Betting the horses vs betting on craps

I am going to start this thread with a question for regnis because of the info he gave us in another thread about betting on horses. This is open to all to participate in, thanks.

regnis I know very little about horseracing or even betting the horses -- but the problem I see with all horse racing bets is that it is all or nothing. You bet XXX to show and if XXX doesn't show but wins or places -- you lose.

Since you play craps, regnis, have you ever figured the value of a bet on a place number such as "6" in craps vs. the value of placing the same bet on a horse? I ask this because the "6" is not a one roll bet and can in fact win multiple times and always pays $7 for every $6 bet. Is the "6" in craps a better bet than putting the same amount of money on a horse for one spin around the track?

Alan-this is probably an oversimplification, but there are really two things that make betting on horses different than any other form of gambling:

1. You are not betting against a house that has set a fixed "odds" that you cannot beat long term. You are betting against other less knowledgeable people which, hopefully, gives you an edge.

2. In craps, sports (although sports I believe also allows for the knowledgeable better to have an edge), black jack, etc., the payoffs are essentially even money or close to it. And of course in craps, again, those odds are fixed. You can bet the 6 and there can be numerous rolls with no result (no six or 7), but the odds are still 6-5. Since it pays 7-6 rather than 6-5, you ultimately have to lose barring dice control or just plain good luck.

In horses, I am making bets that range from 7-2 to hundreds to one in terms of the payoff, but where in my opinion, based upon knowledge and experience, the odds are far less. Those large payoffs allow for a large number of losses between winners to still result in a profit. In craps, the large number of losers will grind you out with no ability to have 1 or 2 winners create a profit.

In craps--the odds are fixed and the payoffs relatively small. In horses, the odds are determined by the bettors, most of whom are ignorant, and we look for overlays and take advantage of "bad odds". I never (maybe rarely is more accurate) make a bet where the odds are too low to make it a smart bet. If a horse is 3-5 and can't lose, you either pass the race or look for value elsewhere in the race due to that one horse being over bet. We can't do that in craps.

So to try to answer your question specifically, I can place the 6 for $300 and try to get back $350, but in the long run know that I will lose because it should have paid 360 (the house edge). And I can keep doing that and win or lose a little. In horses. I can try to win that $50 dollars (if I wanted to--my goals in horses are always much bigger) with much smaller bets and probably make much more than $50. So I can spread my risk to make that same $50.

That all being said, there is no bigger gambling high than a hot craps roll. But the grind will kill you. In horses, even on a long bad day, I am one winner away from a profit.

Thanks regnis but as I said I am ignorant about horse racing. I can say this about craps:

It doesn't matter if the "true odds payoff" on a place-6 bet is 7-6 and that I am getting paid 6-5. What matters is that I keep rolling 6's that keep paying that 6-5.

What I am really curious about is how you view this:

Place a bet on 6 and you have multiple rolls (chances) to hit the six and you can hit it over and over again -- or never hit it. But when you bet on a horse you have that race and only that race to win your bet. Given that, which is better?

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Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson

-- but the problem I see with all horse racing bets is that it is all or nothing. You bet XXX to show and if XXX doesn't show but wins or places -- you lose.

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Alan:

You collect on a "win" wager only if the horse wins.
You collect on a "place" wager if the horse either wins OR finishes second. (safer bet & lower payout than win)
You collect on a "show" wager if the horse either wins OR finishes second OR finishes third (safest bet & and usually lowest payout of the three).

Thanks Count -- didn't know that.

But back to my question: it's one race vs multiple tries (hopefully) for a wager on a number at craps?

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Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson

Thanks Count -- didn't know that.

But back to my question: it's one race vs multiple tries (hopefully) for a wager on a number at craps?

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Taking situational odds out of the equation, there is no implied value on place and come bets in craps over betting on a horse.

You have multiple shots at winning place & come bets in craps, but you also have multiple shots at losing, too!

If I blindly bet $20 to win on horse #7 because I liked the number, I could just leave the $20 "up there on the table" after winning a race with the #7 horse. I simply bet the $20 all over again for the next race on the #7 horse.

Leaving a place bet on the craps table is the same thing: Each dice roll is a new bet even though it appears you are getting multiple bets with the same casino chip (money).

Just like you have the exact same casino chip on the table for successive place bets, I could simply trade a new $20 bill for the old $20 bill (same serial number) I used for the first race so I could use it again for betting on the next race .... though the ticket clerk might give me a funny look for requesting that!

