Hedge Bets Increase the House Edge

Many craps players often believe that by using hedge bets they’ll be able to protect their main craps bets with high-payoff auxiliary wagers. More, when actually a hedge bet turns out they believe they’ve discovered the great secret the bosses don't want anyone to know about the craps bets.

Here is an example: make a Pass craps bet of $10 and hedge it with $2 on Any Craps. Now, if you hit a 7 or 11, you get back $10 from which you lose $2, so the win is of $8. Without making a hedge bet you'd pick up $10. If you’d hit a 2, 3 or 12 you get back $14 and lose $10 for a gain of $4; without the hedge bet, you'd be out $10. Interesting isn’t it?

On a 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10, Any Craps loses $2 at once. Considering the point roll result, the ultimate impact is that you're up $8 or down $12, rather than plus or minus $10. So, when you sit and think about it, the $2 you don't win when the shooter makes the point, and the extra $2 you lose when the 7 shows aren't as irrelevant as certain strong craps players declare.

To point up this idea let’s take a simplified secondary craps bet. Consider first a $1 craps bet on either the 3 or 11. After 36 statistically-correct rolls, any of these craps bets will win $15 twice and lose $1 - 34 times, so we have a net loss of $4. Further, let’s assume you make a Pass craps bet of $10. This means a $10 x 8 times if a 7 or 11 is rolled and if a 2, 3 or 12 is rolled you lose $10 x 4 times. On any of the other 24 results you won’t lose or win. The net win will be of $40 (80 – 40).

So, this craps strategy is comparable to paying the casino a commission on $20 flat, then being able to take only half as much odds as would be allowed betting $20 on Pass.