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I've debated whether or not to post this because it's sort of like tossing out the baby with the bathwater. It's a significant part of what I teach regarding betting - and why a large percentage of you are still losing consistently despite having a decent toss that gives you an edge. Frankly, this info should come with an invoice attached, despite the fact that a few of you will call "bullshit" on it. For you few - I'll simply take the John Patrick approach. Will you pay attention and start winning? No. Why. Well, you know what John's answer would be.I'm going to talk about a several different things here. One is all of those guys standing around the table with their little charts and pads writing down rolls and making their betting decisions based on what they see there. Another is what you can expect on the typical hand at craps and why you don't make money on it. Last of all, I'm going to address the fact that the vast majority of you are playing with an underfunded bankroll, which simply limits your ability to survive the downswings that are inherent in the game and turn a profit during the upswings. Yeah, I'm talking about you guys who are always shopping for a "hot" hand. We'll start with the topic of Bankroll and I'll touch lightly on Betting. I'll try to bridge into the whole Charting thing, then get into how to bet the numbers you decide to bet. I'm writing this on the fly, so this is not a cut-and-paste article like you usually see from me. It's pretty much what I teach in the classes.
Let's talk Bankroll first. I'm going to make a few assumptions here. First, I'm going to assume you're flying into Vegas on a Thursday afternoon and staying Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights - departing on Sunday. It could just as easily be Sunday thru Wednesday. Doesn't matter. It's a three night trip. If you follow the "Heavy" rules you will not play on travel days - Thursday and Sunday - but you're not going to do that because as John says . . . yeah, you know. So we're going to assume you're going to play one session Thursday night. I'll allow you four sessions each day on Friday and Saturday - two in the morning, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. And you'll get that losing session just before you leave on Sunday. That's a total of TEN session over three nights - four days. I'm also going to assume you're playing on the strip and you're playing a $15 game. Why? Because even if you're playing a $5 game you should be playing at the $15 level minimum. Why? Because at that level you can make a proper press or power press move easily - AND more importantly - you have room for a regression on a $5 or $10 game. Regression moves are among the most important tools in your betting arsenal. So a $15 game it is. Figure an average bet of $66. It could be $66 inside or $66 even numbers or $60 outside. The ONLY time you need to worry about a Pass Line bet is if YOU are the shooter. If you're just DYING to make a Pass Line bet then you're looking at an average bet of around $100 including odds, which means you're going to need a larger bankroll. At the minimum you need 10 times your average bet in session bankroll. Why? With ten players at the table it'll take $660 - $1000 to get you around the table one time assuming you have ten point seven-outs. If you're only running on about three cylinders and you stand at the table and lose ten in a row you probably need to head over to the airport and fly back to Bunghole, Indiana or wherever. But $660 - $1000 is the number. Now let's multiply that times the number of sessions you plan to play over the weekend. TEN sessions. That means you need a TRIP bankroll between $6600 - $10,000. Now, I've seen that skinny stack of 100's most of you carry around and I know few of you use casino credit so unless you're making frequent trips to the ATM and paying THAT vig you are way underfunded on bankroll. But there's GOOD NEWS. We're going to implement a 50% LOSS LIMIT per session. That means if you buy in for $700 and lose $350 your session is over. Period. You lock up your remaining $350, put it in an envelope in your hotel safe with the words "TAKE HOME" written on it and it does not come out of the safe unless you're adding more money to it or you're packing your bags to go home. With a 50% loss limit we'll reduce your Trip Bankroll requirement on a $15 game to $3300 - $5000. I'll even let you get by with $3000 if you'll PROMISE to be rock ribbed solid on money management and discipline. Will you do it? Surprise me.
You're also going to set a WIN GOAL per session. That win goal will be an arbitrary percentage that - if you exceed - you will not give back to the casino. Patrick called this "guarantee and excess. Say you bought in for $700 and had a 30% win goal of $210. You catch a hot hand and when it's over you are up $440. You lock up your original $700 plus a $210 win and continue to play with the remaining $230 "excess." As long as you continue to win you continue to play. But if you LOSE $115 (half) of that excess you color up IMMEDIATELY and leave the game with a $345 profit. Now here's the thing. After that session that $345 profit goes in the safe - in the envelope that says TAKE HOME. And if you're SMART you'll add that $700 session buy in to the envelope as well. It's earned it's keep. (I'll discuss the envelope system more in class).
