Editing Craps (section)

==Optimal betting==
{{More citations needed|section|date=April 2018}}
When craps is played in a casino, all bets have a house advantage. That is, it can be shown mathematically that a player will (with 100% probability) lose all his or her money to the casino in the long run, while in the short run the player is more likely to lose money than make money. There may be players who are lucky and get ahead for a period of time, but in the long run these winning streaks are eroded away. One can slow, but not eliminate, one's average losses by only placing bets with the smallest house advantage.

The Pass/Don't Pass line, Come/Don't Come line, place 6, place 8, buy 4 and buy 10 (only under the casino rules where commission is charged only on wins) have the lowest house edge in the casino, and all other bets will, on average, lose money between three and twelve times faster because of the difference in house edges.

The place bets and buy bets differ from the Pass line and come line, in that place bets and buy bets can be removed at any time, since, while they are multi-roll bets, their odds of winning do not change from roll to roll, whereas Pass line bets and come line bets are a combination of different odds on their first roll and subsequent rolls. The first roll of a Pass line bet is 2:1 advantage for the player (8 wins, 4 losses), but it is "paid for" by subsequent rolls that are at the same disadvantage to the player as the Don't Pass bets were at an advantage. As such, they cannot profitably let the player take down the bet after the first roll. Players can bet or lay odds behind an established point depending on whether it was a Pass/Come or Don't Pass/Don't Come to lower house edge by receiving true odds on the point. Casinos which allow put betting allows players to increase or make new pass/come bets after the come-out roll. This bet generally has a higher house edge than place betting, unless the casino offers high odds.

Conversely, a player can take back (pick up) a Don't Pass or Don't Come bet after the first roll, but this cannot be recommended, because they already endured the disadvantaged part of the combination – the first roll. On that come-out roll, they win just 3 times (2 and 3), while losing 8 of them (7 and 11) and pushing one (12) out of the 36 possible rolls. On the other 24 rolls that become a point, their Don't Pass bet is now to their advantage by 6:3 (4 and 10), 6:4 (5 and 9) and 6:5 (6 and 8). If a player chooses to remove the initial Don't Come and/or Don't Pass line bet, he or she can no longer lay odds behind the bet and cannot re-bet the same Don't Pass and/or Don't Come number (players must make a new Don't Pass or come bets if desired). However, players can still make standard lay bets odds on any of the point numbers (4,5,6,8,9,10).

Among these, and the remaining numbers and possible bets, there are a myriad of systems and progressions that can be used with many combinations of numbers.

An important alternative metric is house advantage per roll (rather than per bet), which may be expressed in loss per hour.<ref name="wizardofodds.com">{{cite web |url=https://wizardofodds.com/games/craps/ |title=Craps |publisher=Wizard of Odds |date=2012-03-14 |access-date=2012-06-30}}</ref> The typical pace of rolls varies depending on the number of players, but 102 rolls per hour is a cited rate for a nearly full table.<ref name="wizardofodds.com"/> This same reference states that only "29.6% of total rolls are come out rolls, on average", so for this alternative metric, needing extra rolls to resolve the Pass line bet, for example, is factored. This number then permits calculation of rate of loss per hour, and per the 4 day/5 hour per day gambling trip:

* $10 Pass line bets 0.42% per roll, $4.28 per hour, $86 per trip
* $10 Place 6,8 bets 0.46% per roll, $4.69 per hour, $94 per trip
* $10 Place 5,9 bets 1.11% per roll, $11.32 per hour, $226 per trip
* $10 Place 4,10 bets 1.19% per roll, $12.14 per hour, $243 per trip
* $1 Single Hardways 2.78% per roll, $2.84 per hour, $56.71 per trip
* $1 All hardways 2.78% per roll, $11.34 per hour, $227 per trip
* $5 All hardways 2.78% per roll, $56.71 per hour, $1134 per trip
* $1 Craps only on come out 3.29% per roll, $3.35 per hour, $67.09 per trip
* $1 Eleven only on come out 3.29% per roll, $3.35 per hour, $67.09 per trip