D'ya Wanna Win, or D'ya Wanna Gamble?

In Part I of this series, I left you with something to think about:

The reason most skilled Precision-Shooters don’t make more money, is because of the way that they BET, and NOT the way that they SHOOT!

This series of articles will help you to map out a path to a profit-destination where your Precision-Shooting efforts are matched with proper betting methods.  I’m going to show you, step-by-step, HOW to LOSE LESS, and WIN MORE, all-the-while using LESS MONEY to achieve HIGHER PROFIT.

Hope versus Reality

Many times, you have probably seen your own substantial profits reduced or eliminated simply because of the BELIEF and HOPE that a hot hand may be developing, only to be disappointed when it vaporizes, and your profit evaporates right along with it.

We have all fallen victim to leaving too much money out on the table when the inevitable 7-Out rolls along.  Many times, bets are left up, and the 7 shows before we have enough additional hits to even cover the bets that we have on the layout.  This may even be true if we regress our bets after one or two hits, simply because the regression wasn’t deep enough to sufficiently cover our remaining exposure.

That is where the reality of gambling meets our hopeful plans for profit.  This series of articles is designed to not only address those concerns, but I will show you how to actually do something positive about it. 

Now that we know how the pressures of gambling affect us, let’s look at some actionable ways to move our craps play a little further into the profit-zone.

Percentage-Shooting vs. Mere Superstition

Let’s get one thing straight right here. 

If some particular Signature Numbers dominate your dicesetting efforts, then they LEGITIMATELY fit into your betting methods.  We exhaustively discuss this subject in my The When, Where, Why, What and How of Signature Numbers Part I and Part II .  Your Signature Numbers are reasonably and rightfully justified to be in your betting-approach.   However, if you are a slave to betting-superstitions, then you have to honestly gauge JUST HOW MUCH your superstitions, gut-feelings, hunches and gambling-urges are actually costing you.

Betting on your own Signature Numbers is one thing.  However, banking on superstitions, especially when they pertain to betting MORE money on a random-roller is something completely different.

Let me give you an example that should make it easy for you to judge the difference between the two. 

Let’s say that you are a Precision-Shooter who has noticed that “trash” (craps) numbers seem to show up in streaks of several occurrences in a row when you are throwing the dice.  In that event, some well-timed and aggressively-pressed Horn-bets should probably be in your wagering-repertoire.  One of the keys to sustainable and consistent profit, is the ability to recognize and use your dicesetting skills and your well-defined Signature Numbers to make sound betting-decisions.  These wagering choices are based on the dominant numbers that you actually throw, and are NOT based on the superstition, hope and hunch that one low-occurrence Horn Number “usually” follows another.

How Much Does “See a Horn, Bet a Horn” Cost?

Please understand that I am not attacking this betting method or the person who coined it.  In fact, that phrase has gained alarming popularity at a huge number of North American casinos where the stickman frequently now use it as a “come-on” for everyone to bet the center Props area.  Not surprisingly, the growing size of the flock that blindly follows the stickmans exhortation is bewildering to the casual observer, and VERY profitable FOR THE CASINO.

As I just stated, if certain recurring low-occurrence outcomes figure into your Signature Numbers, then it is reasonable and RECOMMENDED that you INCLUDE them in your betting methods when you are betting on yourself or any other talented and qualified Precision-Shooter whom also throws a lot of the same recurring numbers.

However, for this exercise, we are talking about when you blindly apply superstitious betting-methods to nearly every random-roller in the HOPE that one low-occurrence craps-number will immediately be followed by another.   The question becomes:

“When a random-roller throws one Horn Number, does another Horn Number immediately repeat OFTEN ENOUGH to warrant and justify the expense? 

Let’s take a look:

Ø       A Horn Number (2, 3, 11 or 12) will show up on average about 6 times every 36 rolls of the dice.  That 1-in-6 occurrence frequency is equal to the regularity of the “7”.

Ø       The “See a Horn, Bet a Horn” philosophy holds that if someone rolls a Horn Number, then you follow it up with a Horn bet.

Ø       Let’s say that you use the minimum bet of $4 for this venture.

Ø       At a normal table, the dice will roll about 110 to 150 times per hour.  Let’s take the lower figure of 110 rolls per hour. 

