Place terms are the odds you get for the place part of your bet, whether that is the place part of an each-way bet or whether you have a ‘ place only ’ bet. Obviously for placing, rather than winning you will get smaller odds than the win odds. The place terms for an event will be advertised on that event by the online bookmakers. The payout is where Place Bets take a clear lead over Come Bets in a number of ways even though Free Odds are supposed to give you the biggest payouts. On the first hit of the number, the Come Bet travels to the number and needs to be hit again before there is any payout. The Place Bet on the (9) pays out $14 on the first hit. Jun 21, 2013 When you bet to place your horse must finish first or second in order for you to cash a ticket. The payoffs are understandably lower on winning place bets because the place pool (all money wagered to place on a race minus the track takeout) is split between two horses – the horse that wins the race and the horse that finishes second.
This question comes up all the time. Which is a better bet in the game of Craps, a ‘Come Bet’ or a ‘Place Bet’?
Both Come Bets and Place Bets play vital rolls within different strategies and based on the particular strategy you’re using, you could make the case that either is better than the other, and not be wrong.
But, if you take a closer look at the characteristics of both Come and Place bets individually, you may be very surprised by the answer.
If you’re like me, when I was learning to play craps, I was taught to remember two things;
To this day, when a novice player walks up to the table, that’s what the dealer, and other novice players, tell them, “Place a Come Bet and back it up with odds. So, that’s what I did. Some days, when the table was hot, I’d walk away a pretty solid winner, but when the table was choppy or cold, I would usually lose and lose fast.
After playing craps for a while, you get to know who the pros are, and I started noticing that while some of them played the Pass Line, virtually none of them used Come Bets. They were Placing Bets instead and they were winning more often than I was. How could that be? I was taught the 2 most important keys to winning, or so I thought.
Adding to my confusion, was that when my Come Bet + Odds won for the same amount as their Place Bet, the dealer was delivering a lot more chips to me than them, until I realized that almost half the chips I was getting was from my bet coming down.
It was time to take a closer look at the real differences between Come Bets and Place Bets, and I was pretty astounded by what I found out.
Craps Secrets Tip: Use Place Bets instead of Come Bets unless they’re part of a larger overall strategy.
HOUSE EDGE
The first thing to do is to check the house edge on both Come Bets and Place Bets. The house edge is the casino advantage on the bet and what you can expect to happen in the long run. The chart below shows the difference between the two.
The clear winner here is Come Bets with Free Odds and at only 1.41% for the Come, the more you back in odds, the lower you can drive the house edge.
BUT… I soon realized, there’s a number of things that the house edge on these bets doesn’t take into account.
The house edge advantage of Come Bets over Place Bets is much more cloudy when you take these factors into consideration.
PAYOUTS
Let’s take a look at the payout differences between Come Bets and Place Bets. With a lower house edge, you would expect that Come Bets would clearly outperform Place Bets in this area. WELL, NOT SO FAST… Let’s take a look.
For our example, we’ll use a $10 minimum table and use the payouts for the box number (5). The place bet on the (5) carries a 4.00% house edge vs. the Come Bet at 1.41% + Free Odds. Should be easy, right?
You’re probably as surprised as I was at the results since everything I had been told was to key on Free Odds, Come Bets and House Edge. This also explains why the pros that were using Place Bets instead of Come Bets were winning significantly more than I was.
The payout is where Place Bets take a clear lead over Come Bets in a number of ways even though Free Odds are supposed to give you the biggest payouts.
Based on the findings above, unless you’re at a casino that offers at least 20X Odds AND have the bankroll to support $200+ bets, you’re significantly better off using Place Bets to win at the casino.
When I made the switch to Place Bets, I became a lot more consistent at leaving the casino with their money in my pockets rather than the other way around.
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If you have any questions, suggestions or recommendations, feel free to leave them in the comments section below.
In the meantime…
BEST OF LUCK AT THE CASINOS!!!