Craps EV Calculator: Find the True Cost of Every Bet
Jake WilfredEvery craps bet has a built-in cost. Not the kind you see on the felt or hear the stickman call out. It’s the mathematical edge the casino holds on each wager you make. The EV Calculator strips away the noise and shows you exactly what each bet costs per roll and per hour.
Think of it like a price tag. You wouldn’t buy groceries without checking the receipt, right? Same logic applies here.
Craps EV Calculator
Calculate your expected cost per hour and compare EV across all craps bets
Session Parameters
Your Expected Cost
House Edge Comparison — All Bets
At your $10 average bet, here’s the expected cost per hour for each bet type:
Pass Line + Odds vs. Other Bets
Adding free odds behind your Pass Line bet lowers the effective house edge because odds bets have 0% edge:
– Expected value (EV) tells you the mathematical cost of any craps bet over time
– The calculator compares hourly cost across every bet type at your chosen bet size
– Lower EV loss means more playing time for the same bankroll
– Pass/Don’t Pass with odds offers the lowest hourly cost at the table
How the EV Calculator Works
Plug in your average bet size and the number of rolls per hour (around 100 is standard for a live table). The calculator runs the math for every craps bet and ranks them from cheapest to most expensive.
It factors in the house edge for each bet type, multiplies it by your wager, and projects your expected hourly loss. What you get is a side-by-side comparison that makes smart vs. costly bets obvious at a glance.
At $10 per bet and 100 rolls per hour, a Pass Line bet costs you roughly $1.41/hour in expected losses. A Big 6 bet? That jumps to $9.09/hour. Same table, same session, wildly different price tags.
Why Expected Value Matters in Craps
Most players pick bets based on gut feeling or whatever the guy next to them is throwing chips on. EV flips that approach on its head. Instead of gambling blind, you see the exact long-term cost of every decision.
Here’s the thing about craps: some bets look exciting but bleed your bankroll dry. Proposition bets pay big when they hit, but the house edge on most of them sits between 9% and 16%. Meanwhile, a simple Pass Line bet with full odds behind it drops the combined edge well below 1%.
The calculator makes that difference crystal clear.
How to Read the Results
The output table sorts every bet by expected hourly cost. Green rows are your friends. Red rows are the bets casinos love you to make. Pay attention to three columns: The house edge percentage. The expected loss per bet. And the projected hourly loss at your betting pace. Together, these three numbers tell the full story.
Use this calculator alongside the Bankroll Calculator to match your bet selection with your session budget. Lower EV bets stretch your playing time significantly.
Which Bets Give You the Best EV?
The math doesn’t lie. The best craps bets by EV are: Pass Line and Don’t Pass (1.41% and 1.36% house edge). Come and Don’t Come (same edges). Free odds bets (0% house edge). Place 6 and Place 8 (1.52% house edge). Everything else climbs from there. The further you stray from these core bets, the steeper the hourly cost gets.
EV is a long-run average. You won’t lose exactly $1.41 every hour on the Pass Line. Some sessions you’ll win big, others you’ll lose fast. But over hundreds of hours, the math converges on that number. That’s what makes it useful for planning.
Best Online Craps Casinos (Last Updated March 2026)
EV Calculator Craps FAQs
Expected value (EV) is the average amount you can expect to win or lose per bet over a long period of time. In craps, every bet has a negative EV because the casino holds a mathematical edge. The EV calculator shows this cost in dollars per hour based on your bet size.
Absolutely. The math is identical whether you’re playing at a live table or an online craps game. The only variable that changes is rolls per hour, which tends to be faster online.
Because the casino pays less than the true odds on those bets. The wider the gap between true odds and the actual payout, the bigger the house edge. Any Seven, for example, has true odds of 5:1 but only pays 4:1, creating a 16.67% house edge.
