On The Lure of Craps:
I’ve loved the game since the first time I played. The camaraderie, the noise, the feel of the dice in my hand. I’m not the first.
“The excitement that a gambler feels when making a bet is equal to the amount he might win times the probability of winning it”
(Blaise Pascal, mathematician)
“During many years….I have played not off and on but, I am ashamed to say, every day. I’ve found no little solace at playing constantly at dice.”
(Girolamo Cardano, mathematician)
“I believe in the virtue of insurance and the vice of gambling.”
(George Bernard Shaw, writer)
“I read Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That’s what I call a liberal education.”
(Tallulah Bankhead, actress)
On Standard Craps Playing Strategies Touted In Books:
Are there any books that don’t recommend the pass line with full odds and two come bets with full odds?
“Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.”
(Blaise Pascal. mathematician)
On Those Who Sell Gambling Systems:
If you are playing a single system at a craps table, you get what you deserve.
“The only good way of earning money with gambling systems is to sell them to fools.”
(unknown)
On the House Advantage:
In the short run lack of bankroll will kill you, in the long run the vig. Either way, the palatial hotels on ‘the strip’ were built by those who understand the math and bankrolled by those who don’t.
“We run carelessly to precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us from seeing it.”
(Blaise Pascal, mathematician)
“The dice have no memory.”
(unknown)
“Shallow men believe in luck…Strong men believe in cause and effect.”
(Ralph Waldo Emerson, poet)
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use.”
(Galileo, mathematician, astronomer)
“Fear of harm ought to be proportional not merely to the gravity of harm, but also the probability of the event.”
(Antoine Arnauld, mathematician)
On God and Gambling:
For me, craps is just one more reason TO believe in god….
“I cannot believe that God would choose to play dice with the universe.”
(Albert Einstein, mathematician, genius)
“God not only plays dice. He also throws the dice where they cannot be seen.”
(Stephen Williams Hawking, writer)
“Death and dice level all distinctions.”
(unknown)
“…The spots on the dice are the music signs of the songs of heaven here. God is Luck: Luck is God: we are all bones the High Thrower rolled: some are two spots, some double sixes.”
(Carl Sandburg, poet)
On Precision Shooting:
If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. Thankfully most craps players lack the inclination and the discipline which guarantees those who can continued opportunity for success at the tables.
“Finally with a sort of passion, as if abandoning calculation and casting himself upon the future, and uttering the phrase with which men usually prelude their plunge into desperate and daring fortunes, ‘Let the die be cast,’ he (Caesar) hastened to cross the Rubicon.”
(Plutarch, philosopher)
