Probability Of Winning Craps On First Roll

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Here is an overview of craps bets with medium odds that you can make. Have a 16.7% chance of winning an Any 7 bet, with a payout of 4/1. This gives the house a substantial edge of 16.9%. This is quite high compared to some of the bets we’ve seen above, yet still a solid choice if you’re chasing more slightly more daring bets. But a come bet would have the same probability of winning as a “proper” pass line bet ( viz. 244 / 495 ≈ 0.493 ). If the point is 5 or 9, then your probability of winning would only be 0.40. And if the point is 6 or 8, then your probability of winning would only be 5 / 11 ≈ 0.45.

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Probability Of Winning Craps On First Roll Dice Game

anemone

MHB POTW Director
Feb 14, 2012
3,766

Probability Of Winning Craps On First Roll Hall Of Fame

I'm aware that the
P( winning a game of craps by rolling a sum of 6)
=P(getting 6 the first time and 6 the second time) or
P(getting 6 the first time, get some number other than 6 and 7 the second time and get 6 again the third time) or
P((getting 6 the first time, get some number other than 6 and 7 the second and third time and get 6 again the fourth time)...
the sequence continues in such a manner infinitely (this is to say that we're having an infinite sum of a geometric sequence)
= $((frac{2!}{36}times2)+frac{1}{36})+ S_infty$
=$frac{5}{36}+ frac{(frac{5}{36})^2}{1-frac{25}{36}}$
=$frac{5}{36}+ frac{25}{396}$
=$frac{20}{99}$
But a quick goggle search shows that I don't have to consider the infinite sequence and the probability of winning a game of craps by rolling a sum of 6 for the third time and so on is simply
$frac{P(winning ;a ;game ;f ;craps ;by ;rolling ;a ;sum ;of ;6 }{P(winning ;or ;losing)}=frac{frac{5}{36}}{frac{5}{36}+frac{1}{36}}=frac{5}{11}$
Therefore,
P( winning a game of craps by rolling a sum of 6)
=P( winning a game of craps by rolling a sum of 6 the second time) and P(winning a game of craps by rolling a sum of 6 on the third time and so on)
=$frac{5}{36}timesfrac{5}{11}=frac{25}{369}$
Finally,
P( winning a game of craps by rolling a sum of 6)=$frac{5}{36}+ frac{25}{396}=frac{20}{99}$
I can't quite get my head around that fact. It has confused rather than enlighten me.
Could someone please explain to me why this works?
Thanks.