Craps Money Management
| Updated: Bankroll Management Tips for Craps Players
Gambling can be fun and exciting, but most players will lose money over time because every casino game has a mathematical advantage that benefits the house in the long run. This house advantage is inherent in all gambling games, including craps, where many available wagers heavily favor the house. The house edge can reach 16.67% on the Any 7 bet.
Although craps is a negative-expectation game, players may occasionally finish a session with a profit. However, no betting strategy can protect them if they lack the discipline and knowledge needed to manage their money effectively.
Money management is the foundation of disciplined craps play. The wide variety of unfavorable bets, combined with the game’s fast pace, can quickly wipe out an undisciplined player’s bankroll. That is why every craps player should use a money management strategy and follow it consistently.
Below, we describe several money management tips, such as setting up a separate bankroll for craps and dividing it into smaller session bankrolls. Determining your win goals and loss limits is also an essential part of the process. This craps money management guide explains how the Guarantee and Excess Approach works. We also cover useful ways to minimize losses and identify craps betting systems to avoid. Read on to learn more.
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Setting Up a Separate Bankroll to Fuel Your Craps Play
Money management involves limiting the amount you take to the craps tables and the sums you are willing to risk per bet. Setting up a bankroll for your craps play is the cornerstone of money management and the best place to start. In gambling, the term bankroll refers to the amount of money you set aside to play with. The amount you risk per bet, your win goal, and your loss limit all depend on the size of your bankroll.
How much money you can afford to allocate to craps is entirely up to you. It could be as much as $10,000 or as little as $300. That said, you should be realistic about your expectations. You cannot expect your bankroll to support bets that are too large for its size.
It is important to emphasize that you should keep your craps bankroll separate from all your other funds. Never gamble with money required for essential expenses, such as rent, mortgage payments, bills, your children’s lessons, car repairs, and other necessities. Mixing your day-to-day funds with your gambling money is a quick route to serious financial problems.
Allocating Session Bankrolls
Craps players are generally advised to divide their overall bankroll into smaller session bankrolls. The amount you allocate to a single session depends on the minimum bet allowed at the craps table.
A common guideline is to start a session with a bankroll equal to at least ten times the size of your first bet. In other words, you need a session bankroll large enough to carry you through ten different shooters. The main idea is to bring enough money to remain at the table without risking your entire bankroll too quickly.
Suppose you are a Pass Line bettor who intends to play at a craps table with a $10 minimum. You bet $10 on the Pass Line. The shooter establishes a point of 4, so you take 1x odds for another $10 and make two Place bets on numbers 6 and 8 because they have the highest number of winning combinations. The total amount you have at stake is $30. If you approach the table with a properly sized bankroll, you should buy in for $300 for this session.
If your overall starting capital is only $600, your bankroll for each of the three sessions will be $200. Accordingly, you will have to adjust the amount you wager per shooter. For example, you can wager $5 on the Pass Line, take 1x odds, and make two Place bets on numbers 6 and 8 for a total of $20 per shooter.
This does not mean you should remain at a craps table until your session bankroll is completely depleted. On the contrary, you should consider ending a losing session after four consecutive losses. Collect the remainder of your session bankroll and look for another table. When you find one, buy in with your next session bankroll and proceed in the same manner until you either accomplish your win goal or reach your loss limit.
Your Win Goals for a Craps Session
Many casual players make the serious mistake of remaining at the craps table for too long, even when they are already well ahead. Pushing your luck out of greed is a quick way to give all your net profits, and possibly more, back to the house.
The easiest way to prevent this is to know when to quit. How do you know when to call it a day? Set a win goal for yourself and follow it consistently. This gives you a clear target and can help you protect some of your session winnings.
How much should your win goal be? This depends entirely on the starting capital you intend to allocate to craps. A commonly recommended win goal for craps is 20% of your bankroll. If your overall bankroll for the day is $1,000, for example, you can call it quits after generating $200 in net profits.
Ideally, you should leave the casino as soon as you reach your 20% win goal. However, if you decide to continue playing, you can follow the principles of guarantee and excess.
The Guarantee and Excess Approach
Some undisciplined bettors avoid setting a win goal because they mistakenly assume it limits the profits they can generate at the craps tables. However, this is not necessarily the case if you adopt the guarantee and excess approach when you are ahead.
Here is how it works. Suppose you have reserved a session bankroll of $300 for craps and your win goal is 20%, or $60. The table is favorable, and you reach your $60 win goal, giving you a total of $360. At this stage, set aside your original $300 session bankroll and divide the $60 net profit into two equal portions of $30. Set aside one $30 portion along with your initial bankroll. This is your guarantee, which means you will leave the casino with $30 in net profit as long as you do not put that money back into play.
The other $30 is your excess, which you can use to continue playing while the table remains favorable. Continue in the same manner by dividing additional winnings into guarantees and excess. Suppose the shooter is on a hot roll and you generate another $20 using your excess. You secure $10 as your guarantee and add the other $10 to your excess. You now have a net profit of $40 in addition to your initial $300.
You can continue implementing this approach as long as you have sufficient excess left to play with. At some point, the table may turn against you and reduce your excess. There is no need to continue until the entire excess is gone. You can call it quits as soon as you recognize that the favorable run has ended. By keeping the guaranteed portion out of play, you can leave the casino with a secured profit.