Continue to play this same approach EVERY session and you're guaranteed to go home with at LEAST half of the money you brought to Vegas - and MAYBE you'll go home with a win for a change. Okay, enough on Bankroll and Money Management and Discipline. I'll touch a bit more on Money Management in Betting Strategies in a moment. But first let's talk about the guys with the charts and tablets and pens.
MOST charters are looking for PATTERNS that are repeating at the table. MOST of these patterns are bullshit resulting from confirmation bias. With that said, you'll see some very weird shit from time to time that makes you go "hmmm." For example, in the seminars I show players a book of rolls a guy posted on the Internet a few years back. He complained about how bad the session was and how he lost on every hand. I looked at the rolls and, playing a sensible regression strategy I'd have made money on every hand but one. But the weird thing I noticed was that almost every SEVEN OUT was preceded by the shooter tossing a FIVE. Now, there's a guy out there who sells a strategy that tells you when you recognize a pattern like that to always turn your bets off when a shooter - ANY shooter - tosses a FIVE (or whatever the "bad" number is). He charges several thousand dollars for this strategy and he has a LOT of clients out there who believe this - including several friends of mine. For DI's this becomes a problem because if you're aware of this system and recognize that a certain number is a "bad" number it gets in your head - and we all know what THAT does to us. We THINK we'll power through it, but all our minds hear is SEVEN. And we throw the seven, feeding the confirmation bias. But seriously - what were the odds that the five would roll? One in nine. It. Just. Happens. Get over it. But there IS information you can gather from DI's when charting THEIR rolls. You can evaluate the frequency at which they roll the box numbers compared to what they SHOULD roll statistically.
Let's start with the SIX and EIGHT. The Six and Eight are simple. The house edge on these bets is only 1.51%. Always bet them. They are the FOUNDATION of Place Betting. Decisions as to whether to CONTINUE betting them are based on whether or not they roll with the expected frequency. You expect the Six or Eight to roll five times each in every thirty-six rolls. That translates to these numbers repeating about once in every seven tosses. So as long as you see a Six, for example, roll once every seven tosses you’re within normally expected results. If you see MORE than one Six in seven tosses then Six is a trending toward hot number. If you see fewer than one Six in every seven tosses then Six is a trending cold number. If it goes much longer without rolling take down your bet on the six because “it is not paying it’s rent.” That simple. We always bet the Six and Eight both when starting off a hand, but we may drop either or both if they aren’t hitting.
The Five and Nine have to earn their right to be bet because they carry a house edge of 4% each. You can expect to see a Five or Nine once in every nine rolls. As long as, the Five, for example, rolls once in every nine tosses everything is within normally expected limits. If you see MORE than one Five in nine tosses then the Five is a trending toward hot number. For example, if you see the series 6 - 5 - 10 - 8 - 5 then you should bet the Five. If you see fewer than one Five in every nine tosses then the Five is a trending cold number. Don’t bet the Five and Nine if they are trending cold. But DO bet them if they are trending hot. The Five and Nine are typically bet and PRESSED individually unless both are rolling an equivalent number of times within the course of a specified number of tosses.
The Four and Ten are handled differently, depending on the player’s bankroll and risk tolerance. It’s always best to Buy the Four and Ten – particularly if the commission is collected by the house after the win. And because the Four and Ten both pay 2 – 1 minus the commission we always bet them as a pair. One hit on either essentially “pays” for both bets. With that said, there are Place to Buy strategies that work well on single number press moves that can get a player in the game with the Four and Ten with $15 each in Place action as opposed to $25 each in Buy bets. For the sake of this example we’ll assume a $25 Buy bet on both the Four and Ten.
Because the house edge is so low when these numbers are bought and the commission only paid on win it is best to Buy the numbers at the beginning of the hand if you have the bankroll and risk tolerance to do so.
If you are charting for an indicator as to when to bet the Four and Ten track for the pair. There are three ways each to make both the Four and the Ten for a total of six combinations of the dice. That means you should see a Four or Ten once in every six rolls of the dice. If you see a Four or Ten more than once in six rolls then the Fours and Tens are trending hot. If you see fewer than one Four or Ten within six rolls then the Four and Ten are trending cold and the bets should be removed.
