Place bet strategies

I'm primarily a pass line/come bettor, but due to my suspicion of being cheated I have been altering my betting strategy each time I play. But I'm curious about place bet strategies, in particular how do you press them up? I have been placing $110 inside then when one hits, take them all down and place $22 inside. Then press those 1 unit each time. I'm kind of envious of the place bettors who full press several hits, because they make a ton of money on a hot roll (of course I know they lose a lot when the table is cold). Anyway, I'm interested to hear about your favorite place bet strategies.

Quote: Headlock

but due to my suspicion of being cheated

please explain...

Quote: SOOPOO

please explain...

Seconded.

Some months back, I wrote about a similar strategy. $88 inside, dropping to $22 inside after the first hit. The first time it worked great. After that, it seemed I never saw shooter with more than two rolls...

Anyway, I too am curious why you think you were cheated, as well as what it has to do with the strategy.

Quote: Headlock

I'm primarily a pass line/come bettor, but I'm curious about place bet strategies, in particular how do you press them up? I have been placing $110 inside then when one hits, take them all down and place $22 inside. Then press those 1 unit each time. I'm kind of envious of the place bettors who full press several hits, because they make a ton of money on a hot roll (of course I know they lose a lot when the table is cold). Anyway, I'm interested to hear about your favorite place bet strategies.

Edited to remove the cheating part. That was another thread. I'm just curious about place bet strategies.

Ok. Strategies:

When I play $88 inside and drop to $22, I then take the next two hits, then press, in pairs, every second hit.

I tend to sit tight when the 5/9 gets to 35, or the 6/8 gets to 42.

There's just something cool and sexy about dropping one white and picking up two greens....

I only place the 6 and 8 and let the other numbers fill up with come bets. I have never gotten my head around the strategy of cutting back your winning bet. I always stay flat or play a progressive system. How fast I increase my bets depends on my how big my bankroll and kahunas are that day. I will cut my bet back once the shooter 7 outs.

Quote: kenarman

I have never gotten my head around the strategy of cutting back your winning bet.

Here's the rationalle: Although $88 is a lot to lose if the player doesn't hit ANY inside number, putting up $88 then dropping to $22 means that, once the shooter has hit at least one number, you've got a $6 profit

There are 18 combinations of inside numbers, vs 6 combinations of seven, so there's a 75% chance of hitting it.

Oh, sure, once he hits an inside number, ther is STILL a 75% chance of hitting another before a 7-out, so why reduce the bets?

The 7-out is starting to become "due".

Are you thinking that's crazy? You're right, but this is where emotion and the gambler's falicy kicks in. Sure, that makes no sense logically. But if you only use logic, you wouldn't go to the casino in the first place!

---

By the way, when I don't use the $88, drop to $22 strategy, I tend to just bet $12 each on 6/8 and start pressing both 1 unit after the second hit.

Quote: Headlock

I'm primarily a pass line/come bettor

... So am I.
I do however also make place bets from time to time. Across, rarely? Inside Numbers, sometimes; 6and8 the most often.
I've usually had memorable Seven Outs immediately after Across and often had that dreaded Seven appear after placing the Inside Numbers ... so this tends to solve my problems about Pressing the bets.
I just pretty much now take the money if it hits and leave only the original place bet up. If I get a couple of the six or eight hits so much the better but I find that pressing the bet just isn't worth it with that dreaded Seven looming ominously.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Here's the rationalle: Although $88 is a lot to lose if the player doesn't hit ANY inside number, putting up $88 then dropping to $22 means that, once the shooter has hit at least one number, you've got a $6 profit

There are 18 combinations of inside numbers, vs 6 combinations of seven, so there's a 75% chance of hitting it.

Oh, sure, once he hits an inside number, ther is STILL a 75% chance of hitting another before a 7-out, so why reduce the bets?

The 7-out is starting to become "due".

Are you thinking that's crazy? You're right, but this is where emotion and the gambler's falicy kicks in. Sure, that makes no sense logically. But if you only use logic, you wouldn't go to the casino in the first place!

---

By the way, when I don't use the $88, drop to $22 strategy, I tend to just bet $12 each on 6/8 and start pressing both 1 unit after the second hit.

I'm with ya on that. As I said I will place $110, thereby collecting $35 if a 5,6,8 or 9 hits. Take it all down and place $22, I have a profit of $13, for that shooter anyway. The big hurt comes when you have an immediate seven out.

Sometimes, like kenarman said, I will place enough on the inside numbers to take odds on my come bets. For example, if I'm playing $5 come and 10x odds, I will place the 6 and 8 for $24. If it hits, the $28 payoff plus the $24 place bet will make the $50 odds on my come bet. Place the 5 and 9 for $20 and I need to drop $2 to take odds on the come bet.

Generally speaking, regressing bets reduces volatility, while progressing them increases it. The longer a streak of wins, the better the progressive bettor does, but on WLWL patterns the regressor does better. Here's a post I made on another forum:

Aside from the differing degrees of volatility of the different bets themselves, the primary source of variance in craps comes from varying the bet amounts. Some people increase bet amounts after a win, some after a loss, some use a regression to "lock up" a win.

To illustrate the "continuum of progressiveness", so to speak, I wrote a computer program to compare some different betting strategies for placing the 6. We will call them "the four guys". Everyone starts at $18. Guy #1 then regresses twice before going back up, then regresses again. Guy #2 increases his bets a unit at a time, but only every other bet. Guy #3 progresses a unit at a time every bet. Guy #4 doubles first and then adds $18 each bet. So, their bet series are:

Guy #1 18,12,6,12,18,24,18,12,6,12,18, etc.
Guy #2 18,18,24,24,30,30,36,36,42,42,48, etc.
Guy #3 18,24,30,36,42,48,54,60,66,72,78, etc.
Guy #4 18,36,54,72,90,108,126,144,162,180,198, etc.

