Craps Apps and Online Craps For Practicing Betting Strategies

[Mcchacho]

New to the forum and happy to have found this great site. Love to play craps and striving and willing to work hard to become very good in all aspects of the game. Quick question to those of you that might already have the experience and knowledge I'm looking for. Do you use any of the different apps or online tools for practicing betting strategies such as the Wizard of Odds Online Free Craps site? If so, do you believe that they give you an accurate representation of rolls and expected results. The reason I ask is that over many trials and games played it seems the seven comes up on average one in four times which makes most of the betting strategies a loser. Any suggestions of how to practice strategies to get a better representation of casino rolls would be appreciated. Thanks.

[220Inside]

Welcome Mcchacho.

If you're looking to practice betting strategies for how to bet your own hands, there is no better substitute than using your own practice toss results. Do you have a set up at home to practice with yet?

The one in four average you are seeing is not that far off from expected results for truly random tossers. As you get more comfortable around here, you'll find that you will absolutely need to have an alternate betting strategy for random rollers versus your own, including just not betting at all on some if not all random rollers.

[House of Orange]

Random is one in six. If you have one in four, play the don'ts and get rich!

[Mcchacho]

Thanks. I am looking online at some of the nicer practice stations that have foldable legs and set up at the correct height of 28 inches. I have a nice pool table and the height of the slate and felt is also 28 inches. It seems I should be able to set up the practice rig off the end of the table and measure off some distances I would throw from. You would have to toss it over the rail but a normal toss would clear it anyway. Can also get a craps felt to put over the table. Seems like it would work pretty well and could even have another person alternate with shooting and paying or taking chips. Any suggestions on rigs, felts, and dice would be great.

[heavy]

A lot of guys use pool tables to practice on. Just know that you must have a layout of some sort over the pool felt or the dice will cut holes in it and screw up the billiard cloth. Also, if you install another layer of felt over the billiard cloth it's going to be too bouncy. If you're going to set a rig on top of the pool table I'd suggest building your own and making it deep and wide enough that the you'll hit it every time. You'd be surprised at how hard it is - particularly if you're new at this - to hit a standard 18" wide by 24" deep practice rig. My original practice rigs I built myself back in the day were 24" wide and 36" deep. I still had dice rolling out the end on bounce back sometimes, and occasionally a "wild pitch" would go off into the wild blue yonder. You can build two rigs out of one full sheet of furniture grade plywood and most home centers will do the main cuts you need done on them free. Just get a pad and pen out and draw out what you need, then figure out how to get the cuts done on a 48" by 96" sheet of plywood. It's not rocket science. Once you get the parts cut to size it's just a matter of deciding how you want it assembled. Shootitall came up with a system using rare earth magnets that works great. The old school way of doing it was with cabinet hinges and lynch pins. I bolted mine together with L brackets - I had no need to break them down so they were put together "permanently." Then line the inside with felt of some sort. Believe it or not, billiard cloth is one of the best choices. You can guy the diamond pyramid rubber for the back wall online from a number of sources. It's the most expensive item in the mix. It comes in four foot long slabs so you have enough for two 24" wide practice rigs. Secure that to the back wall and you're done. Easy peasy.

As for the table heigth, 28 - 29 inches is about right to the BOTTOM of the deck. Remember, casino tables have an inch and a half thick deck so it's 31 to 31.5 inches to the top of the deck. Also remember that the table has a side wall on the tub that's about 12 inches tall. You'll want to simulate that with some sort of "toss rail." You can come up with some sort of shop built rail with a pad on to you can throw together yourself easy enough. For years I used a bar stool as a toss station, standing behind it and reaching over the stool back. Whatever works for you.

[Big O]

Any suggestions on rigs, felts, and dice would be great.

casino4you has lots of stuff layouts, chips,etc but i would get dice from Heavy
welcome BTW

[Mcchacho]

Thanks guys, good advice on the height. Thought the height was twenty eight inches to the surface of a table/practice rig and good to know that it should be just over thirty inches. I have a friend that has been a custom cabinet maker/wood worker his entire life and might engage him to build one. It would help if he was a craps player but he is not a gambler at all.

[Tgold]

Welcome Mcchacho--Excellent posts/questions.

Without knowing how much u have budgeted for a practice station or table-- You might consider looking for a preowned item that fit your desired dimensions/budget. They are a lot like fitness equipment: many preowned ones out there. Ebay, craigslist, ...etc.

