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One thing is for certain when playing craps: Due to the house edge on every bet in the casino, the longer your play the same strategy, the more certain you will eventually lose to the casino.
Every bet, every strategy and every system is subject to the house edge that favors the casino. The casinos have made sure of that. That's how they amass their fortunes. If you're playing one single strategy, there will be times the dice are rolling in your favor and you're racking up the winnings, and there will be times when you're losing and depleting your bankroll.
In the long run, as you continue to play one strategy, those wins and losses will start to average out to the house edge of that strategy, which obviously will always lead to the casino winning and you losing. So, even if you're ahead, the longer you play an individual strategy, the more you ensure the casino takes your money.
Unless you're an advanced player with the ability to influence the dice, the only way to change that certainty, and give yourself a real opportunity to beat the casino in the long run, is to alter your strategy to fit the current trends on the table.
To win at craps, you need to maximize your ‘DO' bets when the table is ‘warm' and ‘hot', switch to and maximize your ‘DON'T' bets when the table is ‘cold', and limit your risk and protect your bankroll when the craps table is ‘choppy'.
We've all seen the person who walks up to the craps table, buys in for $5,000 and immediately starts playing $640 across with quarters on each of the hardways without spending even a minute to assess the current trend on the table. Well, in 15 minutes and $2,500 in loses later, they're scratching their head wondering what happened.
Regardless of whether you're playing $5 & $6 bets on a limited bankroll or buying in for $5,000, YOU DON'T WANT TO BE THAT GUY! You want to play SMART to win, and playing smart means betting according to the table trend.
There will be those (typically the ‘Math' gurus) that will immediately jump in and tell you that identifying a craps table trend is impossible because, ‘Each roll of the dice is independent of the prior rolls, and any number can roll at any time, based on the probabilities of each individual roll'.
Technically, they're correct. You can't predict the next roll of the dice or when a table, or shooter, will turn ‘hot' or ‘cold', and you can't predict when it will end, but we've all been there, and you certainly know when you're in the middle of a ‘hot' or ‘cold' table run or a shooter is having a ‘massive' roll.
Being able to identify current conditions and trends early, and matching your betting strategy to those trends, is your best bet at leaving with the casino's money. It's not easy, but if you know what to look for, the more you play, the better you'll get at assessing current conditions at the tables and seeing trends start to develop.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR
You're looking for a ‘warm' to ‘hot' table or a ‘cold' table. That's where the money is and your observations need to start when you walk into the casino and approach the craps tables.
How many players are at the table?
- Most players play the ‘Do' side of betting. If you see two tables with the same minimums and one is full and the other is empty, it's not hard to figure out that the full table is warm to hot and the empty table is cold. It doesn't mean that either table will continue on those trends, but you can be pretty confident that's the current trend.
What's the mood at the tables?
- You want to assess what the general enthusiasm is at each of the tables. People that are winning are smiling, there's more chatter at the table, it's louder, and there's typically more energy on the hotter tables. If you're looking at a quiet table, no one is smiling, the dealers are the only one's socializing, the players keep looking up and over at the other tables, then you're likely looking at a cold or choppy table.
Who's reaching down into the craps table?
- Even if you can't get into a position to see into the table, look to see who is reaching down into it. Is it the players picking up their winnings from each of the rolls, or is it the dealers sweeping the bets off the tables because another seven rolled? Again, another tell tale sign of what the current trend is at the tables.
How much money is on the table in bets?
- A great indication of whether a table is hot or cold is the amount of money that's on the table relevant to the number of players at the table. If the table is warm to hot, you'll see lots of money on place bets, heavy odds money, and you usually see plenty of money on the hardways and even on bonus bets like the ‘All Tall' and ‘All Small'. Cold tables typically see little money on tables as players pull back on their betting or their remaining bankrolls don't afford them bigger bets.
How much money is on the rail in front of the players?
- To further confirm what you've observed so far, take a look at the rail in front of each of the players. Are they loaded with lots of green and black chips, or are there only small handfuls of red and white chips. If people are winning those rails load up pretty quickly. On the other hand, the rails empty quickly when the table is cold.
