Craps by the Numbers: 11, 12

by Frank Scoblete

No good can come of betting those 2s and 3s, with their high house edges of 13.89 percent and 11.11 percent respectively. Right? Of course! Unfortunately, no good can come from betting that 11 or 12 either. In craps, the best winning bets are generally centrist, middle of the road, and not at the fringes.

The 11, known to everyone and all as the “yo-eleven,” is my favorite number at craps because it comes from the department of redundancy and repetition department.

The house edge on the yo-eleven is, holy cow! 11.11 percent. Something’s up.

The yo-eleven, which literally means 11/11 comes in with an 11.11 percent house edge. Hmmm.

Well, I can clear up one mystery. The reason the dealers refer to the 11 as “yo-eleven” is to distinguish it from the 7 on the come-out roll. Seven and eleven sound very similar, especially in the heat of a craps battle, so by inserting the “yo” before “eleven,” no one can be confused about which number has just been rolled by the shooter on his come-out.

A bet on the 11, whether alone or in conjunction with other numbers such as the bet “craps-eleven” or C and E, is a waste of money. At craps, you can see 120 rolls an hour. Betting just a single dollar on the 11 on all those rolls will give you an expected loss of $13.33 per hour. Not good. There are only two ways to make the 11 (oh, my, the 11, which is 1 and 1 will equal 2 ways in craps – more mysterious stuff, huh?) out of 36 possible combinations of the dice. It can be made 6:5 or 5:6. A straight up bet on the 11 will pay off at $30 for $1. The true odds are 35 to one.

It’s a winner on the come-out roll for the Pass Line bettor and a loser for the Don’t Pass bettor. Except on the come-out roll, the 11 is best ignored.

However, one cannot ignore its numerological qualities. The number 11 stands for loyalty, steadfastness and a desire to preach to your fellow man. One such revelation which I had was, Don’t bet on the 11 because it has a high house edge. I pass this on to you. That number 11 fits me to a tee as I am on the right, like to preach to my fellow men and I occasionally get revelations.

The 12 is the outermost number in craps along with the 2. It can only be made one way: 6:6. It is affectionately known as “boxcars” by the craps cognoscenti.

On the come-out roll, it loses for the Pass Line bettor but pushes for the Don’t Pass bettor. If the casino allowed the 12 to win for the Don’t Pass bettor, instead of pushing, the house would lose its edge on the Darkside of the game, and nobody wants that to happen, except, perhaps, the players.

The 12 is also one of the two field numbers that pays 2 to 1; the other being the 2. Betting the 12 straight up is even dumber than betting the yo-eleven since it has a house edge that is 13.89 percent. Bet this boxcar for 120 rolls and you’ll find that even at a dollar a pop, you can expect to lose $16.67 per hour! That’s awful. That’s also lunch.

In numerology, the number 12 represents the entire cycle of life, as a year has 12 months and a day has 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness (more or less). The Romans and other ancients looked upon 12 as a sacred number. There were 12 Olympian gods, 12 tablets of the Roman law, and 12 signs of the Zodiac.

Craps and numbers, numbers and man, looking at the world and counting the ways, somehow it all ties in. Perhaps the fact that craps is a very primitive game -- a group of (mostly) men hunkered over a large altar-like structure, trying to divine the will of the deities through the dice -- makes it the best possible game for gaining insights into reality.

Craps by the Numbers: 2, 3, 4
Craps by the Numbers: 5, 6, 7
Craps by the Numbers: 8, 9, 10

Frank Scoblete’s website is: www.goldentouchcraps.com