem, Let It Ride, and Three Card Poker sometimes involve a skill element and sometimes don’t. Either way, it doesn’t matter—you can’t get an edge at those games under normal conditions. If there’s a progressive jackpot attached to the game, it could theoretically get high enough to change your expectation, but it would have to be high indeed.

Keno is still popular, but not only is it impossible to beat, the house edge is crazy high. On average, the house edge in keno is 30% or so. It’s basically a casino-run lottery game. I’m not a fan of lotteries because the payback percentage is always too low.

Can Craps Be Rigged

Pai gow poker is worth playing, but it can’t really be beaten. You’ll have so many hands that push that it turns out to be a much slower game than most other casino games. With proper strategy, the house edge is lower than average, too, so you’ll lose less money gambling recreationally at pai gow poker than you would at most other casino card games.

Most slot machines are unbeatable. The only slot machines where you can sometimes get an edge are the ones with progressive jackpots and the ones that “bank” money as you play. The trouble is that you’re never sure about the odds involved. It’s impossible to know when the game switches from negative to positive expectation. And with slots that don’t have progressive jackpots or banking functionality, forget about it. They just have a high house edge, and that’s it.

Most casino games are impossible to beat regardless of your skill level. That doesn’t mean you should avoid playing them. If you enjoy shooting craps or betting on the roulette wheel, feel free to indulge. Just don’t convince yourself that you can ever beat these games in the long run.

Sometimes you’ll see an otherwise successful poker player or sports bettor waste a lot of money playing games where they can never get an edge. If you’re going to play these games that can’t be beaten, do so for fun, and don’t risk amounts of money that have any consequence.