Now let's talk about STATISTICS and why most of you end up losing money or only making a few bucks on a hand in the low to mid-teens. First I'll talk about Randy down there in the hook, who has an SRR of 6.0. Statistics tell us that the seven will show up once in every six rolls. Because some sevens (on the Come Out) are good and sometimes he gets lucky and makes a Pass, his average HAND is approximately 8.3 rolls. But with an SRR of 6.0 the seven is likely to show up - not at the average (6.0) but at the MEAN (roll 3). The famous gaming author's "Five Count" more or less addresses this. Unfortunately, using that strategy you turn your bets on just in time to hit the wall at the end of the player's hand. I have long said the famous gaming author is innumerate and stand by that statement. The math simply proves it.
Reviewing what we have so far, critical points in a Random rollers hand are statistically rolls 3, 6, and 8. My recommendation is to "tiptoe in" and regress your bets before roll 6. Once you get beyond roll 9 consider pressing as long as it does not eat into a locked up profit. In any case, you should have a profit locked up either by regressing or taking down your bets before roll 8. But here's the real KEY on a Random Roller. After EVERY decision ask yourself this question: What move can I make NOW that will guarantee me a profit on this shooter. When you have the answer to that question - DO IT.
On ANY shooter one of my biggest concerns is avoiding the infamous Point-Seven-Out. In order to do that I simply avoid Placing any action until the shooter sets a point and then gets his next toss in. Once he's beyond the PSO stage I will get my action on the table. This applies to BOTH Random Rollers and DI's. Yeah, you can call this the Famous Heavy One Count. LOL.
Speaking of DI's - let's talk about the shooter with a proven SRR of 7.0. We've been eagerly awaiting this guy getting his hands on the dice because we've ween him toss 30 - 40 number hands in the past. He has a reputation for tossing monster hands, in fact, and frequently gives tips and pointers to others. How do his stats shape up compared to Randy Roller? Actually, not that different. His SRR is 7.0, which means the MEAN is about 3.5. We'll call if roll 4 to be generous. And instead of tossing an average hand of 8.3 rolls his stretches to around 10 rolls. So how are we going to play the DI's hand when it comes to betting? Hold your breath. Virtually EXACTLY the same way we played Randy's hand. Just last week in Vegas I played a session with two of the top DID's around. All three of us went PSO back to back. We regrouped, changed positions at the table and gave it another shot. All three of us went PSO a second time. It was so bad one of the guys dropped out. The remaining two of us took SL1 and SR 1 and we tossed back to back monster hands, knocking out Repeater bets left and right and cleaning house. The pendulum swings both ways. But if you had been playing with us that morning and had tossed out $160 across and gotten knocked off six times by PSO's you'd have questioned whether any of us had any skills. When betting on a DI approach his first 6 - 10 rolls exactly as you would a random roller. Regress your bets early in order to guarantee yourself a profit for the hand. Once the shooter is "qualified" by getting beyond the 8 - 10 roll "wall" go ahead and press up your action as long as it does not eat in to your profits. But even then, always ask yourself after every roll - What can I do NOW to guarantee myself a profit for this hand?
Now let's talk about how to handle the Six and Eight in a Random Game with sufficient bankroll to play three units each. Start with $18 each on the six and eight. I will give you the OPTION to play ONE Come bet at this point. If the Come bet travels to the Six or Eight take Double Odds and come down on the Place Bet. Do not make another Come bet. If it travels to any other number REGRESS the Six and eight to $12 each and take Single Odds on that number. Do not make another Come bet.
If you elect to Place bet only, on the first hit on either the Six or Eight drop $3 and press both to $30 each. Give the shooter three more attempts to toss another six or eight. If he hits one of those numbers it pays $35. Now you have two choices. Taking it all down and locking up a $56 profit (I erred and said $21 in the original post) is your best decision on Randy. On a DI in a $10 game I would REGRESS to $12 each on the Six and Eight leaving you with a $32 profit in the rack and $24 action on the table to win another $14 on the next hit. If that is your decision then TAKE the next hit to lock up another $14 profit. Then you're on your own to Press - Take - or TAKE ME DOWN.
