Come Bet Odds Craps
The Free Odds bet is probably the most powerful one in the game of craps. This type of wager, however, could not be used freely. Players are required to have placed a Pass/Don't Pass bet or a Come/Don't Come bet in order to take advantage of the Free Odds bet. The Come Bet in Craps C ome bets work like Pass Line bets, but the key difference between the two is that you make a Pass Line bet before the shooter establishes a point; whereas, you make a Come bet after the shooter establishes a point.
This question comes up all the time. Which is a better bet in the game of Craps, a ‘Come Bet’ or a ‘Place Bet’?
Both Come Bets and Place Bets play vital rolls within different strategies and based on the particular strategy you’re using, you could make the case that either is better than the other, and not be wrong.
Come Bet Odds In Craps
But, if you take a closer look at the characteristics of both Come and Place bets individually, you may be very surprised by the answer.
If you’re like me, when I was learning to play craps, I was taught to remember two things;
- Always play a Pass Line Bet with 2 Come Bets and back them up with as much in Odds as you can, and
- To win, you have to lower the house edge as much as possible and Free Odds on the PL and Come Bets are the best way to do that
To this day, when a novice player walks up to the table, that’s what the dealer, and other novice players, tell them, “Place a Come Bet and back it up with odds. So, that’s what I did. Some days, when the table was hot, I’d walk away a pretty solid winner, but when the table was choppy or cold, I would usually lose and lose fast.
After playing craps for a while, you get to know who the pros are, and I started noticing that while some of them played the Pass Line, virtually none of them used Come Bets. They were Placing Bets instead and they were winning more often than I was. How could that be? I was taught the 2 most important keys to winning, or so I thought.
Adding to my confusion, was that when my Come Bet + Odds won for the same amount as their Place Bet, the dealer was delivering a lot more chips to me than them, until I realized that almost half the chips I was getting was from my bet coming down.
It was time to take a closer look at the real differences between Come Bets and Place Bets, and I was pretty astounded by what I found out.
Craps Come Bet Odds Payout
Craps Secrets Tip: Use Place Bets instead of Come Bets unless they’re part of a larger overall strategy.
HOUSE EDGE
The first thing to do is to check the house edge on both Come Bets and Place Bets. The house edge is the casino advantage on the bet and what you can expect to happen in the long run. The chart below shows the difference between the two.
The clear winner here is Come Bets with Free Odds and at only 1.41% for the Come, the more you back in odds, the lower you can drive the house edge.
BUT… I soon realized, there’s a number of things that the house edge on these bets doesn’t take into account.
- House edge is only calculated based on having won the bet. The Come + Odds has to win, before you can claim an advantage over Place Bets
- Come Bets are contract bets meaning once it travels to the number, it stays there until a decision is made. You don’t have the option of taking it down if you feel a Seven is coming (Odds can come down). Place Bets, on the other hand, can be taken down or turned off at any time.
- Come Bets are live during the Come-Out roll, Place Bets are not (unless you make them live). After hitting a point, if the shooter rolls a seven, your Come Bets lose.
- AND… to take advantage of the lower house edge, the number has to hit twice. First to travel to the number, then to hit the number and win.
The house edge advantage of Come Bets over Place Bets is much more cloudy when you take these factors into consideration.
PAYOUTS
Let’s take a look at the payout differences between Come Bets and Place Bets. With a lower house edge, you would expect that Come Bets would clearly outperform Place Bets in this area. WELL, NOT SO FAST… Let’s take a look.
For our example, we’ll use a $10 minimum table and use the payouts for the box number (5). The place bet on the (5) carries a 4.00% house edge vs. the Come Bet at 1.41% + Free Odds. Should be easy, right?
You’re probably as surprised as I was at the results since everything I had been told was to key on Free Odds, Come Bets and House Edge. This also explains why the pros that were using Place Bets instead of Come Bets were winning significantly more than I was.
The payout is where Place Bets take a clear lead over Come Bets in a number of ways even though Free Odds are supposed to give you the biggest payouts.
- On the first hit of the number, the Come Bet travels to the number and needs to be hit again before there is any payout. The Place Bet on the (9) pays out $14 on the first hit.
- Even when you add 4 times Odds to your Come Bet, the Place Bet still pays out more on the second hit.
- This is due to the Come Bet itself that is only paid out at 1 to 1, so while the Odds pay out at a higher rate, it needs to make up the lesser payout on the original Come Bet
- When you get to 5 times Odds or a total of $60 in bets, the Come Bet beats the Place Bet by $1, BUT… you still haven’t made up the $14 win on the first hit.
- It takes almost 20X Odds before your Come Bet pays out more that the Place Bet including the 1st hit on the number. In our example, that would mean putting $200 behind your $10 come bet to outpace a Place Bet.
- While you can still find casinos that offer 100X Odds, most have moved to 3/4/5X Odds and some at 10X, which keeps your Come Bets producing less than Place Bets on the craps tables.
Based on the findings above, unless you’re at a casino that offers at least 20X Odds AND have the bankroll to support $200+ bets, you’re significantly better off using Place Bets to win at the casino.
When I made the switch to Place Bets, I became a lot more consistent at leaving the casino with their money in my pockets rather than the other way around.
