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Craps Winning Strategy
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By Richard Manning, Jr.
Exciting. Confusing. Intimidating.
It is a pretty good bet that one of those three adjectives will come up when
you ask somebody their opinion about the game of craps. Unless you are a
seasoned veteran of rolling dice along the sunken felt all three adjectives
apply. There is no bigger thrill in a casino than having a set of cubes catch
fire in your hand; the combination of the increasing pile of chips in front of
you and the wild, cheering crowd surrounding you assures that fact. However,
the dozens of spots on the table that you can command your chips to go in
between rolls is enough to scare people from saddling up to game, let alone
trying to make sense the action within the table walls. It is a shame that
craps has such a reputation of being the casino bully of sorts, because has
much more in common with a gentle giant than a surly pugilist. After all, it
does offer some of the best odds you can find in a casino. Plus, the myriad of
bets helps to make it as much of a game of strategy as it is a game of chance,
and it is those strategies that help to make it wonderful enough to make you
forget that other casino games exist.
If you are a novice, the first bit of strategy you want to deploy is to learn
the game. Most casinos offer a free, in-depth lesson on how to play craps, so
take advantage of it. That way, you can at least have some semblance of what is
going on and what you are doing when the chips go flying around the felt.
Once you squeeze your way onto a table, start the betting small. The one danger
that lies in learning craps is that it could initially give you the tendency of
a spendthrift, because it feels so cool have four or five bets on the table.
Although it is exciting to have so many different bets riding on the flick of
the shooter’s wrist, you will be left with a much worse emotion if the shooter
craps out and leaves you short stacked.
When you have corralled your ego, you will then need to block out the constant
chatter of the table’s croupier. They are generally nice people, but they are
at the tables to earn a living, and keep in mind that the casino is the
organization they work for. Much like a salesperson will persuade you to
purchase the product made by the company he or she represents, a croupier will
try to get you to bet somewhere where the chances of winning are not great,
such as the hard bets or the any craps bet. They may use the payout as a way of
convincing you to place that kind of a bet, but just remember that the returns
are high because the risk is pretty sizable. After you have earned a modest
return on your bets, then you can act cool. Throw a couple of chips on the come
line. Buy a number. You can even cave in to the croupier’s wishes at this time
and play the hard bets. However, if things on the table go south, hit the reset
button on your strategy and revert to conservative mode.
As with any casino game, these tips will not guarantee victory for you. But
they do guarantee that you will stick around long enough to find out what the
excitement of the game is all about.
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