On a DI, after regression my PERSONAL approach is to PRESS the next number that hits to $24. Let's say it's the Eight. That gives me $12 on the Six and $24 on the Eight. I locked up $2 and have $1 sevens exposure. NOW the EIGHT is my Dominant Pressed Number. I will "same bet" the Six if it rolls but I will Press the Eight to $42. Let's say the Eight rolls. I tell the dealer to "Make it look like $42." He'll fumble over the press move and eventually, if he gets it right, press it to $42 and give me $10 change. Now I'm set up for my standard Six or Eight Progression. Next hit pays $50 for $1. Next hit - Pres to $90 and lock up $1. Next hit pays $105. Next hit Press to $180 and lock up $15. Next his pays $210. Next his drop $30 and go to $420. Next hit pays $500 for $10. After that we're just adding ZEROS to the above progression until you get to $4200 and $5000 for $100. Then it's Table Max.
Once I've collected my first $50 for $1 on the Eight I'll start a similar progression on the Six. But typically one number or the other will roll more frequently and that one becomes my dominant pressed number in the end.
Now let's talk about the Five and Nine. Unless I KNOW the DI in question and know that he typically tosses a lot of Fives and Nines I will not bet these numbers unless they start showing at a higher than expected frequency. When I do bet them I start at $15 each. My recommendation to YOU is to TAKE the first hit and get the bet paid for. Personally, I take a more aggressive approach and PRESS the first hit to $35. Then, on the second hit (assuming there is one) I get paid $50 for $1 which is sufficient to "pay for" both of the bets. From there I take a fairly aggressive Press schedule. $15 - Press to $35 and lock up $1 - Pays $50 for $1 - Same Bet - Press to $75 and lock up $10 - Pays $105 - Same Bet - Press to $150 and lock up $30 - Pays $210 - etc. Again, from this point you're just adding ZEROS to the press schedule. The numbers are larger but the radios are the same.
DO I NEED TO REMIND YOU THAT AT ANY TIME IF YOU LOOK DOWN AT THE TABLE AND THINK "HOLY SHIT! I HAVE OVER $1000 OUT THERE!" IT'S PROBABLY TIME TO REGRESS AND TAKE AT LEAST HALF OF YOUR PROFIT OFF THE TABLE? THERE ARE FEW THINGS WORSE THAN WINNING $500 ON A HAND AND WATCHING THE SEVEN KNOCK $2500 OFF THE LAYOUT. TAKE. A. PROFIT.
Okay, the Four and Ten are easy peasy. Sticking with three unit bets - even though five unit BUY bets are a better deal - let's Place the Four and Ten for $15 each. Again, we're going to take a Dominant number Press Approach. Let's say the Ten rolls. It pays $27. Simply tell the dealer to "Buy it for a Quarter." If they collect the commission on a win then you'll get $17 change. BOOM. That bet is paid for with a $2 profit. Now you can simply sit there and collect $50 for $1 every time it hits. Or you can Press every other hit. Or you can take a more aggressive approach. Here's the Heavy Four and Ten Press Schedule. $144 - Buy for $25 - Collect $2 profit. Pays $50 for $1 - Press to $50 - lock up $25 (less the commission - I'll omit this on the rest of the moves). $50 hit pays $100 - press to $100 and lock up $50. $100 hit pays $200 - press to $250 and lock up $50. $250 hit pays $500 - press to $500 and lock up $250. $500 hit pays $1000. Press to $1000 and lock up $500. $1000 hit pays $2000. Put on your Big Boy pants and press to $2500, locking up $500. $2500 hit pays $5000 - lock up $2500 and press to $5000. Yeah, I've made my point. I rarely make it beyond $1000 but it does happen. I've been at table max a couple of times but it's damn rare. And when you're getting paid $2000 a hit it takes everything you have down in those Big Boy pants to step up and say "make it look like $2500. ANY time you get a hit on a bet with three zeros on the end of it I'd give serious consideration to REGRESSING by at least 50%. You can always press it back up again if the hand continues.
So there you go. It may sound like I'm talking at cross-purposes from time to time, but I'm not. The KEY to winning is getting money OFF the table. Pure and simple. Will you do it? I guess time will tell.