Be Wary Of Those Who Claim To Be Craps Experts

Three Types of Craps Cognoscenti by Frank Scoblete

So many players and self-appointed "experts" are such non-cognoscenti when it comes to the game of craps that it is startling what they don't know; what they don't care to know; and what amazingly inept concepts they have about the game of craps and everything that surrounds it, especially betting, and, worse, how freely they share their knowledgelessness (I invented that word) with hapless readers who eat it up as if it were delicious pizza – albeit pizza that costs a fortune.
Add to the above what these self-proclaimed "experts" don't know about dice control and one ponders how the average reader of articles, books and craps/gambling Internet sites get any useful information at all.
Seriously, you have Internet web sites that recommend mystic "feelings" to determine if a craps table is a good one or not – as if such mystic feelings can spot future winning trends. They can’t; they don’t; they never have. There are no such things as good or bad tables in terms of trend spotting – any good craps aficionado knows this.
When craps is random, which it usually is, then randomness prevails and there are no trends that can be predicted based on past decisions. Yet, the non-cognoscenti actually believe that this isn’t so; that they can win money by trend-spotting; be such spotting mystic or based on past decisions. Some get quite worked up over this even though their losses through the years and decades are staggering.
Now, true Golden Touch dice controllers know something more important, however, and that is which tables their throws work good, better and best on. But this is different information than frantically looking to the "ether" to discover the mystic table trend. This is a skill-based understanding of how one’s dice throwing ability reacts with this or that table in this or that casino, a completely different thing than trend-spotting at a random game.
Why the craps experts and some craps players go for idiocy is open to question but one answer leaps to mind, a low IQ. However let’s go for a somewhat less reasonable answer, giving the non-cognoscenti some credit for some intelligence – they just don’t know any better because the landfill of craps detritus is immense. In truth, there are many otherwise smart people who are stupid craps players, something I have learned in my two decades of dealing with them in my talks and in my Golden Touch dice control seminars.
People who have been successful in business, the various professions including doctors, lawyers, dentists, teachers, and pilots; also athletes, arts and entertainment folks too, suddenly become part of the hordes of Crazy Crappers that flood the casinos looking to give their money away by playing as if they haven’t a single care in the world or a single brain cell in their heads.
Now I have divided the types of craps cognoscenti into three categories: true experts; truer experts; and absolute Crazy Crappers.

True Experts: Don’t necessarily believe in dice control because they haven’t seen the Golden Touch crew at work, but do recommend the best possible bets at the game based on the math of those bets. They recommend, correctly, to get as much money in odds and the least money on the Pass, Don’t Pass, Come, Don’t Come since the Odds bet has no house edge whatsoever. Some true experts will also recommend the placing of the 6 and 8; also the buying of the 4 and 10 for $25 or $50 paying a one dollar or two dollar commission respectively – but this commission is paid on wins only. The idea is to keep the house edge under about two percent to have a chance to get a close game with the house. True experts rely on math; not mysticism or nutty notions of trend spotting.

Truer Experts: The above betting information holds (mostly) for the truer experts as well, except these truer expert players know that the Golden Touch dice control skill really works and they can get an edge over the house on the better and best bets by altering the probability of the game – for most this means decreasing the appearance of the 7. For the more advanced Golden Touch dice controllers they can increase the appearance of certain numbers such as the 6 and 8, not necessarily reducing the appearance of the 7, doing this based on their sets and the types of tables on which they are playing. They know that so-called "signature numbers" seen at home practice are not always transferable to various casino tables.

Crazy Crappers: The Captain of Craps, my mentor, the holder of the world record for 147 rolls before sevening out, and an individual who revolutionized the game of craps with his brilliant ideas – ideas that I have written about in a half dozen books – calls players who make foolish bets Crazy Crappers, because they have to be crazy to make these high house-edge bets.
An idiotic slogan, "See a horn; bet a horn!" is one of the sayings of a low-brow tribe of ploppies who think that random games can be predicted by adhering to such nonsense. These players aren’t mystics but merely mistaken.
The Bottom Line: If you follow the true experts in group one, adding in the Captain’s 5-Count to reduce the number of random rollers you face, then you are playing a smart game of craps. If you become a member of group number two, you have advanced to the most sophisticated way to attack the game of craps and, if you get good enough, actually beating the casinos. However, if you join the Crazy Crappers, you’ll be ultimately or metaphorically buying a dumpster to live in. That is not good.