Ø       That means that the Horn Numbers will roll approximately 18 times during that one-hour period. 

Ø       We multiply 18 by $4 for each time that we “See the Horn”.  That totals $72 that we have wagered. 

Ø       For random-rollers, we will see a Horn Number repeat one right after the other about 3 times during that same hour.  That’s when the “See a Horn, Bet a Horn” actually pays off.

Ø       The weighted-average payout on the Horn is $16 dollars (on average $11 will be paid 4/36 rolls, while $26 will be paid 2/36 rolls).

Ø       Take that to it’s next logical step, and you’ll multiply the $16 average payout by the 3 times that one Horn Number will immediately follow another Horn Number during the hour, and it will generate $48 in revenue.  Subtracting our initial $72 cost from our $48 return, we see that the net-cost is about -$24 per hour. 

Now obviously twenty-four bucks an hour will not kill us, in fact, most people earn more than that per hour in their daytime jobs, but the point I am trying to make is that even a seemingly innocuous betting approach like the “See a Horn, Bet a Horn” superstition will cost you money on random-rollers.

That means that your own Precision-Shooting efforts have to be $24 per-hour BETTER, just to break even. 

Just in case you were wondering how often three Horn Numbers follow one right after the other; the answer is, about once every two hours (216 rolls).  

Now if you add up any other high-vig wagering that you do, you will see that the cumulative cost just might be holding back your Precision-Shooting profit.

Why Common-Sense Won’t Change MOST Peoples Minds

The reason that sound reasoning usually fails to change gamblers minds about the way that they play or the way that they bet, is because they remember the one time when they actually made a huge hit on a quadruple Horn Parlay, or because they heard of a guy who is the friend of a friend who knows a guy that hit one a couple of months back.  Yes, it does happen occasionally, but for bets on random-rollers, it doesn’t happen often enough to justify the cost. 

Again, if you like the thrill of risking and losing over the boredom of steady and consistent winning, then nothing or no one will be able to change your mind, and it certainly won’t stop you until you run out of money.  This one fact alone guarantees that the casinos will be there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to take your money.

Even though the simplest of explanations like this one will not change most gamblers minds about the efficacy of high-cost, high-erosion wagers, if even one person benefits by taking a serious look at the REAL cost of their betting-methods and changes their approach to more closely match their current skill, then I have succeeded in getting you to think about what it is that you are doing with YOUR money!

Crazy Betting Actually HELPS Other Precision-Shooters

If you are the type of person who bets in the way that I just described, you may actually be helping other Precision-Shooters.  You accomplish this by helping to raise and maintain the tables “Hold” percentage. 

“Hold” is the gaming-industry term for the amount of money that the table “Wins” from all of the players.  It’s usually expressed as a percentage of the “Drop”.  The Drop is the amount of cash that players buy-in for, and that is literally “dropped” into the drop-box through the hole in the table in front of the boxman.  When the amount of cash that is dropped into the box is subtracted from the net amount of chips that the table-bank started with at the beginning of the shift, you have the table “Hold”.

This profit figure is calculated on a shift-to-shift basis, and is reviewed by the General Manager along with his Shift Managers on a daily basis.   Generally, a craps table will “hold” about 25% of the drop.  That means that the profit-margin for an average craps table is about ¼ of the total cash that it converts to chips.  Yes, that 25% profit-figure includes all the winners, all the losers, all the players that move from table to table and game to game with all of their chips, plus it includes all of the line-of-credit and front-money players, in addition to all of the coupons and match-play certificates that are redeemed at the tables.

People are almost always shocked when they hear that this 25% figure holds true year in and year out, because they’ve always read that craps and baccarat are some of the lowest-vig games in the house.  While that is true of simple low-cost PL and DP bets; the cyclic-erosion rate from all of the higher-vig bets like the Horn, World and Hardways bets add up to ensure that the craps tables remain quite profitable.

The more often that you make center-of-the-table bets on random-rollers, the more you ensure steady profits for the casino, and LOSSES for YOU!

By making those high-vig, low-occurrence bets, you actually permit your savvier Precision-Shooting brethren to extract MORE profit from their own shooting, without casino-management noticing any decline in actual table-profits.

Again, I’ll remind you:

The reason most skilled Precision-Shooters don’t make more money is because of the way that they BET, and NOT the way that they SHOOT!