Miscalculating just how well a craps shooter did

In craps, players like to boast about "the number of passes" they had, or the number of rolls they made, or the length of time that they rolled.

Some players have devised certain systems or methods for tracking the number of passes or rolls using their chips.

To count the number of passes or rolls you might simply set aside in your rail (most craps tables actually have two "tracks" in the rail) white chips for a "1" and red chips for a "5" and if you get very lucky a green chip for "25."

Keeping track of the duration of time that someone has the dice often becomes problematic because most estimates of time don't start until the shooter has had the dice for a period of time and is having a "good roll."

I make it a habit of glancing at my watch for every shooter and one time -- when a shooter had a great roll -- because I had looked at my watch I could see that players and dealers really don't have a good "handle" for how time passes at a craps table.

Here's the story: A player gets the dice (I look at my watch) and goes on to make a bunch of passes and rolls a lot of number. Everybody makes money at the table. When his hand ends with the 7-out he gets a round of applause. At my end of the table we start to talk about the length of his roll.

The two other players and the dealer on my end of the table say the roll lasted between 20 and 25 minutes. I had looked at my watch. It was 12 minutes. Just twelve minutes.

The reality is you can make a lot of money in a five minute hand. You can have 15 to 20 rolls in five minutes. In ten minutes you can have 20 to 40 rolls (as bets increase it can take longer to make pays).

Back to the example I gave: We were at a $25 table and if each number returned $35 (not counting the passes, just the numbers) in 20 rolls the pay would be $700, in 30 rolls the pay would be $1050.

In a 20 minute roll, the dice might be thrown 40 times, and if only "numbers" were hit and no passes (passes with odds pay much more) at a $25 table the pays might total $1400 and this doesn't include the impact of pressing (adding to bets).

The "average shooter" in craps throws the dice about six times. There is no money made on the first roll because that first roll establishes the point. The sixth roll is the 7-out, which leaves only four rolls for the average shooter to get pays from.