That might give you additional time to look at more options: Your friend building a table, locating a distressed table, shopping for new table..etc. In other words what seems like(and is) a good fit your first year may or may not be in sync with your goals on yr two or five...etc.
Just a suggestion

Continued Success To You,

[Rickhem]

Hello Mcchacho!

I have noticed exactly the same thing that you mentioned in those on-line simulators. The Wizard's simulator seems to give sevens at a higher rate than what I feel a random number generator (rng) should give. Especially when you're playing right-side strategies. Go to playing the don'ts and it seems to shift slightly in the other direction. Then again, maybe that's just my own perception. There is another one called 5dimes that includes a free craps simulator, and I get the same sense of bias from that one as well. Again, could just be me. The nice thing is that they allow you as long as you want to formulate your strategy, and place the corresponding bet before you click the ROLL button. You can get fairly complicated in your strategy without a problem. That doesn't always happen in real life.

The best option for strategy formulation on your own hands, is what has been mentioned about setting up your own practice rig, and using your own results. That covers the part where YOU are holding the dice and throwing. And it is good to work on some of the individual parts of your throwing too. The more you do that, the better. Actually, just get yourself a set of real casino dice and play around with those for a while. You'll get much more familiar and comfortable with quickly orienting them for your desired set, with getting a consistent grip, and making controlled tosses. Don't worry about the numbers on the dice at that point, just work fundamentals, and the confidence will carry forward into the casinos once they open back up. I play around while watching TV, and toss towards a wall. The carpet makes the dice bounce crazy, but I can see when they're flying and landing consistently. Start with the dice, the other stuff can come later.

As for betting strategies, I like watching the YouTube craps videos, and mentally applying my own strategies to them. Remember though, that if you watch a video of someone throwing for thirty-something tosses, almost any strategy is going to be a winner. I prefer watching those 30 or 36 roll challenges, and seeing how my bets would work against those numbers. There are also a number of "live" sessions recorded and posted on various videos, but again, remember that if someone is posting up a video, it's because it was "special" in some way, and probably not representative of your average player.

[heavy]

I have long supported WinCraps by Cloud City Software as one of the best programs out there for back testing strategies, including introducing skews to account for dice influence, and generally just learning more about the game in general. You can literally cut and paste thousands of your own rolls into their system in a matter of minutes - or use one of Steen's own on-board data bases. You can run a test through a sim of a million rolls in a few seconds. And you can just sit back and play the game for fun. There's a free version you can download on Steen's site (with ads and limited functionality) just to play around with. There's a modest fee for activation and full functionality. It takes a little time to learn how to write scripts for betting strategies, but Steen also has most of the popular ones available on his site so you can just download those and use them as well.

[acpa]

Well put Heavy, it's a great program to use.
Noah

[slt1966]

As for the table heigth, 28 - 29 inches is about right to the BOTTOM of the deck. Remember, casino tables have an inch and a half thick deck so it's 31 to 31.5 inches to the top of the deck. Also remember that the table has a side wall on the tub that's about 12 inches tall. You'll want to simulate that with some sort of "toss rail." You can come up with some sort of shop built rail with a pad on to you can throw together yourself easy enough. For years I used a bar stool as a toss station, standing behind it and reaching over the stool back. Whatever works for you.

I always thought it was 28 inches to the top of the deck....that is good to know it's to the bottom before I buy this table. Do you know what the standard is for what is between the felt and the wood deck? I've heard 1/16 inch pad.....is there a standard?

[crapsjourney]

Wincraps for PC. Seconded

Craps Deluxe app for iPhone. Has all the bets. Is fast. And has a help function to explain payouts.

That’s all you need.

[Mcchacho]

Welcome Mcchacho--Excellent posts/questions.

Without knowing how much u have budgeted for a practice station or table-- You might consider looking for a preowned item that fit your desired dimensions/budget. They are a lot like fitness equipment: many preowned ones out there. Ebay, craigslist, ...etc.

That might give you additional time to look at more options: Your friend building a table, locating a distressed table, shopping for new table..etc. In other words what seems like(and is) a good fit your first year may or may not be in sync with your goals on yr two or five...etc.
Just a suggestion

Continued Success To You,

Thanks man, I have pretty much decided to buy one of the nicer practice rigs with folding legs and curved walls. While probably overkill for practicing toss, etc., I also look at it as a game table for friends and family. Putting it off the end of the pool table, throwing a craps game felt over the pool table, adding chips, dice, adult beverages, and some good music, you can have some fun while practicing toss and betting strategies. Seems like the decision is to get the traditional bounce or the "bouncy bounce" that a lot of casinos have gone to with newer tables. Most of the tables in CO have the hard surface but popular opinion is that sooner or later they will all move to the bouncier surface. The rig can be stored beneath the pool table when not in use which is nice.

