What is a "World" or "Whirl" Bet?

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What is a “World,” or “Whirl” bet?

This is yet another of those questions I get on a regular basis – most frequently after someone has seen me fill the rack with it during a come-out hand filled with natural winners and losers. The first thing I tell players who ask me about the bet is short and sweet. “It’s a terrible bet that carries one of the highest vigs on the table.” But they just saw me win all that money, so the hook is set. What the heck is a World bet?

Simply put, a World bet is a combination of two bets – a Horn Bet plus an Any Seven. If any of the Horn numbers rolled you’ll be paid the appropriate amount for the winning number, minus the amount wagered on the losing numbers, so that your bet will be “up to win again.”

Let’s run that through a couple of examples. Let’s say you wager $5 on the World and the two or twelve craps roll. Depending on the odds displayed on the layout the payoff will be somewhere around $30. The dealer will pay you $30 minus $4 – which provides the money to re-bet the losing numbers. Net pay is $26. What if the three craps rolled? This pays $15 minus the $4 in losing bets – or $11.

When a craps number rolls on the Come Out you lose your Pass Line bet, so the World works as a hedge in that regards – an expensive hedge, but a hedge nonetheless. In a $10 game you’d turn a net $1 profit on a three craps and a $16 profit on a two or twelve. If the eleven rolls you collect net $11 on the World bet plus $10 on the Pass Line for a total of $21. If the seven wins you’re “paid” net $4 on the Any Sevens portion of the World bet. That $4 keeps the Horn portion of your World bet up to win again, so it is effectively a “Push”

Personally, when I’m shooting the dice I toss out a $2 high low with my World bet, giving me a total of $7 action. With that action the 2 or 12 pay $55. Some players, on the other hand, like to bet an extra dollar on the three craps so that all of the craps numbers kick off the same payoff.

One of my favorite moves off the World/High-Low combination is to press them whenever I score a win. So my $7 action becomes $14, $21, $28, $35, etc. The most successful such press moves on my own hands came back in 2005, when I tossed six consecutive twelves on the Come-Out one night. Two weeks later, in another property, I tossed four consecutive aces. This past weekend saw similar success with both one of the students in our Boot Camp class and Howard “Rock ‘n Roller” tossed eight consecutive Horn numbers on the Come Out. Series like these can reward the shooter with thousands of “bonus” dollars off prop play. But don’t be lured into the fray by promises of huge returns. The World bet still carries one of the highest vigs in the game – at roughly 16%.

If you’re going to bet prop action look at it as an “entertainment” bet. Set aside a certain portion of your bankroll for “fun” bets. As long as you’re winning those bets – great. But don’t blow the entire bankroll chasing a World win. Give it a few shots – then focus on your bread and butter bets like Free Odds and Place Betting the Six and Eight.