Craps House Edge by Bet, Ranked (Best to Worst)
Every bet on a craps table has a fixed, published house edge — none of it is hidden or negotiable. Knowing the actual numbers is the fastest way to tell a good bet from a bad one, regardless of how it "feels" at the table.
The full ranking
| Bet | House Edge |
|---|---|
| Pass Line / Come, with 3-4-5x Odds | 0.37% |
| Pass Line / Come, with single Odds | 0.85% |
| Don't Pass / Don't Come | 1.36% |
| Pass Line / Come (no odds) | 1.41% |
| Place 6 or 8 | 1.52% |
| Field | 2.78% |
| Place 5 or 9 | 4.00% |
| Buy 4 or 10 (5% vig) | 4.76% |
| Place 4 or 10 | 6.67% |
| Hard 6 or 8 | 9.09% |
| Any Craps | 11.11% |
| Hard 4 or 10 | 11.11% |
| Any Seven | 16.67% |
What actually stands out
Odds bets are the only bet in the casino with zero house edge. They don't appear in the table above on their own because they can't be made alone — but stacked behind a Pass Line bet, they pull the blended edge down to 0.37% on a standard 3-4-5x table. Nothing else on the layout comes close.
Place 6 and 8 are quietly excellent. At 1.52%, they're barely worse than a bare Pass Line bet, and unlike Pass Line, you can bet them anytime without waiting for a new come-out roll.
The Field's 2.78% is the real number, not a typo. Most craps sites quote the Field at 5.56%, which is correct only on tables where both 2 and 12 pay double. This table pays triple on 12, and that one change cuts the edge in half — down to 2.78%, better than a Place bet on 5 or 9. If you've seen the worse number elsewhere, this isn't a mistake — it's a better paytable.
Buy bets only make sense on 4 and 10. The 5% commission is a flat tax, so it hurts most on numbers with the worst payout odds otherwise. On 4/10 it actually beats the equivalent Place bet (4.76% vs 6.67%); on 6/8 it's strictly worse than just Placing them.
Any Seven is the worst bet on the table. A 16.67% edge means the casino keeps roughly a sixth of every dollar wagered on it, long-run. It's tempting because 7 is the single most common roll — but that's exactly why the payout is priced so badly against you.
The takeaway
If you're optimizing purely for the lowest cost of play: Pass Line (or Come) with max Odds, Don't Pass, Place bets on 6 and 8, and the Field are the low-cost side of the layout. Everything at 4% and above is paying for excitement, not value.
Read more on the Pass Line and Odds specifically, or practice sizing these bets on the free craps table.