Pressing Place Bets in Craps
If you're serious about making money playing Craps, then you're going to have to press your bets. Pressing means you are adding money to an existing Place bet so you can win more. You have the option to give the dealer money and tell them to press your bet or use money from a winning bet to press itself and/or other bets.
You can press one Place Bet or multiple Place Bets with a few of your winnings or all of them. The best time to press a bet is right before the dealer pays you for that winning bet, but learning presses is key in becoming a skilled craps player no matter how you do it.
What Is a Unit in Craps?
In Craps, a unit is a certain amount of money. Generally speaking, a unit is $5 or $6. On the 6 and 8 a unit is $6. On the 4, 5, 9 and 10 a unit is $5. For higher limit players, one unit can be considered $30 on the 6 and 8 and $25 on each the 4, 5, 9, and 10.
What Are Some Standard Presses on the Craps Table
Standard Presses are the ones you see most often. When you make a standard press, you tell the dealer one of these three phrases, and the dealer will know what to do automatically. After learning these presses, you'll have the tools to take advantage of a good roll.
Go Up One Unit
One Unit is the easiest and the most common press you'll see on the Craps table. It's adding the bare minimum, five or six dollars, to an existing Point. When it gets to be your turn, tell the dealer, “Press me one unit” or "One unit", and the dealer would say “Going up one unit” or “Going to (the amount your bet will be pressed to)”.
Press It
Another easy one. When you tell the dealer to “Press it”, you're saying double your bet. When it's your turn, say “Press it”. The dealer should say “Going to (whatever)”, or they’ll repeat, “Press it”.
Full Press
When you say "Full press", you are in it to win it. A Full Press adds as much of the payment as possible back into the bet while still keeping it proper. They are for people who don’t want to risk any more money but want to increase their bet as much as possible. When you Full Press, the dealer will repeat “Full press”, then add as much as possible to your bet and hand you the change.
When Full Presses get above $100, you should make them normal increments and not full press anymore. On the 6 and 8, it would be something like $120 or $150. On the 5 and 8, it would be something like $125 or $150. The dealer should tell you what a normal increment is and give you normal presses at that point.
What Is an Odd Press or Power Press in Craps?
Presses other than standard presses require you know more about what you're doing. These are more like systems. People know how much they’re starting with and know how much they are going to up every time their bet hits.
Odd Press
Odd Presses are presses that don’t conform to the other types of presses. There is an unlimited amount, but for the most part, people only use a handful. If a player takes a $25 Place bet on the 9 and presses to $35 after it hits, they are only adding $10 to the bet. It's not a one unit press or a full press or a power press or any other press. It's just going to $35, and $35 on the 9 is a very normal bet, and this is a very commonly seen press.
Power Press
Power Pressing is tough. It's full pressing plus adding more of your own money to get the bet as high as possible as fast as possible. You know how much you need to start with, what the bets pay, how much more money you need to give to the dealer, what amount you are going to, how many times you need your number to hit before you reach your goal, and how many times you can try before you run out of money.
What Are Multiple Number Presses in Craps
When you start to press multiple numbers, you have a pretty good idea of what you're doing. you're tracking your bets, knowing what they pay, how much you're going to add to each number, what those numbers are going to end up at, and whether or not you need to add more money to make it proper. Instead of putting all your cheques on one bet, you're spreading them out, so multiple bets get increased every time.
Double Unit Presses
Double Unit presses are when you take the payment of a Place bet and press itself and its opposite number the same amount. 6 is opposite 8; 5 opposite 9; 4 opposite 10. When making double unit presses, you use the phrase “Go to (an amount you want each bet to go to) each (the two Place bets you would like to increase).” For example, if you have $12 each 6 and 8. One of them hits, and you want to press them both to $18 each. When it's your turn to get paid, but before the dealer pays you, you would say, “Go to $18 each 6 and 8.” The dealer should then repeat, “Going to $18 each 6 and 8.”
Across/Inside/Outside Pressure
You can press more than one or two numbers at once. If you're going to press more than two numbers simultaneously, you're likely going to do it in spread bet fashion. You should first know how much you're going to get paid and how much it will cost to make your presses. That will tell you if you need to give the dealer more money to complete the cost or how much change you should be getting.
