Friday, 2 May 2003
11:59pm
| S |
As I was saying, I think casino craps could use some more one-roll bets, but ones that pay more than even money, but without the impossibly long odds of the 8 for 1, 15 for 1 and 30 for 1 center bets like the "any craps", "yo-eleven" and "boxcars" bets. Something that would pay 2:1 (aka 3 for 1) with about a 1/3rd chance of winning sounded good to me.
Then I looked down at the "Big 6" and "Big 8" spots on my craps layout. In all my time in casinos, I've only ever seen one person ever make this bet, and certainly no knowledgeable players make this bet because they know there is another bet that is the exact same but but pays more. So no one ever bets these, and in my mind, they're just wasted space. Well I got to thinking of a way I could improve casino craps...
There was this...
What's "6 or 8" you ask? It's a new bet that I've just invented. It's a one-roll bet that the next roll will be either a 6 or 8, and if it hits, you'll win double your money, instead of just even money like the field bet, and since 6 and 8 are among the most often rolled numbers in craps, it'll hit often. So why is this an improvement over the casino craps played all around the world today? Well, for one thing, no one ever plays the big 6 or big 8. For another thing, knowledgeable players know that besides 7, 6 and 8 are the most often rolled numbers, and this combined with the instant gratification of a one-roll bet and the thrill of tripling your money will draw them in to making this bet, and making it often! It's just a more exciting and fun bet for the player to make than Big 6 or Big 8.
But it's great for the casino running this game too! There's a 27.78% chance that the next roll will be either 6 or 8. By my calculation, paying 2:1 on this bet would result in a 16.66% house edge, which is quite a bit higher than the 9.09% house edge on the Big 6 and Big 8 bets. But not such a huge house edge that you'll scare away those advanced players who happily play those big edge center bets! And since 2:1 is such an easy bet to pay, you wouldn't even have to spend much time retraining your dealers. So basically what you end up with is more players having more fun placing a bet with a bigger house edge. A win/win situation!
That's the theory anyway. I could test run this bet on my friends that come and play for fun in my living room, but there's no way to really find out if this bet has public appeal as well as profit potential without actually testing it on the public. Which is why I wish I was a casino manager (or was good friends with one) just so I could do little experiments like this. But I really do think that this would be an improvement to the game of modern casino craps.
Heck, if you're a casino manager or someone in a position to make such decisions for a real casino, go ahead and try this thing out, just please remember me when you start raking in the dough on it!!