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Frank Scoblete, #1 best-selling gaming author, is director of Golden Touch advantage-play seminars in dice-control and blackjack. Websites: www.goldentouchcraps.com and www.scoblete.com. Recent books: The Virgin Kiss!, Golden Touch Dice Control Revolution! and Golden Touch Blackjack Revolution! Join Frank at The World Casino Championships in August of 2009 in fabulous Las Vegas. Go to: http://www.goldentouchcraps.com/wcc_2009.shtml for more information. To order Frank's products or free brochure, call 1-886-738-3423.

5.

Moola or Markers? by Frank Scoblete

Money may be the root of all evil but it is also the root of all casino gambling as well, including those who wish to challenge the one-armed bandits. The saying is simply "no pay; no play."

But how do you pay? In the good old days, you just put your coins in and spun the reels; then put in more coins and spun the reels. In the not quite so old days, you could pile up credits and play with those – you didn’t have to keep feeding the machines with coins, at least you didn’t as long as you had some credits remaining.

Today you have the benefits of credits and also you don’t have to deal with those dirty coins that discolor your fingers because so many machines are now the new-fangled coinless machines that attempt to mimic the sound effects of the old machines.

The big question for many slot players today no longer revolves around which machines they will play but rather how to put the money in them. More specifically, does one bring cash to the casinos to feed the metallic beasts or does one establish credit with the casinos so he or she can take out markers?

A cash player usually has a set limit of money to play with and once that is gone, the player is usually gone too. The chance to go on tilt and to throw more money after past losing money is not too great a danger.

The second way to handle playing money is to establish credit with the casino. Many slot players don’t realize that just as they do with table game players, the casinos will give slot players credit to play the machines. This means you don’t have to carry wads of cash with you.

Casinos look favorably on credit players because they figure, usually correctly, that whatever the player has as his or her total credit line is what the player is willing to lose. With cash players the casinos are not always sure of just how deep into their pockets these cash players will go.

Establishing casino credit is quite easy. While different jurisdictions have slightly different forms and questions – with Atlantic City probably being the most rigorous of the venues and Vegas and Tunica being the most lenient – the bottom line for the casinos is simple: Do you have enough money in the specific bank account you are giving them to pay whatever markers you take out to play with? A marker is a check that you sign that can be deposited in your account. If you have the money, you usually get the credit – although many casinos will give you slightly less credit than you ask for.

Credit players are courted by the casinos because they are players who seem to be more committed to play than most cash players. After all, if you are asking for credit the assumption on the part of the casino credit manager is that you are going to be (or are) a steady player in their casino.

With the multi-state and multi-casino empires that have been established by certain mega-companies, getting credit at one of the properties makes it easier to get credit at another of the properties. This can help you in planning your casino vacations. You’ll tend to go to the casinos where you have such credit.

The biggest danger for credit players has to do with going too deeply into the bankroll to play the machines. If you have a $5,000 credit line but you really shouldn’t play more than $1,000 on any given trip, the urge might be there to "just dip in a little more" to make a comeback. Credit players have to train themselves to handle credit just the way they handle cash – cautiously.

Once you have your credit how do you get the money to actually play the machines? Just walk up to the cage and tell the teller you want a marker to play the machines! The teller will do the paper work, you’ll sign your marker, and the teller will then give you the money you asked for. That’s it. You then take the money to the machines and play to your heart’s content or discontent.

Now once you are finished playing, if you have won, you should pay back your marker immediately. Casinos don’t like winning players to "walk with the money." If you have lost all of the marker, then you will have two to six weeks to pay, depending on how big a credit line you have. If you have a certain amount of the marker left but not all of it, you should immediately pay what you can and then pay the rest in the allotted time.

Only you can decide if you wish to be a credit player or a cash player.