Place Bets in Craps - This Is How You Bet Individual Numbers In Craps
Place bets are popular at craps tables. They are simple, they make sense intuitively, and they let you put money on the numbers you want without waiting for the dice to set them up for you. Walk past any craps table and you will see chips piled up in the place number boxes. The 6 and 8 boxes especially. Some tables have so many chips on the 6 and 8 that the dealer has to stack them in towers.
So if place bets are so popular, they must be good bets, right? Well. Some of them are decent. Some of them are mediocre. And some of them are just bad bets that look reasonable because the box is right in front of you on the layout. The math on place bets ranges from "fine, sure" on the 6 and 8 to "you are bleeding money" on the 4 and 10.
This article walks you through how place bets work, what each one pays, and which ones are actually worth your time. By the end you should know exactly which place bets to use, which to avoid, and how they compare to the alternatives like come bets and free odds. Speaking of which, if you have not read the come bet article yet, do that first. The comparison between place bets and come bets is one of the most useful pieces of strategy in this whole guide.
What a place bet is
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. You put up the money. If your number hits before a 7, you win. If a 7 hits first, you lose.
That is it. There is no come out roll for a place bet. There are no naturals or craps. The bet just lives or dies on whether your number or a 7 shows up first. This is what makes it so appealing. The whole bet structure is one comparison. Pick a number, beat the 7.
Place bets are not self-service. You do not put your own chips in the place number boxes. You hand chips to the dealer or drop them in front of you on the come line, and you tell the dealer "place the 6" or "place the 6 and 8 for $12 each" or whatever you want. The dealer takes your chips, places them in the right spot inside the right box, and tracks the bet for you.
The dealer puts your chips in a position inside the box that corresponds to where you are standing at the table. Each box has seven positions inside it that map to seven possible player spots, so the dealer knows whose bet is whose. Do not worry about your bet getting confused with someone else's. The crew is watching.
When you can make a place bet
You can make a place bet at almost any time, with one important 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 they do not win or lose on come out roll outcomes. They are inactive. The dealer does not put a marker on them, but the rule is automatic. If a 7 comes up on the come out, your place bets do not lose. If your number comes up on the come out, your place bets do not win. The bets just wait.
Once a point is established and the puck flips to on, your place bets activate automatically. From that point on, they are working on every roll until either your number or a 7 hits.
You can override this. If you want your place bets working on the come out, you tell the dealer "place bets working" or "I'm working on the come out" and they will place a small marker, often a button labeled "on," on top of your bet. Your bets are now active even during the come out roll.
Why would you do this? Mostly if you are not betting the pass line. The default off setting exists to protect pass line bettors from a 7 on the come out, since the 7 wins their pass line bet but would lose their place bets at the same time. If you are not on the pass line, the 7 does not win you anything anyway, so you might as well let your place bets work.
For most beginner players, just leave the default in place. Off on come out, on after the point is set. That is the standard.
What place bets pay
Here is where the math starts mattering. The payouts on place bets are not the same for every number, because each number has a different probability of coming up before a 7. The casino pays each number based on its probability, but with a small skim for the house edge.
Place bets on the 6 or 8 pay 7 to 6. So a $6 bet pays $7, a $12 bet pays $14, a $30 bet pays $35. To collect the full payout, you need to bet in multiples of 6. Bet less than that and the dealer will round down. So if you bet $5 on the 6, you only win $5, not $5.83. The casino is not going to deal in cents, so they round in their favor.
Place bets on the 5 or 9 pay 7 to 5. A $5 bet pays $7, a $10 bet pays $14, a $25 bet pays $35. Bet in multiples of 5 to get the full payout.
Place bets on the 4 or 10 pay 9 to 5. A $5 bet pays $9, a $10 bet pays $18, a $25 bet pays $45. Same multiples of 5 rule.
The minimum bet on a place bet usually has to be at least the table minimum or a few dollars above it, since the multiples of 5 and 6 add up. A $5 minimum table will let you place the 5, 9, 4 or 10 for $5, but to place the 6 or 8 you need at least $6.
If you bet odd amounts that do not divide cleanly into the payout structure, the dealer will round down. They might do it without telling you. Watch your payouts and bet in clean multiples to avoid this.
The math on each place bet
This is the part that determines whether each place bet is worth making. Let me show you the actual house edge on each one.
On the 6 or 8, the house edge is 1.52 percent. The bet pays 7 to 6, while the true odds of making the 6 or 8 before a 7 are 6 to 5. So the casino is paying you 7 to 6 when they should be paying 6 to 5. The gap, when you do the math across many bets, works out to a 1.52 percent edge. That is decent. Not as good as the pass line at 1.41 percent, but not far off.
