Once you get the hang of the craps table, this fast-paced dice game is one of the most rewarding in the casino. We’re going to show you how to win craps more often and some pro-level craps tips to help you avoid costly mistakes and pocket more chips.
Before you understand how to win at craps, you need to know how to play it properly. If you’re a total beginner, we recommend reading our guide on how to play craps first.
How to Win Craps – Tips and Tricks
The truth is, you don’t need complex charts and number systems to win craps. These tips for playing craps are all based on common sense, and they’ll certainly help you win more often.
Understand Every Craps Bet
At first, craps appears to be a highly complex dice game. It’s really not. Once you get used to it, the game of craps is remarkably easy.
However, you need to understand every possible bet on the craps table, their odds, and their potential payouts. There are some bets you should never make, some bets you should always make, and the rest of them fall somewhere in between. Knowing when to make these bets is just as important as knowing whether or not you should.
Check out our complete guide to craps bets for more information on the specific bets you can make and what you could win if you do so. You need to commit these to memory as soon as possible to avoid costly mistakes. That’s half the battle in any casino game.
Make the Pass and Come Bets
We get into a lot more detail about craps bets in our detailed guide. However, we can briefly touch on two of the best bets you can make here.
The pass bet is the first bet you’ll make. Place your chips on the pass line to make it. You can make the come bet by placing your chips on “come” on the table. Both of these bets have a house edge of just 1.41%. That’s a very small statistical advantage of the casino. Since both of these bets pay 1:1, you have a good chance of making some money here.
You should also spice it up from time to time and bet against the table by making the don’t pass and don’t come bets. Both of these have a house edge of 1.40%, which is even smaller, and they both pay 1:1 as well.
If you win several even money bets like this in a row, you should consider taking some of what you have won and making some of the riskier bets to increase your chip stack fast. For example, some of the hard way bets pay 35:1. That’s worth a wager if you’re on a winning streak.
Use Progressive Betting Systems on Winning Streaks
Craps is a game of chance, but every experienced player will tell you that winning and losing streaks are a real thing in this game. You don’t even have to be the shooter to take advantage of these streaks. In craps, most of the time, you’ll be betting while other players are rolling the dice.
When there are lots of mixed wins and losses, bet conservatively. However, when the tables turn and a winning streak is developing, you should aim to take maximum advantage of it. After three wins in a row, you should be paying attention, but you shouldn’t push your luck too hard; take your money off the table after seven or eight wins in a row.
The best way to play craps during winning streaks is to double your bets after every win. If you start with a £5 wager and win, make the next one £10, the one after that £20, and so on. You don’t have to ride the streak for seven or eight bets. You can take your money off the table or reduce your wager when you’re ready. That’s a decision you’ll have to make for yourself. You should be totally comfortable with any craps strategy you implement. Only start betting like this when you sense a winning streak.
Don’t Fall For the Gambler’s Fallacy
We’ve seen several other websites offering tips for playing craps that we really do not recommend. One of them is to look for the player with the most chips and copy him or her.
This advice is based on the gambler’s fallacy. It looks at past results and tries to predict the future based on that. If you believe in luck, OK, there’s nothing wrong with copying the winning player. However, you’ll have much greater success if you base your craps betting strategy on statistics.
What has already happened in a casino game has no impact on what will happen in the future. That’s why looking at historical results, copying winning players, and other such methods don’t work. It’s pointless. There’s nothing to say that the player with the biggest pile of chips hasn’t just experienced a large winning streak, or that it won’t be all downhill from here.
Focus on learning craps properly, understanding the odds and probabilities of every bet, and forget about what has already happened. Once again, the past has no impact on the future in casino games. Any craps betting strategy tips that tell you otherwise should be ignored.
Practice Craps Bankroll Management
If you’ve read any of our other casino strategy articles, you’ll know that we preach bankroll management in almost every one of them. Why so? Because it’s one of the only strategies that consistently works across all games of chance.
Bankroll management is about surviving for long enough for the improbable to happen. For example, if you have a £100 bankroll, don’t blow it all on 10x £10 bets. Instead, split your £100 into 100x £1 bets. This gives you more rolls of the dice, and more chances to hit a winning streak. Of course, you should be making these £1 wagers on craps bets that you have a good chance of winning. We’ve mentioned several of them already above.
When you do sense a winning streak, that’s the time to bet more aggressively. Whereas we’d normally say to never bet more than 1% of your bankroll on any roll of the dice, if you’ve won three times in a row, we’d say it’s OK to risk what you have won on the previous three rolls all on the next bet. That way, if your winning streak has come to an end, you’ll only lose what you have won, but if your winning streak is destined to continue, you can start growing your wins exponentially.
Smart bankroll management is casino gaming 101. You’d be amazed at how many players don’t use it or even think about it. Yet, across all casino games, it’s the one thing you can always control.
How to Win at Craps – Conclusion
Forget about craps cheats, complicated systems, and trying to manipulate the game. None of this will work. What you need is good bankroll management, an awareness of the best craps bets to make (and which ones to avoid), and knowledge on how to take advantage of winning streaks and avoid common pitfalls.
If you read this article in full, you now have those things. Implement these tips for craps, and you’ll be better off than most players. Now all you need is an honest online casino to play at, and you’re set!
Greg has been an avid gambler for over 15 years. He loves slot machines and betting on football. He’s been writing on the subject for close to a decade now and knows everything there is to know about video slots, jackpots, and slot sites in general! He has been writing for GamblersPro.com for over five years now.
