Pass Line Bets With No Odds And Free Odds

Remember that before a point is established, you will win with a Pass bet if the 7 or 11 is rolled, and will lose if a 2, 3 or 12 is rolled. So before the point is established, the Pass line bettor is a 2-1 favorite to win any outcomes that take place. However, after the point is established, the bettor will lose if the seven is rolled, and only win if the point that has been made is then rolled again. That obviously means the odds are against the bettor.

You can make a Pass line bet with "no odds," which means that you are making one single bet, and not adding any odds to it. This is known as "flat betting" and it will pay off at even money.

You can also make a Pass line bet with "2x Odds" or even more. In fact, it is not unusual to get 5x Odds, or 10x Odds. However, for the purposes of simplification, let's work with 2x Odds as something of a "standard.'"

And so, let's lay out a table giving the payoffs at 2x Odds for the points that can be made, using $10 as the initial flat bet:

Flat Bet.... Added Bets.... Result .... Odds .... Total Payout

$10 .... $20 .... 4 or 10 .... 2/1 .... $50
$10 .... $20 .... 5 or 9 .... 3/2 .... $40
$10 .... $20 .... 6 or 8 .... 6/5 .... $34

Of course, the "Total Payout" figure is derived from the money paid out at true odds plus the initial flat bet at even money. So when the 4 or 10 is made, the added bets at 2x Odds will pay 2 x $20 = $40, and the flat bet of $10 added to that makes $50.

Now -here is an exception to what is on that table. When the point is a 6 or 8 you are allowed to put $25 behind your $10 bet, in effect giving you 2.5x Odds instead of 2x Odds. That is not because the casino is being necessarily nice, but because the payoff becomes a little easier to deal with. On $20, that calculation isn't impossible, but it is somewhat inconvenient, one can imagine, because it is not rounded.

If you plug $25 into the table, rather than $20, for the 6 or 8, the win, at 6/5 odds, is $30 + $10 = $40. That's a round number.