On the 5 or 9, the house edge jumps to 4.0 percent. The bet pays 7 to 5, while the true odds are 3 to 2. Bigger gap, bigger edge. This is roughly three times as expensive as the 6 or 8 in terms of long-term cost.
On the 4 or 10, the house edge is 6.67 percent. The bet pays 9 to 5, while the true odds are 2 to 1. The gap is much bigger here. The casino is paying significantly less than the true odds, and you are paying for it.
Compare these to the pass line at 1.41 percent or the pass line plus full odds at well under 1 percent, and you can see the picture. The 6 and 8 are reasonable. The 5 and 9 are getting expensive. The 4 and 10 are bad bets. There is a reason most experienced players only place the 6 and 8.
The 6 and 8 special status
Place bets on the 6 and 8 are some of the most common bets at any craps table outside of the pass line. The reason is that the math is okay and the numbers come up often. The 6 and 8 each have 5 ways to be rolled out of 36 combinations, which means they are second only to the 7 in frequency. As we covered in the dice probability article, no other number except the 7 hits as often as 6 or 8.
For a place bet, that frequency is gold. You are betting the 6 or 8 will hit before the 7, which has 6 ways. So out of every 11 resolved bets, you win 5 times and lose 6 times. That is roughly a 45 percent win rate on every individual bet. The bets pay 7 to 6, which is close enough to the true 6 to 5 that the edge stays manageable.
The combination of frequent action and reasonable payouts makes the 6 and 8 a decent choice for players who want a number working without going through the come bet process. The bets hit often, the payouts feel good, and the dealer is paying you out every few minutes when you are running 6 and 8 together.
For a beginner, place betting the 6 and 8 is a perfectly fine way to add action to a pass line strategy. Bet $12 on the 6 and $12 on the 8 alongside your pass line bet, and you have three numbers working. Total exposure $24 plus your pass line bet, and you are getting a lot of action with a manageable combined edge.
The 5 and 9: a tougher call
The 5 and 9 are decent place bets in absolute terms, but the math is noticeably worse than the 6 and 8. At 4 percent house edge, you are giving up about 2.5 percent more per bet than on the 6 and 8.
What this means in practice is that for the same amount of action, the 5 and 9 cost you almost three times what the 6 and 8 cost over the long run. If you are running place bets across all six numbers, the 5 and 9 are dragging your average house edge up significantly.
For a beginner, I would not recommend regularly placing the 5 and 9. There are better ways to get money working on those numbers. A come bet, for example, has a house edge of just 1.41 percent on every number, including the 5 and 9. So if you want action on the 5 or 9, a come bet is much cheaper than a place bet.
The exception is if you are running a strategy that specifically wants all six numbers covered, sometimes called the "across" or "all the numbers" play. In that case the 5 and 9 are part of the package. But for selectively betting individual numbers, skip the 5 and 9 place bets in favor of come bets.
The 4 and 10: just don't
The 4 and 10 are the worst place bets on the table. At 6.67 percent house edge, they are more than four times as expensive as the 6 and 8. They are roughly five times more expensive than the pass line.
I will not bury the lede here. Do not place the 4 or 10. There is no reason to. Every alternative is better.
If you want to bet on the 4 or 10, use a come bet. House edge is 1.41 percent before odds and well under 1 percent with odds. That is a tenth of the cost of a place bet on the same number. Same chance of winning, much better payouts when you do.
If for some reason you must directly bet the 4 or 10 without going through come bets, there is also the buy bet, which we will not cover in detail here but is available at any craps table. A buy bet is a place bet that pays at true odds, with a 5 percent commission on winning bets. The math on a buy bet on the 4 or 10 works out to about 1.67 percent in casinos that only collect the commission on wins, which is much better than a place bet. But buy bets are more complicated than they need to be for a beginner, and come bets achieve the same goal more easily.
Just skip the 4 and 10 place bets. They are tourist traps.
How to make place bets at the table
Walking through it.
You wait for a moment between rolls. The pass line bet you have down does not matter for this purpose. You take chips totaling the amount you want to bet, and either drop them in front of you near the come line or hand them directly to the dealer. Tell the dealer what you want.
"Place the 6 for $12" or "Place the 8 for $12" or "Place the 6 and 8 for $12 each" are normal. The dealer will take your chips and place them in the right boxes. Once the chips are in place, the bet is on. You do not need to do anything else.
If your number hits, the dealer pays you and your original bet stays in the box. The bet is still working for the next roll. You do not need to ask to renew it. It just keeps going.
If a 7 hits, the dealer takes your chips. The bet is gone. You can place it again on the next roll if you want.