Ask, Ask, Ask
- Lastly, don't ignore the obvious. When you walk up to the table, ask the players to your right and left ‘how the table's been'. Most will be honest but don't forget, they're seeing it from their perspective. If they're placing ‘Do' bets on a cold table, it's going horribly for them, but if they're playing the ‘Don'ts', that same table has been great.
Craps Secrets Tip – When you buy in, throw a chip on the table and say ‘Any point for the table', then try to get the dealer to confirm your observations. Ask ‘How long has the table been hot (or cold)?'. All dealers appreciate the tip and they'll usually give you the scoop. And… the dealer will place your tip on the hottest number at the table.
While none of this is a guarantee, when you start stacking up one clue after another from the above, you're going to right much more often than your wrong.
No trend lasts forever, and the trend you identified will certainly change. You need to remain diligent and observant to ensure you identify the change earlier than later. (If in doubt, just stop betting temporarily until you know where the table is heading.)
TRACKING THE TABLE
One Man Craps Table
One of best ways to identify subsequent trend changes earlier is to track the table. Tracking keeps you diligent and aware without having to commit everything to memory. Whatever tracking system you use the key is to keep it as simple as possible so you can focus on your betting. There are many tracking methods out there, but I'll walk you through what I track and how.
Simple Tracking Method
The tracking system I use is simple and only tracks repeating number and rolls between 7s. To execute this system you need to use 2 rail sections at the craps tables. The rail directly in front of me is for my bankroll, and the section immediately to my right is my tracking rail.
You use both slots on the rail to track
- Rolls Between 7s
- The slot closest to the table is used to track the number of rolls between 7s.
- Stand 1 white chip for every non-7 roll and start creating a row from left to right
- When a ‘seven' rolls, place a red chip next to the last white chip placed
- Track a total of 20 to 24 rolls, about 3 to 4 shooters, then start pulling chips from the left side of the row
- More than 2 ‘sevens' within 12 rolls is a cold trend, less than 2 ‘sevens' within 12 rolls is a warm to trend
- What you're looking for is to identify changes to the current trend and this should help you see that clearly
- Repeating Numbers
- With a little overlap, you can fit 6 chips lying flat in the slot
- From left to right, they represent the box numbers (4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10)
- When any box number is rolled, place a white chip in the spot for that number
- You can use a red chip to designate hardways if you play them
- Your looking for the hot numbers, numbers that are repeating
- Track a total of 20 to 24 rolls, and then start over
After getting some practice tracking the craps tables, you'll be amazed at how in tune you can become with the trends that are happening. Does it always work? No, but it works well enough that once you start tracking the table and maximizing your winnings, you may never go back to blind betting again.
The goal of everything we've discussed around assessing craps tables and identifying trends, is to ensure we're using the right betting strategy at the right time, to take as much from the casino as possible.
Let The Trend Guide The Strategy
Contrary to popular belief, you should never walk into a casino committed to play one particular strategy. That's the fastest way ensure financial ruin of your bankroll. Instead, you should walk into the casino with a repertoire (or toolbox) of strategies to use dependent on the trends at the table you're playing at.
Birds of pay slot machine online. You need at least 2 to 3 ‘Right Side' strategies to use when tables are ‘Hot', 1 to 2 ‘Don't Side' strategies to use when tables are ‘Cold', and at least 1 conservative, low money strategy to use (if you bet at all) to use when tables are ‘Choppy'.
You can find plenty of ‘Do' and ‘Don't' strategies online, or you can check out the post on Winning At The Craps Tables.
EXAMPLE
Here's an example of a recent visit I made to my local casino.
I walked into the casino with my ‘toolbox' of strategies and made my way to the craps tables. There were two $10 minimum tables open, both with about 8 or so people playing at each.
One table stood out as no one at the table seemed happy, two players were looking over at the other table trying to decide if they should move to that table. Those were my first indications that this was a ‘cold' table.
Reminder: You can make money on HOT tables and you can make money on COLD tables.
So I walked up to what looked like the ‘cold' table and continued to assess the table.
- Very little money on the table aside from Pass Line bets.
- The rails in front of the players were light, with one player holding his last 12 chips in his hands
- One player in the corner playing the ‘Don't' side… His rail was loaded with chips
That was enough for me, I started playing one of my ‘Don't' strategies and immediately started tracking the table.
