Learning to play blackjack using perfect basic strategy will reduce a casino's edge to a mere 0.80% - the second lowest among all table games - and slightly to far better odds than those offered at roulette tables and slot machines, respectively.

• Which Has Better Odds Craps Or Blackjack
• Better Odds Craps Or Roulette

• Craps is the clear winner here if you play it right. Here is why: With blackjack you are playing against the house and against odds. The dealer has certain rules which they must follow and there are certain number of cards in the deck, etc.
• To a player not counting they are just as likely to be in a bad count as they are in a good one, so they gain ZERO advantage just for playing blackjack.
• To fully get into the game of blackjack, you have to understand and if possible, master the blackjack odds and house advantages. It is very crucial to know how the casino gets their edge and how it helps them win. It's important to be aware of the blackjack odds like the odds of being dealt a blackjack or the odds of hitting a 10.
• For instance, odds can be related either as 2-1 or 2 to 1, where a 1 credit bet returns 2 credits. In other words, 2 to 1 odds returns the original 1 credit bet and a 1 credit profit. The Best Craps Bets. The best bets in craps are the pass line bet, taking the odds, the don’t pass bar, the come bet, and placing the 6 or the 8.

Thread Rating:

Blackjack	12 votes (66.66%)
Craps	6 votes (33.33%)

18 members have voted

Counting has nothing to do with it.
The advantage goes to the player whenever a disproportionate number of tens and aces remain to be dealt from the shoe.

And to the house when there are less aces/tens remaining. This is a 50/50 on which way the shoe will go where it's just as likely to favor the player as it is the house. The only difference when counting is the ability to identify these situations. To a player not counting they are just as likely to be in a bad count as they are in a good one, so they gain ZERO advantage just for playing blackjack.

Though you will still lose more than 50% of the time, the likelihood for a strong hand actually exists before the deal when the shoe is rich.

You're expected to lose 48% of the time, push 9% of the time, and win 43% of the time, and that's from the Wizard. The likely hood for a strong hand is equal to that of a weak hand before the deal. Taking counting out you again have no idea which situation you're in, and they're both just as likely. Again, you gain no advantage from just playing blackjack as you find yourself in poor situations just as often as good situations.

It is not like establishing a point shooting from the Don'ts, becasue a player statistical advantage cannot exist before the initial roll for the hand.

Given we've already established the shoe is equally as likely to be 'good' or 'bad' for the player, and that a non counting player has no way to identify this, all things are equal. They are just as likely to be in a good shoe as a bad. This means when they place their $10 bet, the original house edge of let's say -.5% they had on the first hand, is the same house edge on the last hand. -.5% all the way through the shoe...

Which Has Better Odds Craps Or Blackjack

The HE of a Pass line bet 'with odds' is not 1.41%. Even at 1X odds, the HE goes below 1%. At the typical 3x4x5x, it goes down to 0.374%...

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with this... We can calculate the EV quite easily... It's a summation of all of your bets and their respective edges.
Blackjack (assuming .5% HE and $10 bet): EV = bet * house edge = ($10 * -.005) = -.05.
Craps (assuming $10 bet and $100 odds): EV = SUM(bet * house edge) = ($10 * -.0141) + ($100 * 0.00%) = -.141 + 0 = -.141
No matter how much odds you put down, you placed your original $10 wager on the pass line with a house edge of 1.41%. Your odds are even money bets (as everyone knows and agrees). Placing a billion dollar even money wager doesn't change the odds of your original bet.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with this...Placing a billion dollar even money wager doesn't change the odds of your original bet.

I'm glad you're being respectful LOL - well, hell, that's never funny on the internet, what am I laughing about!?
We do disagree, and we have always disagreed respectfully.
The way I like to say it when pondering your point is, with free odds in Craps 'you can change the HE but not the EV'.
I do not agree that the HE stays the same. You could argue that they are separate bets and should not be thought of as a single bet, which technically is correct but, to me, not reality when the odds bet is made without fail.

I think that's a matter of personal preference. For me, the amount of variance at BJ is plenty enough excitement. Playing $10-15 a hand, I have lost $100 in one hour, or won $200 in two hours. Granted in the looooong run you'll be negative, but there is plenty of opportunity for short-run exciting wins. I don't keep records of lifetime net win loss, so even if I'm net down for a few years, i still have positive memories of those winning sessions.