EDIT: I should mention that the base pass/come (and don't pass/come) bet without the odds money on top of it is an exception to what I said above, only because the single bet itself follows a pre-ordained set of rules that result in a singular outcome regardless of how many dice rolls it takes to determine that outcome.

regnis explained it pretty well.

With craps, you have better odds in most cases, but zero chance to beat the house long term (or even medium term).

In horse racing, the typical bettor has far WORSE odds (due to the insane house rake), but supposedly a few are skillful enough to overcome that and beat it. I am still skeptical that anyone can be a long term horse racing winner, given the crazy rake. I admit that some horse bettors are more skilled than others, but it's similar to playing a poker game with a huge rake. Even if you're by far the best player at the table, you will eventually lose because the rake will eat you in the long run.

I barely go to horse tracks these days, but when I do, I bet just token amounts of money for fun.

Anyway, bottom line is that horse racing can be beat IN THEORY if you are super skilled, and craps simply can't be beat.

BTW, as I have explained before, you can bring the house edge in craps down to VERY low if you play 100x odds, but most casinos don't have that. And even if they do, the variance is crazy, so you would need a low base bet (like 50 cents) to avoid horrid swings.

But there is no way to eliminate the craps house edge completely, unless you believe in dice control.

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Originally Posted by Count Room

Alan:

You collect on a "win" wager only if the horse wins.
You collect on a "place" wager if the horse either wins OR finishes second. (safer bet & lower payout than win)
You collect on a "show" wager if the horse either wins OR finishes second OR finishes third (safest bet & and usually lowest payout of the three).

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True story: I was introduced to the concepts of "win, place, and show" NOT at a horse track, but at Jai Alai at the MGM in the late '70s. My parents would go there and take me, and I would have them bet a dollar for me on a guy I guessed would win. Was fun. Kinda surprised they let kids in there, given that there was gambling allowed, but I guess it was also considered a sporting event.

Thanks everyone for the information and the education about horse racing. I appreciate it.

The only "concern" I have is that so many people put an emphasis on the stated odds but overlook that it is not the stated odds that make you win, it is your horse crossing the finish line or your numbers hitting at craps that make you win.

As an extreme example: I remember when a young guy and his date walked by a craps table at Caesars, and the young man casually throws a $1,000 chip onto the layout and calls "high-low." The stickman responds "bet" indicating the bet has been accepted.

Note that on any one roll of the dice the high, 12, has a one out of 36 chance of hitting; the low, 2, also has a one out of 36 chance of winning. Each bet pays 30 to one giving those one-roll bets a big house edge.

The shooter throws the dice and it comes up 12 for a payoff of $15,000 plus the return of the player's winning bet. (He took the money and ran.)

In this case, it didn't matter that the house had such a big edge (about 14%) because he won the bet.

While I have all the respect in the world for making the best bets with the best odds it takes the "long shots" to win the real money.

Take the Fire Bet in craps. The math guys shun the Fire Bet because less than one out of a hundred shooters will make four different points for a 25 to one payoff on the Fire Bet. Only one in about 6,156 shooters will make all six points for a 1,000 to 1 payoff. Yet, I have a profit on the Fire Bet. Why? Because twice in my life I was at a table where a shooter made all six numbers, and more than a dozen times I've been at a table where five out of six numbers were hit for a payoff of 250 to one. In fact, at Caesars two shooters at the same table made five numbers in less than an hour. At Rincon in the last year, the Fire Bet for six numbers hit once ($5,000 payoff) and it hit for 5 numbers ($1,250 payoff) at least four times.

And it seems to me that to be a successful "player" at the race track that you also must hit the long shots. Is that right?

Alan-you don't need longshots to make big money at the track. Also, just because a horse has long odds, does not mean he should be a long shot, It just means the public is wrong. The odds are never wrong in craps.

Also, because of all the gimmick bets that are out there, you can make good money on a small investment. Exactas with 2 favorites in New York will pay $25.00. Make that for 20 and you are up $230. It takes too many 6's in craps to make that kind of money. And that rarely happens anyway.

Now I am not one to try to grind out a few bucks profit in any game, and especially not in horses. I am not a show better---win, exactas, and Pick 4's 5's, and 6's are my thing. But someone like Arci would be great at that if he studied the horses. He could sit there and find overlays, whether in the show pool or exacta pools, and grind it out. There are computer programs that do just that---they find underbet horses (per the parameters set by the individual bettor) in the win, place, or show pools and make a large bet at the last minute into that pool.