Sevens were rolling every 3 to 4 rolls with an occasional 5 and not a lot of repeat numbers showing either. It stayed that way for about 25 minutes which was more than enough for me to start trading green chips for black chips and obviously I was happy.
No trend lasts forever and all of sudden, the count jumped to 7 rolls and the 8 repeated 3 times during the roll and the point was made. Not sure if I was seeing an anomaly after losing that bet, I sat the next roller out. He had 6 rolls before a 7 and repeated the 5 twice and no craps numbers during his roll.
Nothing is a guarantee, but I came off my ‘Don't' strategy and switched to one of my ‘Do' strategies. Next roller was mediocre and I was just under break even for his roll so I decided to try one more ‘Do' bet before deciding the table might be choppy.
Thank goodness I did, because the table went immediately HOT and the next 3 rollers had monster rolls. After the 3rd hot roller, there was a Point-7 Out, so I colored up and left with much more than my original win goal for the night.
Does it always work out as perfect as that? Obviously NOT, but more than enough to make up for the times it doesn't. Also, by having a toolbox of strategies for hot, cold and choppy tables, you're well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities presented to you.
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If you have any questions, suggestions or recommendations, feel free to leave them in the comments section below.
In the meantime…
BEST OF LUCK AT THE CASINOS!!!
My view of 'market timing' is a bit different than most people's. While market timing is often poorly defined, to start today's post, I'll define it as buying and selling assets over time based on anything from strict rules to vague feelings.
Most stuff you'll see about market timing falls into one of two camps. The first camp maintains that market timing is entirely possible, and many of those campers are more than willing to sell you a 'great system' for timing the market¹. The second camp maintains that successful market timing is nearly impossible with any regularity. These campers will tell you that investing is all about 'time in the market, not timing the market'.
Mindfully Investing camps elsewhere, based on a critical distinction between 'short-term' and 'long-term' timing. Short-term timing involves buying and selling on timescales ranging from daily to annually. Long-term timing is about making one or two key decisions over many years of investing. My view is that short-term timing is mathematically impossible, and long-term timing is entirely feasible if it's executed carefully.
Although it's rarely stated, most of the time people address this topic they are talking about short-term timing, where routine market gyrations and economic indicators are used to jump in and out of markets, funds, individual stocks, or other assets. But my main concern in past posts, and today's post, is the much less discussed topic of long-term timing.
One Type of Long-Term Timing
Specifically, in Article 8.3 of Mindfully Investing I've advocated that 'older' investors who are nearing retirement or recently retired should hold a predefined amount of cash, usually 20% or less of a portfolio, to invest in the event of a market crash.² This procedure is intended to manage so-called sequence-of-return risk, where portfolio losses early in retirement can severely reduce the number of years your portfolio lasts. That's because most retirees are routinely divesting small amounts to fund retirement expenses and don't have any new income to replace those investments. You can learn more about sequence-of-return risk from this post.
Basically, this type of long-term timing boils down to a once-in-a-lifetime decision. Under this procedure, there is only one event (a large market crash) that would trigger using the cash reserve to buy additional stocks, and only if the crash occurs in the first several years after retirement, for reasons I describe more in Article 8.4 of Mindfully Investing.
For this procedure to work, we also need a definition of a large market crash. Based on the magnitude and length of past market crashes, I came up with a rule that a 35% or greater decline in the S&P 500 triggers investing cash reserves in stocks. History has shown that when the stock market (S&P 500) has declined by less than 35%, it usually started to recover in less than 2 years. In contrast, more severe declines took 5 to 15 years to fully recover. Because the future is unpredictable, the 35% threshold is admittedly, somewhat of a simplification.
I use this long-term timing procedure to manage the sequence-of-return-risk in my own investing plan. And it turns out that the market decline earlier this year required me to put this theory into practice. So, I thought I'd review my real-life example of implementing long-term timing and describe how it's working out so far.
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My Own Plan
I fully retired in 2017. At that time, I set up our investment portfolio as follows:
- 80% low-cost stock index funds (diversified by geography and sector, and to a lesser extent by size).
- 20% cash held in a high-yield online savings account.
This does not include our home, which is paid off, as an investment. This also does not include two rental properties we owned at the time, because the plan was to sell the rentals (which we did) and plow the proceeds into stocks and cash at the same 80/20 ratio.
