Are hedges in craps as bad…
Are hedges in craps as bad as the experts say?
Every gambling know-it-all knows that hedges in craps are sucker bets. But, legions of craps buffs swear by them anyway.
Perhaps the most common example involves “protecting” something like $10 on the Pass line with $1 on Any Craps during come-out rolls…
Full article :
http://www.casino-folk.com/archives/2005/01/01/casino-hedges-in-craps/
A couple of interesting things about Krigman’s article struck me.
The first one is trivial; he equates 100 passline decisions to about an hour’s play. Since the average number of rolls to a decision on the pass line is 3.375, that’s assuming 337 rolls/hour, an astonishing rate. WinCraps defaults to an assumption of 120 rolls/hour, which is 35-36 decisions/hour.
The second is more interesting. He compares an $11 pass bet to a $10 pass bet with a $1 Any Craps hedge. This keeps the bet handles the same, and makes the increase in expected loss very small, since you
$1 @1.414% for $1 @11.11%. This, however, is not how most player hedge, taking $1 off the pass bet and putting it on the Any Craps. In my view, the comparison should be between betting $10 on the line and $10 plus $1 Any Craps. Who makes an $11 pass bet? It seems to me the question is: “Should I ADD a hedge to my regular line bet.” That is certainly the way the casinos recommend it when they conduct those little “Introductory Craps” sessions. When I took the “Fun Train” to Reno a couple of years ago, I saw a dealer do one of those sessions, and that’s what he recommended. Of course, when you do this, you not only make a bet with a higher HA than the line bets, but you also increase the bet handle. This is why many people and craps
authors recommend against hedging. However, if we look at it Krigman’s way, we get another picture.
Let’s talk about the doey-don’t. If we compare a $5 bet on either side
with a $5 doey-don’t, $5 pass and $5 DP, naturally we are doubling the expected loss. But if a $10 bettor instead bets $5 and $5, then takes or lays odds on the points, the expected loss remains the same. I did a comparison between a $10 pass with $20 odds and a $5 pass, $5 DP, taking $20 odds (obviously, you need a 5X table for this). I set it up for 60 bets. The expected losses were almost exactly the same, of course, but the Standard Deviations were $221 vs. $155, since the
doey-don’t damps out the variation on the flat part. This would give one a lower risk of ruin on the doey-don’t, which is really what a hedge is for, isn’t it? Basically, if you have a positive session, anything better than -$8, you are better off without the hedge; otherwise, you are better off with the hedge.
So, when you think about hedging, in addition to thinking about making the hedge bet IN ADDITION to the “main” bet, think about MOVING part of the “main” bet to the hedge. Of course, if you are making a minimum bet to begin with, you can’t do that. The more money you are willing to risk, the more flexibility you have. A $10 bettor can instead bet $5 and take $5 odds, which does reduce the expected loss. A $25 bettor can, if the casinos allow it, bet $5 and take 5X odds, reducing the expected loss by 80% while increasing the variance by less than 20%.
Cheers,
Alan Shank