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Can You Get a Real Edge at Craps?
by Frank Scoblete

  Nobody is perfect; not even casinos. In the early 1950s when blackjack was merely a secondary, albeit profitable, game, no one in the casino industry thought that the game could be beaten. The game made money so everyone figured it must always favor the casino. No mathematical studies had been done by the casinos back then as studies are now done on all new games, and since blackjack made the casinos money, no casino executive gave any thought to the idea that maybe the game could be beaten with the right approach.

            Then came a small, though little-read paper in 1956 by several mathematicians outlining a “perfect” basic strategy for the play of the hands and then, boom!, Edward O. Thorp published his ground-breaking book, Beat the Dealer, in 1962, which explained that by playing the “perfect” basic strategy and keeping track of the relationship of 10-valued cards to small cards a savvy player could get a small edge at the game.

            Since that time, many books have been written on the subject, the best of them perfecting, streamlining, and making more powerful the essential relationships that Thorp outlined, including my own best-seller Best Blackjack.  

            One would think that such an event would hurt the casinos’ bottom line; strangely enough, it had the exact opposite effect! Blackjack became the number one casino table game and a cash cow for the casinos. Hundreds of thousands of players, thinking that since the game could be beaten, they could beat it, flocked to the Las Vegas casinos and lost in the long run. They continue to lose in the long run all over the casinoland of America and the casinos of America make a darn good profit on the game, despite the fact that a nano-fraction of the blackjack-playing public can actually beat it.

            Another game that has seemingly withstood the test of time is craps. A look at it shows that the mathematical underpinnings don’t give the player much chance to turn the tables on the casinos. With the exception of the odds bet, every bet at craps comes in with a small, medium or outrageous edge for the house. Even though the odds bet is a “fair bet” with no house edge, it can only be made after a player makes a pass line bet, which does have an edge for the casino.

            And so it has been for over a half century; everyone has believed that craps is unbeatable. But one man, the Captain, in the late 1970s, began to see a pattern in how shooters who had good rolls actually delivered the dice. He saw a slight correlation between players who set and delivered the dice with consistency and money-winning rolls. Of course, the Captain played three to five days a week and was (and still is at 80 years old!) an astute observer of everything that goes on in a craps game. He maintained that while random rollers can and do have good to great rolls, just by happenstance, over the long haul, the “controlled shooters” or “rhythmic rollers” had more of them. In fact, the Captain had an ace up his own personal sleeve, actually, two aces - he himself was a controlled shooter of extraordinary skill, and a member of his high-rolling Crew, a woman known as “the Arm” was quite simply, as Frank Scoblete, Alene Paone, the Captain and the 22 members of the Crew who witnessed her exploits over 10-20 years have stated: “the best controlled shooter ever!”

            When I published the very first book about the Captain, the “Arm” and the Crew, Beat the Craps Out of the Casinos: How to Play Craps and Win!, which has become to craps what Thorp’s book was to blackjack - the first exploration of a workable method for beating the casinos at a seemingly unbeatable game. And since then, slowly but surely, some craps players have paid attention. Frank has since published two more books on the Captain’s methods and helped to get into print Sharpshooter’s remarkable book on dice control, Get the Edge at Craps; How to Control the Dice!

            As we move further into the 21st century, a craps revolution is taking place that is every bit as real and valid as the card counting revolution of the 1960s. Sharpshooter has put “science” to the Captain’s insights; exploring how the dice must be set, proving how the dice must travel, must spin and must land in order to offset the randomness of the game and flip it to the players’ favor. He and fellow dice-control experts such as Dominator, Billy the Kid, Bill Burton and Mr. Finesse have perfected the physical implementation of controlled shooting to such an extent that it is a teachable skill, albeit not one everyone will be able to learn for sundry reasons, not the least being it, like any physical skill worth learning, takes practice, practice and more practice.

            So are the casinos about to lose their neon shirts as one might first suspect if such a skill became widespread or will “dice control” fuel a huge increase in craps players with a concomitant increase in casino profits - just like the blackjack revolution did?

            “I think you learn from history,” said Dominator, who has degrees in both biology and math, and is a serious student of casino gambling, “that most casino players are just not going to put in the time necessary to learn the techniques properly. And, unfortunately, those who do learn the dice control techniques that I teach in my Golden Touch craps seminars just can’t discipline themselves not to make the bad bets at the table or they bet on every other shooter and give anything that they win on their own rolls right back.”

            Why is this so?

            “Craps is seductive,” said Dominator, “it is so exciting that when a table is going strong, it is almost impossible for some players not to want to get into the flow and throw out their money. Also, some players con themselves into thinking they have some control over the dice when, in fact, they don’t. Like card counting, a few will learn it and win money from the casinos; the rest will contribute to the casinos’ bottom line.”

            But what of players who are really serious and willing to put in the time? Can craps really be beaten?

            “Absolutely,” said Dominator, “dice control as I teach it is purely a physical technique consisting of eight elements that must be mastered. Master them and you’ll win money on your own rolls. Master your self along with them and you’ll win money at craps; it’s as simple as that.”

Frank Scoblete is the #1 best-selling gaming author. His books and tapes have sold over a million copies. He is executive director of Golden Touch Craps dice-control seminars. His websites are www.scoblete.com and www.goldentouchcraps.com . For a free brochure or more information call: 1-800-944-0406 or write to: Paone Press, Box 610, Lynbrook, NY 11563.

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