Introduction to Controlled Throwing
by Sharpshooter

A Session at Bally’s

Imagine walking up to a craps table and knowing that you have a good shot at creating a "hot table". By using your skill, you can expect to generate a 15 or 20-minute roll most times you touch the dice. It's a great feeling. At one instance at Bally’s in Vegas, I was laying the foundation for a monster roll. After keenly grooving in, I began to accurately predict what I would throw next. After successfully calling the second hop bet for my throw, one stickman off-handedly remarked, "You must have ESPN." However, after watching my routine, it became apparent that skill and coordination were responsible, not my ability to forecast. After accurately calling four hop bets, no less, I had the boxman across from me intently looking on. One supervisor was stationed where the dice were landing near the back wall. A second was about five feet away, to my right, probably making sure that I wasn’t switching dice. The pit boss and some 80-year-old in a suit were standing behind the boxman and conversing. The old guy was waving his pen in the air and explaining something to the pit boss as I was shooting. No one in the pit tried to break my rhythm or admonish me in any way. They were more intrigued with my ritual of dice setting and my well-practiced delivery. The dice went through identical motions when I threw them. The right die was the perfect mirror image of the left die as they arced and rotated in perfect synchronicity. It took me years of development and practice to fine-tune my throw to this point.

After making my fifth point pass, I felt supreme confidence. I was able to tune out all distractions and focus purely on my dice delivery. At one point, I awoke from my trance when people were pushing to squeeze in at the table and jostled me a bit, but I very quickly recaptured my hypnotic state. As I announced my next hop bet to the stick, scores of red and green chips appeared in front of the boxman, all wanting the same bet. The other more conservative players would place the same numbers that I had placed -- the 5, 6, 8 and 9. The pit looked apprehensive and many bystanders were watching. After calling another hard 8, and making my point, all bets were paid and then something happened that I never saw before. The pit actually closed down the table! The resentful and indignant players were instructed to play at the other tables (all full) across the pit. After this little stunt, I ceased advertising to the rest of the table what I intended to throw next. There is no sense in calling unnecessary attention to yourself, even if it is just by calling hop bets. This is just one of countless experiences I have enjoyed after perfecting my throw. It is wonderful to say the least and makes you feel like some kind of a folk hero. How do I do it? Read on.

The quick answer is consistency based on the laws of "rigid body mechanics." It involves controlling certain degrees of freedom and eliminating others from the motion of the dice. A well-practiced delivery along with the appropriate dice set can tilt the game in the shooter's favor. At this website, I, along with other experienced Golden Touch™ Craps instructors will share with you many of the secrets for developing your own controlled throw. Allow me to introduce myself. My associates know me as "Sharpshooter" and I have been beating the casinos for close to a decade on a regular basis. I have trained and assembled a formal dice team and we've been averaging over 62 percent return on bankroll per trip over the last four years. I realize that some players may not believe that this is possible, but that is fine. The more people who believe and become proficient at doing this, the more countermeasures the casinos will employ. Permit me to share with you a little bit regarding what I do to win consistently. I am what some might call a rhythmic roller or controlled thrower. The casino personnel often refer to me as a dice mechanic. Some of the grizzled craps veterans have discovered, over years of play, that the right dice set coupled with a consistent delivery can tilt the edge in the player's favor. Many of these old timers do not understand the mechanics behind what they are doing; they only know (through trial and error) that they have found a means to garner an edge by playing this way. My background, both academically and professionally, is grounded in two of the engineering disciplines. I can tell you that there is a scientific basis for what is happening.

The game of craps cannot be beaten mathematically, of course. Any system that has you size your next wager based upon whether you lost or won the previous bet, or has you believing in "The Law of Large Numbers" or "Due Theory" in a game of independent trials (like craps or roulette) is a mathematical system. Save your time and, more importantly, your bankroll. The way to attack the game of craps is by altering the physical phenomena of the event when you shoot the dice. By applying the laws that govern rigid body mechanics (found in any Newtonian physics or engineering dynamics handbook), you can eliminate certain degrees of freedom from the parabolic trajectory of the dice and effect some positive amount of control over the remaining degrees of freedom that the cubes experience. The cubes can possibly traverse three translational and three rotational degrees of freedom. We can show you how to eliminate some of these ranges of motion and synchronize the remaining ones. Both dice will exit from your hand at precisely the same time. They will simultaneously travel the same parabolic trajectory and experience the same gyrations, side-by-side. The dice will land, bounce and come to rest together. Utilizing the grip and delivery that we will share with you, you will be surprised at the level of influence you will impart upon the dice.

