Worlds Safest Craps System

Or is it? I came across, from a friend, a craps gambling system that touted itself as the worlds safest system. Imagine my surprise when I saw the system was basically one I developed many years ago while in dealer’s school for dice. Yes, they actually had a “school” to learn how to deal. I happen to think it was just a way to rake in government grants, but that’s beside the point. Anyway, this system, had you purchased it would get in you hot water right off the hop—no pun intended.

This conservative way of playing is not the safest system and could end up costing you money. Let me point out that what they are selling is the equivalent to my first craps system ever—I improved from there.

The basis is this: You bet money on the don’t pass line. When a point is established, you place the point. You can’t lose now. You will either win the bet (the odds) or push. However, getting to a point being established is the trick. There is a 22.2% chance that you will lose your money on the come out roll. Well, that’s “safe” for ya. Ok, I am hiding part of the truth—you caught me. You have a chance to win if a two or three shows its ugly head—yes, I am not a don’t bettor. The probability of this happening is 8.3%. So your true probability of losing the opening bet is really 13.9%—still happy? Let’s run with these numbers to see how this “safe” system will play out.

It will be a little hard to project since we don’t know how many points will be made. For all we know, there could be six consecutive crap outs, two points made and five more consecutive crap outs. Therefore, I will show a few possible scenarios to see what’s needed to make this system work. To keep it average, we will assume our point is a five or nine (middle of the road) each time and our bet will be $10. Therefore, a win will net $4 profit. Finally, we will play 21 points. Since our open bet loss probability is 13.9%, this means we will lose 3 units during our test.

Scenario One (Pretty good table):
Opening Bankroll: - $30 (three opening losses)
Number of Points hit out of 21: 10 (basically 50%)
Profit from points: $40
Net Result: +$10

Scenario Two (average table):
Opening Bankroll: -$30
Number of Points hit out of 21: 7 (33%)
Profit from points: $28
Net Result: - $2

Scenario Three (cold table):
Opening Bankroll: -$30
Number of Points hit out of 21: 4 (19%)
Profit from points: $16
Net Result: - $14

As you can see, this system requires a pretty good table to just scrape by. What makes this worse is the probability of the points being a 6 or 8 far outweighs the probability of the points being a 4 or 10, which means the payouts can be a little smaller than represented here. These numbers really represent the long-term. You could walk up to a table and be out quick, because the shooters went on a 7-11 tear on the come out.

I remember when I first came up with this idea. I was 21 and decided to walk into the Horseshoe (in Las Vegas) with some friends whom I was teaching craps to. We tried it and it worked pretty well—until those lovely 7’s and 11’s came flying down the table in bunches. That’s when I modified my system to be even more conservative with a greater safety factor built-in. That one worked pretty well, but boy can it get boring if points are not being hit—cocktails anyone? I really hated life when some shooter was hitting point after point and all I had to show for it was a couple dollars per win. It goes both ways though.

If you have a craps system you want me to analyze, use my contact form to send it to me.