All online gaming software providers offer the game of craps and players have to decide where it is most advantageous for them to wager. Two factors are important in this regard. One is the payouts offered on different bets and the other is the minimum and maximum wagers permitted. This article discusses these issues for Microgaming, Playtech and Cryptologic.
The importance of payouts is self evident. The problem in craps is the large number of bets offered and if players would compare the payouts for all bets it would be a tedious task. However players should realize that there are many bets in craps that have very high house edges and are termed sucker bets. There is no point in comparing the payouts offered on these bets because the player should not be wagering on them anyway. The craps bets that are worth comparing are the pass line bets, the come bets, the place bets, the big 6/8 bets, the buy bets and the field bets.
All the three software providers offer the same payouts for the pass line bets, the come bets and the place bets. These are the most played bets and therefore software providers stick to the payouts offered in land casinos. There is a difference in the big 6/8 bets. Microgaming and Playtech offer a payout of 1 to 1, whereas Cryptologic offers a payout of 7 to 6. Hence Cryptologic offers more favorable payouts in this case. There is also a difference in the field bets. In this bet Cryptologic and Playtech offer a payout of 2 to 1 for a wager on totals of 2 and 12 and a payout of 1 to 1 on the other totals listed. Microgaming offers a payout of 3 to 1 on a total of 12 and the same payouts on other totals. Craps players should narrow down their bets to one or two and then compare the payouts for those bets only otherwise they will end up confused.
Minimum and maximum wagers are important. Low rollers and new players look for the lowest minimum wagers because they have small bankrolls and want to stretch them as far as possible. High rollers look for large absolute payouts and therefore want to place the largest possible bets. Hence they look for the highest maximum wagers. Microgaming allows wagers from 1 to 100 credits. Though these limits are not displayed up front, the chip size starts from 1 and goes up to 100 and therefore players cannot make a mistake.
There is a slight problem with Cryptologic. The betting range is from 5 credits to 100 credits. But the chips provided range from 1 credit to 500 credits. Since the limits are not displayed on the screen players may choose chips outside the range. When this happens the wager is automatically adjusted to the minimum or maximum wager and the player is informed by a text message on the screen. If he is not alert he can end up wagering the wrong amount.
There are several issues that need clarification in Playtech Craps. The range is displayed as from 0 to 300 credits. The chip size varies from 0.01 to 25 credits. Players can place wagers in multiples of 0.01. But there is a problem with this. In case of fractional payouts the casino will round off in its favor and the player will be a loser. Hence it makes sense not to wager less than 1 credit. Players who want to wager more than 25 credits, say 200 credits, will have to select the 25 credits chip and click 8 times to reach a bet of 200 credits. This is inconvenient. There is another issue with Playtech. Though the maximum bet has been specified as 300 credits most individual bets have lower sub limits which become apparent only when the player is placing a wager in excess of the sub limit. The bets that offer larger payouts have smaller sub limits.
Among the three software providers discussed Microgaming Craps is recommended for new players.
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