We would all like to think of ourselves as experts at the venerable game of craps. Thats just a simple fact of life, assuming that you are a fan of gambling in general. It really doesnt matter if you prefer to do your playing in a casino, with some good buddies at home, or on a computer. The bottom line is that virtually all gamblers have deep respect for the game of craps, and its the type of game that everyone wants to think of themselves as being at least reasonably proficient at playing.

Well, as you probably learned at some painful moment during your childhood, the cold truth is that wishing for something (no matter how much effort and skill you apply) does not always make it so in the real world. Therefore, its only rational to admit that simply hoping to become a expert at the game of craps is not likely to produce the results you desire. So what does a craps wannabe do to remedy the situation? Heres an idea: study the time-tested strategies that apply to the game.

Where is the best place to start in that noble endeavor? At the beginning, naturally. So lets look at some of the most critical rules related to craps. The rules vary slightly from one casino to another, but the expected value of most bets is only slightly negative (the most favorable bets with the most favorable rules offer a house advantage of as little as 0.18%). All bets have a negative expectation except for the free odds bet that the player is allowed to make after a point is established on a flat bet. Since there is no concrete correlation between each roll of the dice, there is actually no way of determining a strategy that will guarantee winning on a long-term basis.

If you happen to find yourself in the enviable position of winning several hands in immediate succession, you are at that point officially on a roll. This is when you really want to jack up your betting behavior, because those with the guts to increase their bet while on a roll have the opportunity to rapidly accumulate massive sums of cash. On the other hand, money can be lost just as quickly, because as there is no statistical likelihood of a staying hot for any given period of time. Ah, the vagaries of Lady Luck!

To counter this, experienced players take full advantage of free odds, which are bets on which there is zero house advantage. Maximizing the size of your odds bet in relation to your line bet helps to cut down the house edge. Many casinos place limitations on how large the odds bet can be in relation to the flat bet, and some offer 3-4-5 odds, referring to the maximum multiple of the line bet a player can place in odds for the points of 4 and 10, 5 and 9, and 6 and 8, respectively. During promotional periods, a casino may even offer 100x odds bets, which renders the house edge to virtually zero. But you cant expect to find such generous offers on a regular basis. Thats the real world, folks.