I see your point, and of course people win often enough, and it might be enough for you. But the SD of BJ is known [just over 1], so it is not shooting from the hip to say the variance is low.
Sally, you are talking in riddles again ... let me read that again and I might comment.

I'm glad you're being respectful LOL - well, hell, that's never funny on the internet, what am I laughing about!?
We do disagree, and we have always disagreed respectfully.
The way I like to say it when pondering your point is, with free odds in Craps 'you can change the HE but not the EV'.
I do not agree that the HE stays the same. You could argue that they are separate bets and should not be thought of as a single bet, which technically is correct but, to me, not reality when the odds bet is made without fail. ...

I'm glad we can discuss in good fun. It's never my intent to upset anyone, and I do have a lot of respect for your craps knowledge I've seen you express through your posts. Where you lose me though is where you say 'you can change the HE but not the EV.' These two are 100% correlated, thus one can't change without the other changing.
Example (game doesn't even matter):
HE = -.5%... you bet $10.. your EV = HE*bet = -.005*10 = -.05
If we change the HE, it WILL change the EV... HE = -1.0%, you bet $10 (again this could be on any game)... your EV = HE*bet = -.010*10 = -.10
Your EV is the summation of your different house edges applied to the different amounts bet. So say you make 3 bets at 1 time (again on any game in the casino):
Bet 1 = -.5% * $10
Bet 2 = -1.0% * $10
Bet 3 = 0% * $10
...Your EV = (Bet 1 EV) + (Bet 2 EV) + (Bet 3 EV) = (-.005*10) + (-.010*10) + (0*10) = -.05 + -.10 + 0 = -.15
You can see how this 3rd bet can be related to a craps odds wager that has 0% HE. Again, doesn't matter if it's a billion dollars or 1 dollar, since it has 0% HE, it has 0% EV, in the long run.

You're expected to lose 48% of the time, push 9% of the time, and win 43% of the time, and that's from the Wizard. The likely hood for a strong hand is equal to that of a weak hand before the deal. Taking counting out you again have no idea which situation you're in, and they're both just as likely. Again, you gain no advantage from just playing blackjack as you find yourself in poor situations just as often as good situations.

Forget counting.
This is not about whether the player knows his situation.
And forget about poor situations.
I simply stated, there are situations when the shoe is in condition to favor the player on the next hand.
Whether one is counting or not, when a shoe reaches a rich condition, the player had the edge for the next hand, before he even places his bet, whether he knows it or not.
This is impossible in craps where every initial hand begins at a disadvantage.
Although the dealer has the same chance of getting a strong hand as the player when the shoe is rich, the player still has the edge.
As I said before, the player will lose more than 50% of these hands, but he still has the advantage
First, there is the increased likelihood of a blackjack.
If the dealer gets one, the player loses one unit.
If the player gets one, he wins 1.5 units.
A disproportionate advantage to the player in an equal environment.
Stand conditions become much stronger against low dealer up cards, because the dealer has to hit with a shoe rich in tens and aces.
Doubles and splits become more favorable when the shoe is rich.

I'm glad we can discuss in good fun. It's never my intent to upset anyone, and I do have a lot of respect for your craps knowledge I've seen you express through your posts. Where you lose me though is where you say 'you can change the HE but not the EV.' These two are 100% correlated, thus one can't change without the other changing.

Hmmm, well you do seem to be stuck on this and it surprises me a bit that you are unaware that this is well covered elsewhere.* It does require combining bets, perhaps you call foul on that.
The way you can change the HE, but not the EV, is by a bet combination of a negative expectation bet with a free odds bet.
If you combine two negative expectation bets, it can be said that you can change the HE but can only increase the EV [the absolute value ]; a fact which escapes many a hedging player.
*for Craps, see http://wizardofodds.com/games/craps/basics/#toc-TheOdds [combined house edge area]

Forget counting.
This is not about whether the player knows his situation.
And forget about poor situations.
I simply stated, there are situations when the shoe is in condition to favor the player on the next hand.
Whether one is counting or not, when a shoe reaches a rich condition, the player had the edge for the next hand, before he even places his bet, whether he knows it or not.
This is impossible in craps where every initial hand begins at a disadvantage.

