Yesterday I talked about a bet that I started using at the table called the big six or big eight bet. This is actually one of the more common bets but the odds are not that spectacular. It is also a bet that is different than many people would assume and has some rules to it that I will explain next. I actually won with it and it wasn’t that bad of a bet.

Basically, you wager some chips on a spot on the table that has a Big 6 and 8 spot at the corner of the pass line. You are betting that the dice will land on a six or eight before a seven. Note that you are either betting on 6 or 8, but not both of them. You can also cancel your bet at any time if you start feeling too nervous about it. Remember not to confuse this bet with a Place 6 or Place 8 bet, in where you must roll a 6 or 8 on the very next roll or lose the bet.

So here are the odds and probabilities: If you win the bet, you are paid even money or 1:1 odds. The odds of the dice actually landing on these numbers is 5 in 36 on any given roll (whereas rolling a 7 has odds of 6 in 36). The actual odds are also 6:5 and the house edge is actually a whopping 9.09%. A house edge this high is actually terrible since the casino is majorly profiting on this bet. The fact that I actually won well with this bet the other day was only due to pure luck during the short term, otherwise I would be taking some huge losses in the long term as the casino takes a huge chunk of money over time.

Overall, I probably wouldn’t recommend this bet if you are a mathematical person looking for the best and most profitable odds in the game. Still, there are bets in craps that have an even worse and larger house edge than even this bet! I will try talk about each of these bets as time goes on. It is nice to know that the big 6 and big 8 bets have such bad odds because this is actually a popular wager to make and it is common among players for some strange reason. I am willing to bet that this one is popular because it is displayed in huge red letters on the table and many people just don’t know the game well enough to understand what this bet really is.