The Place to Win Bet in Craps

Craps has a number of bets. Players wager on one or more of the bets, which are then decided by the roll of the dice.

The Place to Win bet is a popular one in craps. Simply stated this bet wins if one of the point numbers is rolled before a 7. In the first roll of a session, called the come out roll, a point is established if 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10 are rolled. The Place to Win bet comes into play after the point is established. Players can wager that a specified number from 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10 will be rolled before a 7. Players can bet on more than one of these numbers as well. A bet on each number is treated as a separate bet.

The Place to Win bet can be placed in two ways. The numbers on which this bet can be placed are displayed in bold in a row on the online craps layout. Below this row are two narrower rows. One row has BUY written below each number and the other row has WIN written below each number. BUY and WIN are the two different ways to placing this wager. In online craps often the payouts are also listed alongside.

The numbers 4 and 10 have the same probabilities of winning and the same payouts and are therefore being discussed together. When the player wants to bet on 4 being rolled before 7, he places his chips on the WIN cell below number 4. The payout for this wager is 9 to 5. This implies that if the player wagers $5 on this bet and the wins then he will get $9 plus his original wager. The true odds for this bet are 2 to 1. This results in the bet having a house edge of 6.67%. The player has the option of buying the true odds from the online casino. In that event if wagers $5 and wins he will get $10 plus his original wager. The penalty or price that the player has to pay for buying the odds is a 5% commission on his winnings to the online casino. Since the house edge is otherwise 6.67% it is worthwhile to pay the 5% commission and buy the odds. In order to buy the odds for 4 the player has to place his chips on the BUY cell below number 4.

Similarly the numbers 5 and 9 have the same probabilities of winning and the same payouts. The payout for this wager is 7 to 5 for the WIN bet. The true odds are 3 to 2. Therefore the house edge on this bet is 4.00%. It is possible to buy the odds for this bet as well by paying a 5% commission. However since the house edge is less than 5% it would be foolish to do so.

In the same manner the numbers 6 and 8 have the same probabilities of winning and the same payouts. The payout for this wager is 7 to 6 for the WIN bet. The true odds are 6 to 5. Therefore the house edge on this bet is 1.52%. Again it would be foolish to buy the odds for this wager. Of all the Place to Win bets the most favorable is wagering on 6 or 8 to WIN, without buying the odds. In fact the 1.52% house edge makes this wager a very popular one in online craps.