My point is IT'S THE SAME. Yes the player has random times when not counting they're the advantage... and this doesn't happen in craps.
BUT
The player also has the SAME number of random times when not counting they're at an even further disadvantage... and this doesn't happen in craps.
So your argument that blackjack could be better because you can get an 'advantage' sometimes (without counting) is erroneous, because the same non-counting players also play with disadvantages they also don't know about.

Hmmm, well you do seem to be stuck on this and it surprises me a bit that you are unaware that this is well covered elsewhere.* It does require combining bets, perhaps you call foul on that.
The way you can change the HE, but not the EV, is by a bet combination of a negative expectation bet with a free odds bet.
If you combine two negative expectation bets, it can be said that you can change the HE but can only increase the EV [the absolute value ]; a fact which escapes many a hedging player.
*for Craps, see http://wizardofodds.com/games/craps/basics/#toc-TheOdds [combined house edge area]

Better Odds Craps Or Roulette

The bet made, bet resolved stays at 1.41% no matter what, even if you lay odds. The 'Roll' that is .42% I believe a number being taken out of context when saying 'the house edge is lowered.' When the bet is made, and when it's collected, by either side, it's 1.41%, and the odds is 0.00%. The Roll % I don't believe is indicative of the House Edge placed on a bet.
With the confusion surrounding this, it would probably be best to get it from the horses mouth (so to say) and hope that Mike would chime in possibly explaining the page/numbers a bit more.

The question “Does craps or blackjack offer better odds” was posed to me at breakfast this morning with Ryan.

I said “Blackjack”.

Ryan replied, “I’ll make you a $10 bet that Craps has better odds than Blackjack”.

I took that bet.

The problem with this bet is a common one in business… it’s a very poorly defined contract. We did not write it down. We didn’t define a number of key terms. We didn’t say which situation this should apply to.

Here is some of the issues:

• Real life or hypothetical? Hypothetically, Craps could approach nearly 49.999% odds of winning for the player if the player only played the pass line bet than went 1,000 time higher on the Odds bet. In real life, the very best deal we could find was a casino in Vegas offering 100 to 1 on the odds bet. Hypothetically, a perfect Blackjack player could count cards and have somewhere around a 51.5% chance of winning. Which leads to the next point…
• Is this just a one time bet or over the course of an entire day of playing the game? I was thinking it was over the course of time… no one just plays one hand of Blackjack, you sit down and play for awhile. Ryan thought it was just one individual bet inside of one single toss of the dice for Craps.
• I also simply have never played Craps and had to have him explain the structure to me. Ryan seemed more knowledgeable in Craps, but not an expert. He did not seem to know much about Blackjack, and I know just enough to be mildly dangerous.
• In a casino or at home? I think we both meant in a casino, but this was not defined.
• Bad players vs good players vs optimal players vs superhuman players? Most people who play both craps and poker are not good players and lose significant money at both. This article from UNLV analyzes this a bit… a craps player playing pass / come gives the house a 1.4% advantage, but a player playing craps with pass/come with double odds only gives the house a 0.6% advantage. The average blackjack player gives the house 2% odds, a good blackjack player only gives the house a 0.5% advantage, and a card counting player actually has a positive 1% advantage for himself. Ryan tried to counter the card counting player by saying theoretically a superhuman craps player could control how to roll the dice like a bowler bowls, but there is no real life examples of this.

I argued vociferously that most people can be trained to do a basic card counting system, therefore blackjack is the best game in a casino for the optimal player. I also said that an average player will do better with blackjack by just following the dealer’s advice and only give the house a 1% advantage, whereas the average craps player usually does lots of weird bets that make the game more fun but give the house a 10-20% advantage.

Ryan argued equally strongly that card counting is not allowed by casinos and we should only look at a single portion of a single bet (the 50-50 ratio of the Odds bet in craps) vs a single hand of blackjack.

I think the real lesson here is the vital importance of only making agreements that both parties have a much stronger understanding of than what Ryan and I had here. It was fun though to debate and learn more about each game though.