Your Loss Limits for a Craps Session
Many recreational gamblers continue wagering until they have lost the entire amount they brought to the craps table. This often happens after a severe losing streak, when the player stubbornly continues in a desperate attempt to recover substantial losses.
Such players may take comfort in the fact that they were gambling with money they “can afford to lose.” However, this does not make it any easier to leave the casino empty-handed.
If your bankroll is $900 and you settle on a 50% loss limit, you can divide the amount into three sessions of $300 each. End each session as soon as you have lost $150. Collect the remaining $150 and walk away from the table. If you experience three losing sessions, you will still go home with $450, or half of your starting bankroll for the day. That is better than returning with nothing.
Capitalizing on Hot Tables and Minimizing Losses
Streaks are inherent in games of chance such as craps. Some players therefore observe the action and look for tables displaying favorable trends. When you enter the casino, you can walk around, observe the games, and determine which craps tables appear cold and which appear hot. Tables can also be choppy, meaning that shorter winning and losing streaks alternate, causing you to break even without making much progress.
Many experienced craps players chart games and buy in only at tables where they observe favorable trends. They use this approach in an effort to preserve their bankrolls and capitalize on hot tables.
Charting helps them find tables with trends that correspond to the direction in which they wager. There are two general groups of craps players: “right” or “do” bettors, who back the shooter, and “wrong” or “don’t” bettors, who wager against the shooter. The latter hope the shooter will roll a craps number on the come-out roll or seven out before making the point.
A wrong bettor would look for tables where shooters repeatedly seven out or fail to make the point. Those betting with the dice would instead look for tables where the Pass Line wins repeatedly.
You know a table is cold for a right bettor when shooters repeatedly establish points on the come-out roll, only to seven out on the next toss. However, if you are a wrong bettor, this might be the right table for you.
One way to minimize your losses is to avoid trying to ride out a losing streak. When a table turns cold, leave it and begin charting another craps game. Continuing to play while waiting for an unfavorable run to become favorable can cause you to incur losses that are difficult to recover. If a favorable run ends immediately after you buy in, consider leaving as soon as possible.
For example, suppose you are betting with the dice and using a system that requires you to wager on the Pass Line, take odds, and make Place bets on two numbers after the shooter establishes a point. In this case, you might look for a table with fewer wrong bettors, as this may indicate that the game has recently been cold for Pass Line bettors like you.
Another way to minimize your losses is to manage your bankroll more conservatively, especially if you have a smaller amount available. One of the worst mistakes a craps player can make is overbetting their bankroll. If you overbet, even two or three losing rolls can cause substantial damage to your budget that may be difficult to recover from. Disciplined players with smaller bankrolls often stick to the table minimum, or close to it, until they have enough money to consider playing more aggressively.
The Regression Approach
This approach is intended for adequately bankrolled players who can afford to wager more than the table minimum. It is commonly used with even-money craps bets, such as the Pass Line/Don’t Pass, although it also works with Place bets. The main principle is that you wager more than the minimum and reduce your next wager to the minimum after a win. The size of your first wager depends on your session bankroll.
Suppose you join a hot craps table with a $10 minimum. You bet $20 on the Pass Line, the shooter rolls a 7 on the come-out roll, and you win $20 at even odds, receiving a total of $40, including your original stake. The key is to collect your original $20 along with half of your net profit and then drop to the table minimum by betting $10 on the next roll. This secures a net profit of $10 even if the next throw results in a loss. If you win on the second roll as well, you can consider betting more aggressively.
More aggressive players sometimes prefer to maintain their original wager and decrease it to the table minimum only after securing two or three consecutive wins. This more aggressive approach requires a larger bankroll.
Craps Betting Systems to Avoid
If your goal is to manage your craps bankroll effectively, you should avoid negative progression systems. Positive progressions are not necessarily effective either, but they do not expose your bankroll to the same level of risk. These systems are inherently flawed and can result in the complete loss of your bankroll. More importantly, they have no effect on the odds and cannot improve your chances of winning.
All negative progressions rely on the premise that the player wagers more after a losing roll and reduces the wager to a specified amount following a win. The idea is that increasing your bets during a losing streak enables you to recover your losses with a single win. The most popular system of this kind is the Martingale, in which you double your wager after each losing roll and return to the beginning of the progression after a win.
After five consecutive losing rolls with a base betting unit of $10, the Martingale progression runs as follows: $10, $20, $40, $80, and $160. The sixth wager would be $320. But do you have the bankroll and willingness to wager $320 after such a long sequence of losses? Probably not. Even if you win, your net profit will equal only one base unit, or $10 in this case.
Some negative progressions, such as the Fibonacci system, use the well-known sequence in which each number equals the sum of the previous two. These systems can also cause your stakes to increase rapidly during an unfavorable run.
The main reason progressions are ineffective is that they do not alter the odds of winning. Your chances of winning or losing remain the same whether or not you use these systems. Negative progressions also require a substantial bankroll to survive a long losing streak, often in exchange for a small potential profit. If you join the craps table with a $300 session bankroll, for example, you will be unable to place the sixth Martingale wager after losing the first five bets.
If you still insist on using progression systems despite their flaws and limitations, consider choosing a positive progression, in which bets are increased after a win and reduced following a loss. Positive progressions do not expose your bankroll to as much risk as negative progressions.