Why Is There All This Hatred for Don't Bettors in Craps?

As I pointed out, discountgambling.net has a good article on card craps, and how the Don't Pass is better with any system that doesn't feed back in the card properly. Not much of a count is needed if you want to improve your odds well into the positive (simply counting high and low cards seems to work).

Course, you may choose not to play on such a table. But the math is quite simple and the effect quite large. I have no idea if the table is still alive.

Quote: bbvk05

Also, I play a lot of card craps in California. The house edge on Pass is much higher and house edge on Don't is much lower than with dice. You'd actually be sacrificing a lot of money to play pass there.

Quote: goatcabin

Huh? How do you figure that?
I've played at Cache Creek (with two decks of 36 cards), Colusa Casino (with two sets of six cards) and I'm going to play at Jackson Rancheria (possible this week), with one set of six cards, and with none of those systems is there any "difference in the difference" between pass and don't pass.

Quote: bbvk05

Some casinos, specifically vejas, play out of an automatic shuffler. Even minor card counting yields great results. Wizard has a post on it somewhere on the wizard of odds site.

But what does that have to do with your contention that, with card craps, the don't pass is much more favorable than the pass?
Cheers,
Alan Shank
Woodland, CA

Quote: goatcabin

But what does that have to do with your contention that, with card craps, the don't pass is much more favorable than the pass?
Cheers,
Alan Shank
Woodland, CA

The discountgambling.com article explains it, so read that if you care. He calculates that Don't Pass has EV of +0.9% if the player flat bets with full 10x odds, as configured. You can achieve even higher with basic counting. The basic principle is that getting high and low points requires certain cards and that the likely and small removal of certain cards hugely impacts the odds of achieving a point. Read the article for more.

If true, why would casinos offer this game? First of all, though unlikely, I would never put it past a casino to not understand their own game. Second, the player EV on pass line bets with full odds drops to -3.9% on a Vejas cardcraps table for the same reasons as listed above. These tables MURDER the passline players, 99% of whom do not know any better. Like a full pay duces wild VP machine that could theoretically yield a player EV of +0.7%, the casinos actually make money off of them due to idiotic players. Accordingly, I would bet that the vejas card craps tables have a higher hold than standard dice tables because they kill passline players. Why would casino management get rid of a hugely profitable table?

I don't know any of this for sure, obviously. The math in the article looks pretty good, but my hold/profit stuff above is just speculation. Also, the place that only uses 36 cards should be hugely susceptible to counting if it works like Vejas.

Quote: bbvk05

The discountgambling.com article explains it, so read that if you care. He calculates that Don't Pass has EV of +0.9% if the player flat bets with full 10x odds, as configured. You can achieve even higher with basic counting. The basic principle is that getting high and low points requires certain cards and that the likely and small removal of certain cards hugely impacts the odds of achieving a point. Read the article for more.

OK, I see my problem Here's your original statement: "Also, I play a lot of card craps in California. The house edge on Pass is much higher and house edge on Don't is much lower than with dice. You'd actually be sacrificing a lot of money to play pass there."

Since I have played card craps under two different systems, neither of which has a "non-replacement" issue, I did not understand that you were referring only to the "shoe" system at Viejas, using a CSM. I read the excellent article at discountgamlbing.

If that casino realizes that people are recognizing favorable situations and changing their odds bets, they will probably change things. I wonder whether they set their system up that way in order to, basically, cheat people, because many more people bet "right" than "wrong", or make mostly place bets. If they are alleging that the probabilities are the same as dice craps... Otherwise, I don't see why they would set up a system that requires several decks and a CSM, since it's so easy to set up a simple system like the (defunct) one they used at Colusa or the one they're reportedly using at Jackson Rancheria. (I still haven't gotten off my ass and gone up there.)
Thanks,
Alan Shank
Woodland, CA

You may have a point, we may misunderstand each other. Vejas uses a continuous shuffler machine that they put the used cards in every time, which is what I mean by CSM. However, it is impossible for the last 6 cards removed to be the cards coming out in these CSMs due to the shelf system they use. Thus they are effectively removed from play.

What type of shuffling does the casinos you've been to use?

Quote: bbvk05

You may have a point, we may misunderstand each other. Vejas uses a continuous shuffler machine that they put the used cards in every time, which is what I mean by CSM. However, it is impossible for the last 6 cards removed to be the cards coming out in these CSMs due to the shelf system they use. Thus they are effectively removed from play.

What type of shuffling does the casinos you've been to use?

I have played at two NorCal casinos -- Colusa and Cache Creek. Colusa no longer has craps. Their system was very simple and didn't involve any shuffling. They had two sets of six numbered rectangles and two sets of cards, Ace through six. One set was blue, the other red. The cards were placed face down in the rectangles. The "shooter" rolled a red die and a blue one. The die result for each "pointed" to the corresponding rectangle, and that card was turned over, giving the result. After each "roll", the cards were shuffled around a bit, so that no one knew which card was in which box. So, there was never an issue of replacement, and the odds were exactly the same as with dice directly giving the result. Of course, they had to have a custom felt with the rectangles for the cards.

At Cache Creek, they have two 36-card decks, each card with a picture of two dice. One deck is in the shuffler while the other is used for a "roll". Here again, there is no replacement issue, and the probabilities are identical to dice craps.

There is yet another system in use at Jackson Rancheria, involving just six cards in six numbered rectangles. Both dice thrown "point" at a card; if both point at the same card, it's a hardway. Very simple, just like dice.

Although the Cache Creek system works OK, I prefer the six-card or twelve-card methods, because everything is visible right in front of you. However, Cache Creek is twenty minutes from my house, Jackson Rancheria about ninety.

Since it's relatively easy to set up a system with no replacement issue, I speculated that Vieja may have devised their system specifically to gain a larger advantage over passline players.
Cheers,
Alan Shank
Woodland, CA