Good and Bad Bets

A live casino just isn't a live casino without craps. The sight of excited bettors cheering the shooter on as he fires the dice across the table is a standard casino image. The Internet allows anyone to enjoy craps excitement in his or her own home, and just as in a live craps game, it's important to know basic online craps strategy to be as successful as possible. One of the benefits of online play is that virtually all online casinos offer you a casino bonus when you first make your deposit. This is rarely, if ever, seen at a live casino.

Basic Online Craps Ideas

The key to craps is understanding that there are a great many bad bets in craps and only a few good ones. It's easy to know which is which. The bets that are the most prominently displayed and enticing looking on the layout are usually the worst for the player. The ones that are small, on the corners or edges, or not listed on the layout at all are usually the best.

Avoid Bad Bets

To be more specific, if you are looking to minimize the house edge, avoid bets like Hard Ways (rolling a number with doubles before sevening-out or rolling the number any other way), and one-roll bets like 12 on the next roll. These bets offer enticing odds, but the odds against them happening are much higher.

Make Good Bets

The best bet in craps is the odds bet, which is not even on the layout. Once you have made a Pass Line bet and a point has been established, you can put an additional amount behind your Pass Line wager. The amount you can bet in odds varies from online craps table to online craps table, but the more you can put behind the line, the better, so look for a table that offers many times odds.

The reason these bets are so good is that they pay off at true odds. If the point is six or eight, you get paid 6-to-5, if it is five or nine you get paid at 3-to-2, and for a four or ten you get 2-to-1. Since these are true odds, there is no house edge on these bets. If you play with a pending bonus, and earn a fraction of that bonus on every craps wager, the odds bet offers you positive expectation - not that common in other casino games.

You may also want to consider betting "Don't Pass," betting against yourself. If you survive the come-out roll and a point is established, the odds on this bet are actually in your favor, rather than against you. On the come-out roll, the house retains an edge because you will not get paid off if you roll a 12, although you would lose if you rolled a 12 when betting "Pass."