The Dice Institute

With the recent discussion about Prop-bets like the 4-Rolls-No-7, the All, Tall, & Small, the Midway 6-7-8, and the Fire-bet, along with several bet-variation suggestions like HomeRun and Call Your 7 (which themselves could make for some really nice additional dice-influenced advantage-play opportunities); I thought I'd reprise the following piece that I put out near the end of 2007:

The ALL, TALL, & SMALL Bet...What, Where, and How to Make Money From It


The All/Tall/Small wager along with the 4-Rolls-No-7 bet, are two props I wish were a lot more widely available, and we'll talk about that aspect of it in a minute; but before we do that, let's examine it from the inside out.


What Is It?
 - It is a prop-wager placed before the Come-Out roll, and if used as a wager when a random-roller has the dice, the All/Tall/Small bet is a low-chance medium-vig play.

 - The minimum wager on any of these three bets is $1.

 - The maximum wager is $100 on the ‘Small’ or ‘Tall’, and $25 max on the ‘All’.

 - The box-person tracks the progress of these bets by putting out plastic lammers to cover each individual (2 thru 12) number thrown by the same shooter.

 - Any 7 that is thrown (by way of either Come-out or Point-cycle) wipes out all A/T/S wagers.

 - The Small (2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 in any order before a 7) and/or Tall (8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 in any order before a 7) will win about 2.64% of the time (26 wins for every 1000 Small or Tall bets, or almost three wins for every 100 bets that you wager)...and lose the other 97.4% of the time.

 - With a random-roller throwing the dice, the Small or Tall wager works out to an average of 1 win for every 38 attempts. So with its 34:1 payoff, each of these two bets return 89.6% of your money when you win. After subtracting the 97.4% in losing bets, the house-advantage of 7.76% can exact a pretty rapid toll on a limited bankroll.

 - With a random-roller shooting, the All bet (if the shooter rolls a 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 before rolling a 7) wins about 0.53% of the time (1 win for every 190 tries), and loses the other 99.5% of the time.

 - It's 174-to-1/175-for-1 payoff returns 91.48% of your money, so the house-edge is 7.99%.

In the hands of a skilled dice-influencer who is actually trying to hit one or all of these wagers, the vig on this bet is obviously less of an issue than if you are making the same bets on random-rollers.


Where Is It?
Sam’s Town in Las Vegas is the only place where I’ve personally played the A/T/S bet.

Now if we could only get the rest of the Boyd/Coast family of casinos (including those in Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Atlantic City, as well as their other eight LV properties) to carry the A-T-S as well as the 4-Rolls-No-7; those two wagers would make for a very interesting field of D-I specialization.

To that point, I am now making it my personal policy for my own play at any Boyd/Coast properties other than Sam's (Fremont, Main Street Station, California, Suncoast, Orleans, Gold Coast, Borgata/Water Club [though NJCCC problematic], Par-a-Dice-IL, Blue Chip-IN, Sam's Town-Shreveport, Treasure Chest-Kenner, and Sam's Town-Tunica) to lobby strongly for both the 4-Rolls-No-7 bet as well as for the All, Tall & Small bet to any Table Games Manager, Shift Manager, or even Executive Host who will listen.


How Dice-influencing Can Turn the A/T/S into a Fairly-Consistent Money-Maker
When Maddog and I first discussed this wager a couple of years ago when it first came out; he suggested using the V-2 dice-set to cover off as broad a range of box-numbers as possible before switching over to a more Horn-dominant set like the X-6. I initially really liked his idea because it made sense (as all of Maddog’s stuff usually does); but when I applied that approach under the gritty, sometimes harsh conditions that often characterize the real-world situation at Sam’s Town; I mostly found that I was ending up having to generate the hardest-to-produce numbers last.

Relatively speaking, I find it less stressful to shoot for the hard-to-achieve extreme-outside numbers at the start of a hand; then as the hand progresses, try to fill in the not-quite-as-tough remainder.

Admittedly though, the question of whether a player should forego the early predictability of easier-to-hit box-numbers, and willingly seek the volatility of a harder-to-achieve ones first, is really one of mindset and outlook.

Additionally, I do find the high-prop payoffs for the much-easier-to-target Small or Tall bets to be very much within my skill-realm...while the All wager continues to be one that I rarely hit.

I also think that it's important to note that I am not advocating the All/Tall/Small at all for random-betting.

Rather, my own observation is simply that even though the A-T-S is a medium-vig, low-chance play in a random outcome situation; it can also be profitably utilized as an adjunct wager by skilled shooters to produce fairly steady money.

For my own play, I personally prefer to use the All/Tall/Small bet as a high-value bonus play insofar as specifically setting out intending to win either of the 34:1 Small or Tall elements of that bet instead of merely hoping to win the ALL portion of it on a whim and a prayer.

To that end, my betting on it has evolved a fair bit since they first started offering it.

 - At first, I used equal dollar amounts on each of the three bet components...with a buck each, just to test the water.

 - After I hit the Small or the Tall for the third time, I then started ratcheting up each of the three bets to $5 each.

It was some time (and quite a few more Small or Tall wins later) before I realized that the All component of the bet was a financial drain up to mid-2008. Up until that point, I had HOPED that the "All" portion of the A/T/S wager would eventually turn net-positive; but as you know, hope is NEVER a good betting strategy; so I subsequently reduced the 'All' portion of the bet back down to $1 a hand, and then increased it back to $5 again only after hitting it for the first time. More recently, I have increased the "All" portion to the $25-max after hitting it on both of my most recent trips.

Overall though, the 'All' is nowhere near as profitable as either the 'Small' or 'Tall' portion of that wager; so meanwhile, I have slowly ratcheted up the Small and Tall components by a nickle a piece every other time I hit one of them. I haven't reached the $100-max yet, but I am starting to get fairly close.

More important than that though, I am surprised that the relatively high volatility that we would normally expect with a wager like this, is actually quite a bit lower once you get into a routine where you are specifically setting the dice to produce end-of-the-spectrum numbers first, and then seeing the middle numbers fill themselves in almost automatically by way of toss-to-toss variance. To me, that is the biggest (pleasant) surprise about going for the extreme-outside numbers first.

That is, I have found that it is easier if you hit the most extreme numbers (either 2 and 3, or 11 and 12) first, before sniping for the somewhat easier closer-to-the-middle-of-the-pack numbers. YMMW of course, but for me for example, once the 2, 3, and 4 are out of the way; it seems much easier to hit the 5 and 6 in due course. The same holds true for the Tall numbers too.

Again, I would kindly encourage all of you to ask that they install the ALL, TALL, & SMALL bet at any of the above-noted Boyd/Coast casinos everytime you play at one of them...and encourage your friends to do the same.

Thanks!

As always,

Good Luck and Good Skill at the Tables…and in Life.

The Mad Professor
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