Place Bets: Betting Individual Numbers

A place bet is a bet that a specific number (4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10) will be rolled before a 7. You pick the number, put up the money, and if your number hits first you win, while a 7 first means you lose. There's no come out roll, no naturals or craps. The bet just lives or dies on whether your number or a 7 shows up first.

Place bets are not self-service. You hand chips to the dealer or drop them in front of you near the come line and say "place the 6" or "place the 6 and 8 for $12 each." The dealer puts your chips in a position inside the box that corresponds to where you're standing, so they know whose bet is whose. Don't worry about your bet getting confused with someone else's; the crew is watching.

You can make a place bet at almost any time, with one caveat about the come out roll. By default, place bets are off during the come out roll of a new round. The chips sit in the box but don't win or lose; they're inactive. Once a point is established and the puck flips on, your place bets activate automatically and work on every roll until your number or a 7 hits.

You can override this by telling the dealer "place bets working," and they'll put an "on" marker on your bet. Why would you? Mostly if you're not betting the pass line. The default off setting exists to protect pass line bettors from a 7 on the come out, since that 7 wins their pass line bet but would lose their place bets at the same time. If you're not on the pass line, the 7 wins you nothing anyway, so you might as well let your place bets work. For most beginners, just leave the default: off on come out, on after the point is set.

Payouts differ by number, because each has a different probability of coming up before a 7. The casino pays based on that probability, with a small skim for the house edge.

To collect the full payout you need to bet in the right multiples. Bet $5 on the 6 and you only win $5, not $5.83, because the casino won't deal in cents and rounds in their favor. Always bet in multiples of 6 on the 6 or 8, and multiples of 5 on the other numbers.

Place bets on the 6 and 8 are some of the most common bets at any craps table outside the pass line, because the math is okay and the numbers come up often. The 6 and 8 each have 5 ways to be rolled out of 36, second only to the 7. As covered in the dice probability article, no other number hits as often.

You're betting the 6 or 8 will hit before the 7, which has 6 ways, so out of every 11 resolved bets you win 5 and lose 6, roughly a 45 percent win rate. The bets pay 7 to 6, close enough to the true 6 to 5 that the edge stays manageable at 1.52 percent. For a beginner, place betting the 6 and 8 is a perfectly fine way to add action to a pass line strategy: $12 on the 6 and $12 on the 8 alongside your pass line bet gives you three numbers working at a manageable combined edge.

The 5 and 9 are decent in absolute terms, but at 4 percent house edge the math is noticeably worse than the 6 and 8, costing you almost three times as much per bet over the long run. For a beginner, I wouldn't recommend regularly placing them. A come bet has a 1.41 percent edge on every number, including the 5 and 9, so if you want action there, a come bet is much cheaper. The exception is an "across" strategy that wants all six numbers covered, but for selectively betting individual numbers, skip the 5 and 9 place bets in favor of come bets.

The 4 and 10 are the worst place bets on the table. At 6.67 percent house edge, they're more than four times as expensive as the 6 and 8 and roughly five times the pass line. Don't place the 4 or 10; there's no reason to, because every alternative is better.

If you want to bet the 4 or 10, use a come bet: 1.41 percent before odds and well under 1 percent with odds, a tenth of the cost of a place bet on the same number. There's also the buy bet, a place bet that pays true odds with a 5 percent commission on wins, working out to about 1.67 percent on the 4 or 10 in casinos that only charge the commission on wins, but it's more complicated than a beginner needs, and come bets achieve the same goal more easily. Just skip the 4 and 10 place bets. They're tourist traps.

Wait for a moment between rolls, take chips totaling what you want, and either drop them near the come line or hand them to the dealer, saying "place the 6 for $12" or "place the 6 and 8 for $12 each." The dealer puts them in the right boxes and the bet is on. If your number hits, the dealer pays you and the original bet stays in the box, still working, no need to renew. If a 7 hits, the dealer takes your chips.

You can take down a place bet at any time ("take down the 6" or "color me up" to cash out everything); they're not contract bets. You can also press a place bet to increase it ("press the 6 to $24"), rolling winnings forward, though the math is the same whether you press or not. Online, click the place number and your chip denomination.

Come bets win on the math for every number except 6 and 8, where the difference is small. For the 5, 9, 4 or 10, come bets are dramatically better: 1.41 percent versus 4 percent on the 5/9 and 6.67 percent on the 4/10. For the 6 and 8, the place bet is 1.52 percent and the come bet is 1.41 percent, so the come bet still wins but only by a tenth of a percent, small enough that some players prefer place bets there for simplicity.

The other big factor is free odds. Come bets can take odds, dropping the effective edge well below 1 percent; place bets cannot, so 1.52 percent is the floor on a 6 or 8. So come bets are better mathematically across the board, especially with odds. Place bets on the 6 and 8 are a reasonable shortcut for players who don't want to deal with come bet timing. Place bets on the 5, 9, 4 or 10 aren't worth using at all when come bets exist.

For a beginner, the simplest is best. Place the 6 and 8, maybe $12 each on top of your pass line bet. Anything more elaborate adds complexity without improving the math.

• Don't place the 4 and 10. The math is bad. Use come bets instead.
• Don't bet odd amounts that round down. Place the 6 for $5 and you win $5, not the $5.83 the math would pay. Bet in multiples of 6 on the 6/8 and 5 on the others.
• Don't let place bets pile up unmanaged after several wins. Pressing every win can leave a massive bet riding on one number, and when the 7 comes the loss is brutal.
• Don't place every number out of FOMO. Just because the casino lets you cover six numbers doesn't mean you should. The 4 and 10 especially drain your bankroll faster than the action is worth.
• Don't turn your place bets on for the come out by default. Leave them off unless you have a specific reason; the default is safer for most plays.

Place bets are a useful tool with a clear best use. The 6 and 8 are reasonable bets that supplement your pass line and come bet strategy: simple, frequent, and manageable. Use them. The 5 and 9 are mediocre and the 4 and 10 are bad, so use come bets for those numbers instead. If you remember nothing else: place the 6 and 8 for quick action on those numbers, and for everything else use come bets. The next article gets into the field bet, one of those bets that looks fun and turns out to be a slow drain on your bankroll.