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Craps
Regression Betting
by
Frank Scoblete
Is craps
regression betting a
good way to wager? Find the answer in this Learn
to Play Craps lesson.
A typical craps regression play,
called
the $110 one-hit-and-down,
would go like this:
The shooter has established his point. You place $110
inside; that’s $25 on the 5 and 9, $30 on the 6 and 8.
The
shooter has 18 ways
to hit these four numbers. If he does, the payoff is $35 on the first
hit. Once
that hit takes place, you lower your bet to $22 across, securing a
profit of
$13. Now, the rest of this shooter’s roll is pure profit.
The thinking here is that the player has a 50-percent chance
of winning this wager on any given roll as there are 36 possible
combinations
of which the ‘one-hit-and-down’ bettor has 18 of them favoring him. How
long
would you leave your $110 at risk?
Some players would leave
it up until it hits
or loses to the 7. Others will give themselves a few shots at it before
pulling
it back.
In a random game of craps, where the 7 is always a 1 in 6
probability, the house edge is a fixed mark, in the case of placing the
‘inside
numbers’ of 5, 6, 8, and 9, that mark is about 2.6 percent. What that
means is
that the player making the ‘inside numbers’ bet will lose 2.6 percent
of all
the money he wagers – in the long run.
If on one bet, he has $110 at risk and on other
bets, he only has $22 at
risk; the house edge is working on some average amount between the two
extremes.
Of course, when craps regression betting is working to
perfection
and an inside number is hit early and often on shooter after shooter;
it is a
guaranteed one-roll win per shooter.
But when the 7 shows
before an inside number, the loss is
brutal. Once you’ve lost the $110, if you continue to regress on future
shooters as you planned it will take approximately 10 shooters in a row
to get
past that first hit or one shooter to have a monster roll as you
collect on
your $22 across in $7 increments. Yeow!
How often will you be wiped off the board before an inside
number can be hit?
You’ll win 18 times on your numbers, lose
six times on that
abominable 7. That means you’ll win 3 times for a win of $35 + $35 +$35
= $105;
then you’ll lose once for a loss of $110. You’re $5 in the hole.
You’ll
have
the same effects once you regress down to $22 across. You’ll win $7 +
$7 +$7 =
$21 but you’ll lose the fourth bet for $22.
You’ll be down
$1.
While craps regression betting does reduce the house’s take
on
your money, it does so because you are betting less, not because you
have come
up with a way to beat the game or reduce the house edge.
Still, 75 percent of the time using the above craps
regression
will result in being ahead of the game on a particular shooter. You
might even
consider changing your attack to stop going up on that $110 inside and
instead
continue with $22 inside on subsequent shooters.
Not all regressions are as drastic as the $110 and down that
I’ve just explained.
You could, for example, put $44 inside
and when it hits
once, go to a six dollar 6 and 8. A single hit on $44 inside would see
you win
$14. Now with just $12 at risk on the 6 and 8, you are ahead $2.
Again,
such a
betting strategy cannot turn a negative into a positive; the house has
its
damnable edge on each and every bet you make in a random game betting
those
inside numbers.
Do I enjoy regression betting? No, I do not. As a general
rule, once I’ve gone with a shooter, I’m usually on that shooter come
hell or
high water. I prefer to take the risk to go for the bigger win by
keeping my
initial bets at their initial levels.
But in math terms,
against random
rollers, I am giving the house a better whack at me than had I
regressed.
Regression betting has its advocates and its opponents.
Some
people swear by it; some swear at it. In the final analysis, against
random
shooters, you’re betting less; against controlled shooters, you might
be
getting in for some significant hits before coming down.
If
you like this as an
idea, try it out on your next casino trip and see if you like it as
much in
reality.
Craps
Regression Betting is followed by Don’t Strategies
OR
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to Play Craps Program
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