Originally Posted by jbjb View Post
If I had a choice of either just a pass/don't bet or just being able to bet odds, I'll take odds all day. But since they're tied together, I'll just pass, pardon the pun, on both.
Odds bets are 0 EV, so betting them has a negligible effect on your bottom line, assuming exactly average luck. Of course, the higher the odds bets, the greater variance introduced.

The advice of "don't take odds bets" comes from the school of thought that you're just introducing a lot of extra variance to gain exactly 0 EV, so why bother?

I partially agree. However, if in a situation where you're trying to run up coin-in (such as a craps machine which somehow comps, for example), then it's better to throw the odds bets out there.

The odds bets are also better if you can use them to mostly replace your pass line bets.

So if you typically like betting $100/hand on the pass line, and you're at a place with 100x odds, then you're better off doing $1 on the pass line and $100 on odds.

But since most places don't offer 100x odds -- and if they did, they minimum bet usually is far higher than $1 -- this typically isn't feasible.