My personal delivery eliminates three degrees of freedom (DOF) and greatly influences the remaining three. In addition, other issues regarding conservation of momentum, elastic collisions, angles of reflectance and other mechanical details are accounted for. My controlled throw does an excellent job of factoring in all of these phenomena; however, it must be exercised in the proper manner. I believe that every craps player, sufficiently motivated, can develop the skill necessary to attain an advantage over the casino. That advantage may be small or moderate, depending upon the level of skill acquired through study, practice and discipline. This skill can be measured by your ability to avoid the dreaded 7 during the point cycle. If one 7 occurs every six throws on average (1:6), then you are shooting random and the house will enjoy its customary mathematical edge. Even if you can alter the occurrence to one 7 every six-and-a-half throws (1:6.5), you will enjoy a large advantage on the Pass Line and 6, 8 Place bets. To calculate your Sevens-to-Rolls Ratio (or SRR for short), simply divide the number of throws made when setting against and trying to avoid the 7 by the actual number of 7s thrown. The lower the frequency of 7s (or the higher the SRR), the better your controlled throwing ability. How many rolls you average before throwing a 7 will depend on your efforts and level of mastery. Let’s begin our journey by examining the basic elements you will need to learn about.

The foundation for your craps delivery mechanics is based on three fundamental elements:

Other elements that you should address after mastering the controlled throw are:

These basic elements are necessary if you wish to become a sharpshooter at the craps tables. You must learn how each of these fits into to your craps arsenal and how to develop these tools for a comprehensive attack on the game.

I visit the casinos some 40 to 50 times a year, and I have documented much of my play in my "pro-play journal." I have enough statistical proof to put me over three standard deviations to the right of the mean (99.85 percent confidence range). I also have slow motion videos of my throw where you can see exactly how the dice are reacting in unison. I have half a craps table set up in my dinning room where I practice about 45 minutes a day. What do I practice? A consistent delivery system. You can liken it to playing just about any sport. Much like the pro-athlete who works on his delivery system for his particular sport, I practice my dice sets, my carefully balanced grip and soft release. After I release the dice, they travel side-by-side and go through identical motions. They land together, hitting the table flat, then taking what I call a "dead cat bounce" up, just grazing the rubber pyramidal backing and quickly coming to rest. In fact, as the dice travel and land side-by-side, it looks as though only one die was thrown along the length of a mirror, and the second die is just its reflection. The key is to get both dice going through the same gyrations. You are developing and using, what pro-athletes refer to as your "muscle memory" to breed consistency in your throw. Each time you grip and throw the dice, your brain will remember exactly every movement that your muscles should be making. As your brain processes that information, your muscles are instructed to execute the precise and intricate maneuvers needed to duplicate the delivery.

How you are able to handle the casino environment is also important. Playing in the casinos is analogous to always playing "away games." You are the visiting team and will have to develop a thick skin. There is a mental aspect to the game that is critical and the casinos are pros at knocking a skilled thrower "off his game." Like the athlete, you have to work on staying in the zone once you've found it, and maintaining a keen focus when you are shooting. You should not play while feeling tired, sick, hungry, depressed or under the influence. You should decide upon proper money management and documentation practices as well. Learn to calculate your edge for various bets based on your Sevens-to-Rolls Ratio and select the betting tactics that make the most sense for your bankroll and objectives.

Can you control the bones 100 percent? No, but with the proper methodology and a fair amount of practice, you certainly can influence the dice 10 or 12 percent! If you stick with the more intelligent wagers on the table, you can easily overcome the thin house edge in this game. Do the casinos let you shuffle and deal your own blackjack hand? No way! How about kicking up the rotor to some practiced speed and sniping out your heavily bet sector on the roulette wheel? Hell no! Craps is the only game in the casino where you, as the shooter, deal your own fate. You directly determine the results and that is why I feel it is the best game offered. Some folks may believe that I'm just circulating the air with this talk, but tell that to the many casinos who show me the door whenever I walk in!