[DanF]

If you have poker chips of somekind, you can throw dice in a small box 10x10 and get random results to practice your betting.

If you don't want to get the whole practice table going.

Craps app generators are pretty ez to beat on darkside like you may have seen.

[Mcchacho]

I had pretty much decided on purchasing this practice rig from Accucraps.com. http://www.accucraps.com/product.sc?pro ... tegoryId=2 Seems pretty expensive but also kind of a nice piece of furniture and can use it at the end of the pool table with a craps layout on the pool table for parties and such. Pretty wide at 56 inches but with the fold down legs can be stored beneath the pool table. Surprised it is only 28 inches deep. Was ready to go with the purchase and then found that the shipping would be an additional $360. Back to my wood worker friend who said he could build it for less than the shipping cost and it could be a fun project for us to do together. Having now said all that I am looking for recommendations for the surface. I guess I would have to decide on bouncey vs. traditional harder surfaces. It depends on where you would play most and what type of tables they have. I would play the majority of the time here in CO and based on some research there seems to be a pretty even distribution of both types. I guess I should pick one surface to practice on and only go to those casinos that have that surface. Anyone out here that have built practice rigs got good advice on the felt and underlayment for both types of surfaces? Pretty easy to find the diamond pyramid but the felt and underlayment seem to be all over the place. We might go the route of buying a real craps felt and build two of the rigs as one felt would easily cover two and may look pretty cool. Still have the issue of the underlayment. Would probably build it 48 inches wide and 36 deep. Any suggestions by those more experienced would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Big O]

if you build it where you can remove the top rail you can build different inserts with different bounce characteristics that you can slip in and out for different playing conditions.

[Lkwd]

Mcchacho

One of our board members purchased the table/shooting combo from Accucraps several years ago. He had similar thoughts about the shipping
costs but in the end made the purchase. It has been close to 10 years and He has no regrets. One thing to keep in mind is Accucraps has probably made several hundred of these tables. There is some benefit to HIs years of experience. I am not saying that You and Your wood friend can't have the same success for a fraction of the cost. But as I get older I now realize that sometimes it best to pay for what I need and not get frustrated or disappointed.

Best of luck.


Lkwd

[stratocasterman]

Wincraps!!!

[Mcchacho]

Hi guys, thought I would update from my post on buying/building a practice rig. I finally finished and I have to say it came out great for a guy with limited skills working with wood and with his hands. I was going to post a couple of pics but it seems there is not a way to do it here. 36 inches wide by 30 inches deep. 2 back to back pieces of 3/4 inch birch glued and screwed together for the base. Two 36" by 14" pieces of 3/4 birch glued and screwed together for the back wall and two 24" pieces of 3/4 birch for the side walls. (Side walls taper down to 6 " from the back to the front.) Lots of screws and wood glued plus 1 inch square by 6 inches long bracing in the corners. Stained and finished. Attached 48 inch pyramid rubber and it goes about 6 inches around the corners on each side. Stapled and lightly glued a layer of vinyl on the base, followed by a layer of flannel stapled and lightly glued, followed by a layer of high quality pool table felt stapled and lightly glued. Also, lined the inside walls with the felt to dampen the sound of dice hitting bare wood should that occur. The back wall and sides is one unit and not screwed to the base. I am setting the base on a very solid table with folding legs, setting the base on the table and the sides/back wall unit fits snugly over and around the base. Because there is two layers of the birch on the back wall it is really heavy and very solid when put over and around the base. (The table height is 29 inches and the base is 1.5 inches so the playing surface sits at just under 30.5".) The table and rig will sit off the end of my 8.9 foot pool table with a craps layout over the table. Really happy with the bounce and sound and pretty closely mimics the tables I have played on here in CO. Can easily be taken down and stored under the pool table and the base can be easily recovered again with new felt or microfiber layout cut to size. Really happy with it and the reason for the long descriptive post is to show that you do not need a lot of skill to do it and I firmly believe it is much better than the rigs you see for sale upward of $500 to $700 with up to $350 in shipping. My total cost was about $160 and it was a fun project.