Getting to the bottom of "Is pai gow poker profitable?" comes down to two dice. Craps is a dice game played at a casino table, and the rules look harder than they are. What decides every bet is how two dice land, so the whole game works from one small table of combinations. Knowing that table explains what each wager pays, why some bets carry a far bigger house edge than others, and how to play without slowing the game for the rest of the table.
Two dice give thirty six combinations, and they are not equally likely. Seven turns up in six of them, six and eight in five each, while two and twelve have one apiece. Every payout on the layout follows from those counts. The first roll of a round, the come out, pays the pass line on seven or eleven and loses it on two, three or twelve, which is why the pass line is where most players begin betting.
Craps is not a game of skill in the way a card game like poker is, because no strategy changes how the dice fall. The best strategy is simply choosing bets with a low house edge and skipping the rest. Over many rolls the game cannot be beaten and is not profitable for the player. It is fair in the sense that dice and payouts are fixed and public, and it is easy to learn a single bet at a time.
An extra bet placed behind a pass or come bet once a point is set, paid at true odds with no house edge.
No. Strategy means choosing bets with a low edge and skipping the rest; the dice cannot be beaten.
Machine and bubble craps roll the dice in a dome without a crew, and crapless craps removes the losing totals on the come out, at a higher edge elsewhere.
The pass and come bets carry an edge a little over one percent, while the proposition bets in the middle run far higher.