You can take down a place bet at any time. Just say "take down the 6" or "color me up" if you want to cash out everything. The dealer will hand you back your chips. Place bets are not contract bets. You are free to remove or reduce them whenever.
You can also press a place bet, which means increasing it. "Press the 6" or "press the 6 to $24" tells the dealer to add to your existing bet. Some players press their bets after a win, rolling the winnings forward into a bigger bet. This is a personal style choice. The math is the same regardless of whether you press or not.
Online, just click the place number you want and click your chip denomination. The software handles everything else.
Place bets vs come bets, head to head
Since this comparison comes up so often, let me lay it out clearly.
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. The come bet has a 1.41 percent house edge on every number. The place bet has 4 percent on the 5 or 9, and 6.67 percent on the 4 or 10. Come bets win.
For the 6 and 8, the place bet is 1.52 percent and the come bet is 1.41 percent. The come bet still wins, but only by a tenth of a percent. This is small enough that some players just prefer place bets on the 6 and 8 because they are simpler. You pick the number. You bet on it. Done. No waiting for the next roll to establish a number, no chip movement.
The other big factor is free odds. Come bets can take free odds, which drops the effective house edge on the bet to well below 1 percent. Place bets cannot take odds. The 1.52 percent on a place bet 6 or 8 is the floor. With odds, a come bet on the 6 or 8 is mathematically much cheaper than a place bet on the 6 or 8.
So the answer to the place vs come question is, come bets are better mathematically across the board, especially when you take odds. Place bets on the 6 and 8 are a reasonable shortcut for players who do not want to deal with come bet timing. Place bets on the 5, 9, 4 or 10 are not worth using at all when come bets exist.
Common place bet strategies
A few common ways players use place bets.
The simplest is just betting the 6 and 8 alongside a pass line bet. $12 on the 6 and $12 on the 8 covers the two most likely numbers. Combined with a pass line bet and odds, you have three numbers working. This is a clean, simple setup that gives you good action without going crazy on exposure.
Another common setup is "all the numbers" or "across." This is placing all six numbers, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10, at table minimums. The 6 and 8 each at $6, the 5 and 9 each at $5, the 4 and 10 each at $5. Total exposure $32. Every roll either pays you, sits there, or sevens out the whole thing. The math on this strategy is mediocre because the 5, 9, 4 and 10 are dragging the average up. But it is fast action, and some players love the flow of having every number working.
A third pattern is "iron cross," which is the place bets on the 5, 6 and 8 plus a field bet, designed to win on every roll except a 7. The math on this is bad. We get into why in the field bets article. The "wins on every roll" structure looks great until you realize the math says you lose money over time. Beginners should avoid this one.
A fourth pattern is "press it til you bust," which is just pressing your place bets every time they win, rolling all winnings into bigger bets. This is a high-variance strategy. You either build a big stack quickly or lose everything to a 7. The math is the same as betting flat, just with bigger swings.
For a beginner, the simplest is best. Place the 6 and 8. Maybe add a $12 each on top of your pass line bet. That is your place bet strategy. Anything more elaborate adds complexity without improving the math.
Mistakes to avoid with place bets
A few common errors I see new players make.
Do not place the 4 and 10. The math is bad. Use come bets instead.
Do not bet odd amounts that round down. If you place the 6 for $5, you win $5, not the $5.83 the math would actually pay. Always bet in multiples of 6 on the 6 or 8 and multiples of 5 on the other numbers.
Do not let place bets pile up after several wins without managing them. Some players press their bets every win and end up with massive bets riding on a single number. When the 7 comes, the loss is brutal. Be deliberate about how big you let your place bets get.
Do not place every number out of FOMO. Just because the casino lets you cover six numbers does not mean you should. The 4 and 10 especially are draining your bankroll faster than the action you get from them. Stick to the 6 and 8 for most plays.
Do not turn your place bets on for the come out by default. Leave them off unless you have a specific reason to want them working. The default is the safer setting for most plays.
The bottom line on place bets
Place bets are a useful tool with a clear best use. The 6 and 8 are reasonable bets that can supplement your pass line and come bet strategy. They are simple, they hit often, and the house edge is manageable. Use them.
The 5 and 9 are mediocre. The 4 and 10 are bad. Use come bets instead for those numbers. The math difference is too big to ignore.
If you remember nothing else, remember this. Place the 6 and 8 if you want quick action on those numbers. For everything else, use come bets. The math is on your side that way.
The next article gets into the field bet, which is one of those bets that looks fun and turns out to be a slow drain on your bankroll. We will talk about why.
Read next: Field Bets