Since late 2017 we've been funding our retirement by slowly depleting the cash account. All the stocks have been left untouched to grow and all dividends have been reinvested in the same stock funds. The cash account now stands at about 14% of the total portfolio, which again, is roughly consistent with the original drawdown plan. So, earlier this year when the stock market started to tank, we had a bit more than 14% of our total nest egg that I could have used to buy stocks.
The Face-Off with Reality
Consistent with mindful investing principles, I don't pay a lot of attention to daily stock market gyrations. By the same token, I try not to expressly avoid market news either, because mindfulness is about being aware without being reactive.
I'm not sure exactly when, but I woke up one morning in March this year and thought to myself, 'Hey, this coronavirus thing is really starting to make the stock market tumble.' So, I looked at some S&P 500 stock charts and realized that the market had gone down by nearly 30% from its February 19th peak. Alarm bells went off in my head. I knew my threshold to start buying stocks (a lot of stocks) was 35%, so I needed to start paying more attention.
The first thing I did was review my plan. Frankly, I couldn't remember whether I was supposed to measure the 35% starting from the calendar year or the market's last peak. I also wasn't sure whether my rule was based solely on the S&P 500 or some other indices as well. This is where having a written investing plan is invaluable. All I had to do was review my past articles (particularly the ones I linked to above) to recall that my threshold was based solely on the S&P 500's decline from the last market peak.
I won't lie. There was some doubt in my mind whether I should actually stick to this 'silly rule' or rely more on my intuition about the specifics of this crash. But then I paused and remembered, the whole point about having a plan is that you have to stick to it. The rules you've adopted may be over-simplified or even relatively arbitrary. But if you don't stick to those rules, you're essentially making it up as you go along, which leaves you prey to a litany of behavioral biases and potentially counterproductive emotional reactions.
So, I continued to watch the market decline for the next few days. Here's a chart of percent change in the S&P 500 since its peak on February 19. (Click on the image to enlarge the view.)
Incredibly, on March 23 the market bottomed at -33.92% from its prior peak, which is about 1% shy of my -35% threshold to start buying stocks. The next day the market started to recover, and just three days later, it had shot back up by nearly 10%! To again be perfectly honest, I only became aware of this dramatic rebound after the fact, partly because I was distracted by events surrounding my birthday on March 21.
I came within a hair's breadth of going all-in and investing hundreds of thousands of saved dollars in stock funds. Would I have actually pulled the trigger? I guess I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty confident I would have swallowed hard and followed my plan.
When I devised my investing plan, I would have never guessed that a few years later a global pandemic could force me to roll the dice with the market's next move. But back in March, I found myself at the head of the metaphorical craps table. And I may wind up at the craps table again in just another month or two because all evidence suggests that COVID is coming back with a vengeance this fall and winter.
Market timing is always a gamble. In this case, buying a bunch of stocks after a 35% market drop could turn out badly for me. What if later this year the market continues to drop to -70 or -80%, as some are predicting? If that happens, my 35% rule may cause me to buy stocks way too early, and my portfolio and retirement would suffer severe consequences. But in such a huge crash, the nuances of my plan will probably be mostly inconsequential. Almost no reasonable investing plan would be able to withstand that kind of market carnage.
Conclusions
Long-term market timing is about transforming risk. In my case, I'm accepting the additional risk of gambling with market timing so that I can hopefully reduce my sequence-of-return risk.
One Man Craps Table
I've never considered any other long-term market timing decisions, but you or I could undoubtedly devise some new ones that aim to transform other perennial investing risks. Given that we know frequent market timing is bound to fail, to be successful, long-term market timing must involve decision points that occur perhaps one or two times in an investing lifetime and that transform or explicitly trade one specific risk for another. And as my example has shown, to avoid second-guessing, successful long-term timing involves ironclad rules that we have the nerve to follow when and if that fateful day arrives.
1 – I'm not going to provide a link to an example of this notion, because I don't want to lead anyone down this path. But if you Google it yourself, I'm sure you'll be inundated with examples.
2 – I've seen some confusion over this cash reserve idea. Many people point out that maintaining a cash reserve simply drags down a portfolio's long-term return, which in most cases is true. But with this procedure, the cash reserve is only temporarily and partially sustained such that it's fully exhausted after a period of about 5 to 8 years.
