5 Bankroll Management Tips for Practical Craps Players

Many gamblers are unaware of how to manage money in craps. It can be a complicated game, so this isn’t a major surprise.

What is a surprise, however, is that many don’t try to learn more about craps bankroll management. Bankroll management applies to every game in the casino, and possibly even more so in craps.

If you aren’t careful, you could get yourself in trouble in the blink of an eye. That’s a nightmare scenario for a gambler, so let’s make sure you don’t go down that road.

There are tons of different ways to better manage your craps bankroll. One of which is using a safe and reputable casino, such as the ones below.

When it comes to craps money management, one of the absolute best ways to conserve your spending is to sign up at the best low minimum deposit casinos.

A lot of gambling sites will require you to deposit a higher amount, which might be something you are not comfortable with.

The good news is you don’t have to give into their demands. Instead, you can pivot to the low minimum deposit sites so you can have better craps bankroll management.

They might require you to use a payment method you usually don’t, but that’s not a major barrier for most people. It might even be as simple as using some of the cryptocurrency you still have from the 2016 Bitcoin boom.

If you do that, you can sign up at Ignition Casino for just $10. Tether users can knock that price down to a mere five bucks as well.

As we will discuss, there are many great ways to better manage money in craps. Low minimum deposit casinos just make it easier to practice good craps money management.

The biggest mistake you can make in any gambling game is to play with the rent money. Regardless of whether you have an edge or not, you shouldn’t risk money you need for something else.

It would be crazy to get evicted from your apartment because you didn’t practice good craps bankroll management. Yet it happens all the time.

Even if you’re an advantage gambler, like a card counter or a poker player, you need to have money set aside for the sole purpose of gambling. In the short run, anything can happen, including going broke when you have an edge.

If you’re behind on your child support payments, if you’re deep in debt, or if your car payment is late, you can’t afford to gamble on anything – craps included. Get some financial integrity going on before you budget money for frivolous expenses like dice games.

And don’t get me wrong. I’m pro-gambling. I love craps. But I’m pro-responsible-gambling. Don’t be afraid to use a craps strategy with a low bankroll.

If you’re playing with money you need for something else, you’re gambling irresponsibly. These craps bankroll tips are incredibly important, but there’s even more that you should be aware of.

Familiarizing yourself with unwritten craps rules is a good idea as well.

New to Craps? Be Sure to Follow These 10 Unwritten Rules

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The classic craps bankroll strategy for any casino gambler is to quit while you’re ahead. This is impossible to implement unless you decide in advance how far ahead you want to get.

Also, if you want to avoid going broke, you need to know how much money you’re willing to lose before quitting.

The problem with most craps bankroll tips is that they try to give you the impression that you’re somehow changing the probability of winning and/or losing with this technique.

The reality is that stop loss limits and win goals do nothing to alter the underlying probabilities of the game.

They can help you manage money in craps for the short run, but they won’t make a long-term winner out of you when you’re playing a negative expectation game like craps.

Here’s an example of a sensible stop loss limit and win goal strategy.

Either way, you’ll still walk away from the table with a little (or a lot of) money in your pocket. That’s a worthwhile goal for a purely recreational gambler.

You decide how much you’re willing to win or lose based on what’s exciting for you. I wouldn’t be happy walking away from a craps table having won only $30, even though I’d be ahead.

I want a big enough win that I can brag about it. I want to strut around a little bit. Therefore, your stop loss limits and win goals should be decided based on what works for you psychologically.

Most of the bets at the craps table are sucker bets with a huge house edge. These are the bets on the inside of the table, and some of them have a house edge of well over 10%.

The most basic bets in craps – pass, don’t pass, come, don’t come, and the odds bet – all have some of the lowest house edges in the casino.

Your money will last longer if you stick with bets that have a low house edge. So, here’s one way to look at it.

You can estimate how much money you’ll lose per hour by multiplying your hourly action by the house edge. And your hourly action is just the product of your average bet size and the number of bets you make per hour.

An average craps player might make 30 pass line bets per hour at $5 per bet. That’s $150/hour in action. The house edge for a pass line bet is 1.41%, so your expected loss per hour is only $2.12.

But suppose you like the “any craps” bet. You can place this bet 100 times per hour because you don’t have to wait for a come out roll to place it. That’s $500/hour in action. And the house edge is 11.11% for that bet.

The expected loss per hour for the “any craps” bet is $55.55. $300 won’t last long with a house edge that high, especially since you’re placing three times as many bets per hour.

Remember – your goal as a recreational gambler is to maximize the amount of fun you have in exchange for the money you’re losing. You can’t do that if you go broke fast. (You can only do it if you go broke slowly.)

One of your goals as a craps player is to be in the game when a winning streak happens. Craps is well-known for being one of the streakiest games in the casino, in fact. But you can’t get on a winning streak if you’re broke.

So how much money should you bring to the table with you?

Let’s look at it from the perspective of someone who’s placing the pass line bet every time it’s possible, but also someone who wants to bet 2x odds. You should have enough money for 30 bets per hour if you want the best chance of staying in the game until you get on a lucky streak.

At a table where you’re planning to bet $5 on the pass line and $10 on the odds bet, you’re looking at $15 per bet (cumulative). That means you should take $450 to that table with you.

With 30x the pass line + odds bet, you’re unlikely to go broke in an hour at the table. And you have a reasonable chance of hitting a hot streak at some point during that hour.

If you want to plan for more time at the craps table than that, just multiply the number of hours you want to play by the 30x pass line + odds bet.

Gambling for an insignificant amount of money is pointless. If you’re a billionaire, why would you care what happens at a craps table where you’re betting $1 on the come out roll?

On the other hand, if you sit down with the only $45 that you have, you’ll probably enjoy the action at such a low-stakes craps table.

So, keep that in mind next time you’re planning a trip to the casino to play craps. What’s your gulp limit, and how does it affect your craps bankroll management?

The best live craps sites are a good place to visit, especially if you think you can go on a hot streak.

Craps bankroll management is not going to turn a losing player into a winning player, especially not in a negative expectation game like this. It can increase your chances of walking away a winner and eliminate the chance of walking away broke.

But it won’t turn a negative expectation game into a positive expectation game, no matter what some gambling pundits might have you believe.

You can probably have a lot of fun for an hour or more if you make sure you have 30x the size of the pass line bet and odds bet combined.

If you’re a dice control enthusiast who wants to reduce the risk of going broke before her edge kicks in, you should have 100x the pass line bet and odds bet combined.

Other than that, it’s mostly common sense. Don’t gamble with money you can’t afford to lose. Stop playing when you’re no longer having fun. And avoid the sucker bets.

If you’re looking for the best craps bankroll strategy, I recommend reading more about the best craps bets.

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Footnote:

• Reference to the Bitcoin boom in 2016 is from Business Insider.