Each progression was expressed as an algorithm, so it could go indefinitely.

My program examines the net outcome for each of these "Guys" after different numbers of hits, always assuming that the next bet is lost. So, they all lose $18 if they lose the first bet. If they win the first, then lose, only Guy #1 has a profit, since he locked up his initial win. Here is a chart of all four Guys' net results for zero through 20 hits, along with the probabilities of each number of hits:


"Mr. Conservative" is still ahead after two hits, but then falls behind fast. It only takes Guy #4 three hits to take the overall lead, but he doesn't net a profit until two hits, so he's losing money almost 80% of the time.

The program also figured the weighted net outcome for each guy for zero through ten hits:

Guy 0 weighted net is -0.413625
Guy 1 weighted net is -0.543476
Guy 2 weighted net is -0.639012
Guy 3 weighted net is -0.916979

This simply reflects the fact that the expectation is always edge * action; it also favors the lower bettors because it does not consider streaks longer than ten, which can occur.

I extended the program to simulate a series of place-6 bets and ran 10,000 sessions of 60 bets each. The overall W-L percentage was .453978, so the sample was slightly unfavorable. Each player experienced exactly the same bet results, since they were standing right next to each other, making the same bet but each in his own amount. It takes about 200 rolls to resolve 60 place bets on the six, so these sessions would take somewhere in the neighborhood of two hours.


The idea here is to isolate the effect of progressing/regressing bets by looking at just one bet at a time.

Cheers,
Alan Shank

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Here's the rationalle: Although $88 is a lot to lose if the player doesn't hit ANY inside number, putting up $88 then dropping to $22 means that, once the shooter has hit at least one number, you've got a $6 profit.

Although the math works out in the long run no matter how we bet dropping the bet still seems like a hard way to make any money. Put up $88 to make $6 with 75% chance of hitting it. $6 + $6 + $6 - $88 = -$70 on average for 4 rolls (I realize that this is simplified and doesn't allow for the rolling of the multiple winning numbers before the 7 out). A few bad rolls and you are down hundreds of dollars. A few numbers in a row and you are up $6 plus $7 plus $7 if it was the six or eight that hit, a little more if it was the five or nine.

Alan, your analysis is very interesting and informative.

Would you please explain what the "weighted net outcome for each guy for zero through ten hits" is?

The first time I tried this, I had less than an hour to kill. There was a string of shooters that hit only one inside number before a 7-out. NO shooter didn't hit it at least once. Only two shooters did better.

It was a slow grind, but while the rest of the table was getting killed, I made about $135.

I wrote about it here:
https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/gambling/betting-systems/1907-
how-to-win-at-a-cold-craps-and-be-ready-when-it-turns-hot/

By the way, I admist that, as systems go, this is as good / bad as any other. It is what it is...

DJ, the problem with the $88 inside/drop to $24 is the inevitable 7 out before a hit which will happen on average on one of every 4 come outs (18 ways to throw the inside number, 6 ways to throw the 7). Meanwhile, if a number hits, you have a six dollar profit before you take the bet down. At this point, your expected value per roll is (7 x 18 - 22 x 6) / 36 = -$6/36 = -.1667.

So, on average after 4 rolls, you will have a net profit of $18 and a loss of $88. You will have to make back $70 in the three rolls to make a profit, meaning that you will have to have 10 non-outside rolls to get to the break even point. I don't like the odds of this.

I do have a rather strange betting system when it comes to place bets at times. When the table appears to be particularly bad, I will put $2 each on the hard six and eight. The way I see it, the EV of the bet ($.1818) is then same as a $12 place six and eight with 6 times less risk. I will usually combine this with a come bet which will protect against the immediate seven out.

Otherwise, I only ever place the six and eight. I don't place other numbers.

Quote: Headlock

Alan, your analysis is very interesting and informative.

Would you please explain what the "weighted net outcome for each guy for zero through ten hits" is?

For each number of hits, zero through ten, add the outcome (-18 for zero) multiplied times the probability in the last column, then divide by the sum of all the probabilities. The "weighting" is the multiplying times the probability. You can see that the -18 carries more "weight" than the other outcomes, because it's more likely to occur.
Hope that explains it.
Cheers,
Alan Shank
Woodland, CA

Quote: goatcabin

For each number of hits, zero through ten, add the outcome (-18 for zero) multiplied times the probability in the last column, then divide by the sum of all the probabilities. The "weighting" is the multiplying times the probability. You can see that the -18 carries more "weight" than the other outcomes, because it's more likely to occur.
Hope that explains it.
Cheers,
Alan Shank
Woodland, CA

Thanks Alan. Yeah, I got that. But what does it mean?

Quote: Headlock

Thanks Alan. Yeah, I got that. But what does it mean?

It just means that, with average luck, the bettor who regresses expects to lose less than those who progress, and the more one progresses, the more one expects to lose. As I pointed out, this data is somewhat tilted in favor of the lower betting, because streaks of over ten wins are taken much better advantage of by more progression; OTOH, they are rare, as you can see. I should have had a "cumulative probability" column to show that zero to ten hits covers 99.983% of the possibilities.

The point of the whole thing is to show that different betting strategies do better with different outcome patterns.
Cheers,
Alan Shank
Woodland, CA

I tend to only place the 6/8. The HA on the 5 and 9 just annoys me way too much. In a standard session I'll place the 6/8 for 12 each then every other time press them one unit each together. In other words, I play the 6 and 8 as if they were one of the same.

Quote: goatcabin

I should have had a "cumulative probability" column to show that zero to ten hits covers 99.983% of the possibilities.

Even more telling, especially for bettors looking for trends in craps, is that the five-hits line covers north of 98% of the possibilities.