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In the meantime…
BEST OF LUCK AT THE CASINOS!!!
I recently discussed the Free Odds bet. https://roadgambler.com/craps/craps-simple-beginners-guide-free-odds-bet/ Let’s now discuss the cousin of the Free Odds bet, the place bet.
Place bets are one of the most popular bets in the game of craps.
The chips that are straddling the lines in the picture below are place bets. The green chips, resting on top of the red chips, are come bet odds.
The place bets above are identified by their placement in the middle of the box lines, whereas the come bet + odds are entirely inside the box.
WHAT ARE PLACE BETS?
Place bets are wagers that a 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10 will roll before the number 7 rolls. The 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10 are known as ‘box numbers’. They’re called box numbers because on the craps layout, the numbers are literally in an area that is box-shaped as seen in the pic above.
The player may wager on any, all, or any assortment of the box numbers.
Betting on all the box numbers is known as betting ‘across’.
Betting on the 5, 6, 8, and 9 is known as betting ‘inside’.
Betting on the 4, 5, 9, and 10 is known as betting ‘outside’.
A lesser known place bet assortment is betting on ‘even’, which is 4, 6, 8, and 10.
Generally, while some players say ‘even’ to signify betting on the 4, 6, 8, and 10, players generally do NOT say ‘odd’ to bet on the 5 and 9. They just say, ‘5 and 9’. The reason is that the term ‘odd’ has the meaning of the free odds bet.
Unlike the odds bet, however, a place bet does not need to be accompanied by a pass or come bet; in other words, there is no ‘flat’ bet requirement. A bettor can wager a place bet by itself, with no other bets on the table. As a matter of fact, many players play place bets and nothing else.
WIN-LOSS CONDITIONS OF THE PLACE BETS
The place bets have exactly the same win-loss conditions as the odds bet. The place bet will win if the point assigned to that odds bet rolls before the 7 rolls.
For example, if the place bet is on the 8, and the 8 rolls before the 7 rolls, then the place bet on the 8 will win.
If the 7 rolls before the 8 rolls, then the place bet on the 8 (and any other ‘working’ place bet) will lose.
Place bets can also be wagered and made live at any time. Be warned that typically if the bettor has a place bet, and the next roll is a come out roll, then the place bet will NOT be working unless the bettor tells the dealer that the place bet is working. Place bets, unless declared otherwise, are always presumed to be off on the come out roll.
PROPER BETTING INCREMENTS
You must be aware of proper betting increments on the place bets. Warning: betting increments on the place bets are different from the proper betting increments on the odds bets.
The following are the payouts for each point…
Place bet on 4 or 10
- Any increment of $5
- If the bettor is going to bet $20 or more on the place bet of 4 or 10, the bettor is better of ‘buying’ the 4 or 10.
Place bet on 5 or 9
- Any betting increment of $5
- If the bettor is going to bet $20 or more on the place bet of 4 or 10, the bettor is better off ‘buying’ the 5 or 9.
Point is 6 or 8
- Any increment of $6.
- Do not confuse the place bet increment of the 6 or 8 with the odds bet, which has a proper increment of $5.
PAYOFF ON THE PLACE BETS
Place bet on 4 or 10
- Every $5 increment will pay $9
- For example, if the bettor bets $10, the payout will be $18.
- The reason why the ‘buy’ is better is because if the place bet on the 4 or 10 is $20, then the payout will be $36; however, a buy bet of $20+1 will pay $40. Just think of it this way: for one extra dollar, you obtain an extra $4.
Place bet on 5 or 9
- Every $5 increment will pay $7
- For example, if the bettor bets $10, then the payout will be $14.
Point is 6 or 8
- Every $6 increment will pay $7.
- For example, if the bettor bets $12, then the payout will be $14.
- The penalty for confusing the place bet increment with the odds bet increment is that the casino will round down. For example, if the bettor bets $10 on the place bet, the casino will pay $11. The breakdown is that the first $6 will pay $7, and then the remaining $4 will pay even money $4. Thus, $7+$4=$11. If the player had bet an extra $2, instead of $10 place bet on the 6 or 8, the player would have gained an extra $4.
CONCLUSION
Place betting is one of the best bets at the craps table. While not as good mathematically as the odds bet, the place bet has the advantage over most other bets in that the place bets take, on average, 4 rolls of the dice to resolve. Imagine how much longer you could play, and how long your bankroll would last if on a game, such as blackjack, where you had to play four hands to win or lose one wager. Or if you had to spin the reel on a slot machine four times to determine a win or lose.
Most players are not fans of waiting out the protracted time it takes to resolve a single place bet. For those players, myself included, I prefer to make multiple bets, which is a viable option.
TEST YOUR MIGHT!
So now that you’ve read this article and you can identify the place bets on the layout, let’s take a little pop quiz.
In the pic below, identify the bets that are NOT place bets…
Answer below…
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Bonus question…
Of the chips in the pic directly above, with the four arrows, how many bets are NOT place bets? In other words, identify the bets that are NOT place bets…
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Answer:
There are five bets that are not place bets.
The bets that are NOT place bets are the following:
Remember, the odds bet cannot be made without a come bet, so there is a come bet hiding under the odds bet.