All this advice isn’t worth a hoot f you don’t know when to quit. If the shooter makes several numbers or some of your box numbers, get ready to quit, but don’t be afraid to give the next shooter a chance. You must raise your minimum bet to the next level as stated in the betting method. If you are a $10 bettor, raise to the $25 level and so on. The $100 bettor stays at the $100 level at all times. The most you can lose with the next shooter is a couple of bets, if he misses out. But he could be better than the previous shooter. Once you get into the $100 bracket, when you’re betting $100 and making two or three numbers, you can afford to give the next couple of shooters a chance before quitting. Play blackjack or roulette for a while. That’s the only way to play 5%. Do not let the size of the bet interfere with your betting. Remember, if you do reach a $50 or $100 bet, it’s not your money. It’s the house’s money. The casino hopes you’ll play “scared” and reduce your bets once you start winning. Casino bosses count on your being “chicken.” By hedging or reducing your bets, you play longer, pay more vigorish, and fail to reap the advantage when the dice are hot. You must be alert in a 5% game, because if you miss one bet the club’s edge is going to be very hard to overcome. Many players also don’t realize that a 5% crap game is much faster than the normal Las Vegas-style crap game, where you can make come bets to get on the numbers and where you can take the odds on the numbers but then can call off the odds if you want. But in a 5% game, most players make only two kinds of bets: Pass line bets and number bets. The game isn’t slowed by players changing their odds or by constantly making come or don’t come bets. The 5% game’s faster tempo increases shooter turnover, thus increasing the 5% rake. Most players don’t realize that a casino has a strong enough percentage in its favor even if the player doesn’t give up 5% “vig” on each buy bet. If crap games weren’t in favor of the club, the casinos wouldn’t have them. Casinos work on volume. The more bets made, the more cash goes into the money boxes. Contrary to the belief that bosses sweat out each big bet, modern casino bosses don’t worry that much about big winners. Theyjust want players to bet. Volume is the name of the game today. The percentage will overcome all. Bosses know that as long as there’s plenty of business, the percentage will be there, and the boxes will be full of cash. Most gamblers learn about percentages the hard way, like the three bosses of a Reno club who tried to overcome the crap table percentages a few years ago. Every day they ate lunch and/or dinner at their biggest competitor’s, Harold’s Club, and took an extra twenty or thirty minutes to shoot craps. They were $500-a-bet players. After playing $500 and $500 odds for several months, the three bosses, who had been losing consistently, convinced a Harold’s Club boss to deal double odds to them. This meant they could bet $500 on the line and get $1,000 odds. By increasing the size of their odds bet, they lowered the percentage against them. They played this way a few months and lost another bundle.

But it was all part of their strategy. They would have preferred to win from the start, but their long-range plan was to con the boss into increasing the odds bet even higher. It worked. The Harold’s Club boss agreed to deal them triple odds if they played for cash. The three bosses were smart gamblers. By getting triple odds, they reduced the house PC (percentage) against them to less than 1 percent, about a half of 1 percent. That is a very small percentage to give up, but still it was too much. Also, dice still have to pass; and when you lose, you lose twice as much money. To make a long and very expensive story short, during the two years they played “lunchtime craps” at Harold’s Club, the three bosses lost an estimated $3 million among them. Even by playing $500 on the Pass or Come line and getting $1,500 odds, the house PC ground them down with only the 0.5% advantage. With that in mind, imagine what dismal chances the 5% crapshooter has over any length of time. The classic example of a percentage victim was Nick the Greek, who liked to bet wrong and lay the odds. He was one of the biggest losers Las Vegas has ever seen around crap games. This is not just hearsay. I knew Nick, who died a few years ago, personally and for a long time. I’ve seen Nick the Greek stuck from $30,000 to $60,000 in a game and never change his expression. I’ve seen him winning $40,000 or $50,000 and never change his expression, and always chewing on an unlit cigar. Nick’s name was magic. Players from across town would crowd around a crap table just to watch. He was what we call a “pocket player.” He kept all his money in his pockets, only using a small working bankroll to bet with. If he needed more money, he’d pullout package after package of $100 bills. Nick liked to play with cash only. When the dealers paid him chips, he would accumulate a few thousand, then he would exchange them at the casino cage for cash and stuff it in his pockets. It was almost impossible to tell when he was winning or losing. He kept everyone guessing, sometimes even himself. Toward the end of his career, Nick just played to play. He didn’t care if he won or lost. If his bankroll was short, he’d bet $50 and $100. When he was flush, he’d bet $500, always laying the odds. He had the lowest house percentage bet on the table going for him, but he still was ground out of his money. The house PC and Nick’s countless hours of play broke him in the end. The normal house PC is so strong that I think 5% clubs, like casinos in the Bahamas and on islands elsewhere that also deal 5% games, sometimes should, in all fairness, keep track of the players’ personal cash losses for the evening. And if the players finish losers, the casinos should return 20 percent of what they lost and let them start over again. The players still wouldn’t win, but at least they could play a little longer with genuine enjoyment. The casinos would still get rich, and the delighted players would leave thinking they got something for nothing, already counting the days till their next visit. I’m not kidding. I’m being very sincere.

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