The yo-eleven, which
literally means 11/11 comes in with an 11.11 percent
house edge. Hmmm.
Well, I can clear up
one mystery. The reason the dealers refer to the
11 as “yo-eleven” is to distinguish it
from the 7 on the come-out roll. Seven and eleven
sound very similar, especially in the heat of a
craps battle, so by inserting the “yo”
before “eleven,” no one can be confused
about which number has just been rolled by the shooter
on his come-out. There can’t be any: “Was
that a seven you just called or an eleven?”
Once yo, sorry, I mean once you hear that “yo”
you know it’s an 11. Gabish?
As for the 11 having
an 11.11 percent house edge, all I can say is that
God works in mysterious ways. No matter. A bet on
the 11, whether alone or in conjunction with other
numbers such as the bet “craps-eleven”
or C and E, is a waste of money. At craps, you can
see 120 rolls an hour. Betting just a single dollar
on the 11 on all those rolls will give you an expected
loss of $13.33 per hour. Not good. There are only
two ways to make the 11 (oh, my, the 11, which is
1 and 1 will equal 2 ways in craps – more mysterious
stuff, huh?) out of 36 possible combinations of
the dice. It can be made 6:5 or 5:6. A straight
up bet on the 11 will pay off at $30 for $1. The
true odds are 35 to one.
It’s a winner
on the come-out roll for the Pass Line bettor and
a loser for the Don’t Pass bettor. Except on
the come-out roll, the 11 is best ignored.
However, one cannot ignore its numerologic qualities.
You see, with Judas swinging in the branches of
a tree after his betrayal of Christ, Jesus was left
with 11 Apostles who were eager to do his will,
teach and serve God. Thus, the number 11 stands
for loyalty, steadfastness and a desire to preach
to your fellow man. Eleven also represents spiritual
revelations that God gives to a man and that man
passes on to other men. One such revelation which
I had was: Don’t bet on the 11 because it has
a high house edge. I pass this on to you.
That number 11 fits
me to a tee as I am on the right, like to preach
to my fellow men (which is what I do in these articles,
basically) and I occasionally get revelations, another
being that if I keep eating as I’m doing I’ll
not be able to fit into my tuxedo for my son’s
impending wedding.
The 12 is the outermost
number in craps along with the 2. It can only be
made one way: 6:6. It is affectionately known as
“boxcars” by the craps cognoscenti. On
the come-out roll, it loses for the Pass Line bettor
but pushes for the Don’t Pass bettor. If the
casino allowed the 12 to win for the Don’t
Pass bettor, instead of pushing, the house would
lose its edge on the Darkside of the game, and nobody
wants that to happen, except, perhaps, the players.
The 12 is also one of the two field numbers that
pays 2 to 1; the other being the 2. Betting the
12 straight up is even dumber than betting the yo-eleven
since it has a house edge that is 13.89 percent.
Bet this boxcar for 120 rolls and you’ll find
that even at a dollar a pop, you can expect to lose
$16.67 per hour! That’s awful. That’s
also lunch.
In numerology, the
number 12 represents the “New Jerusalem,”
a place of peace and happiness and beauty, where
the lion will lie down with the lamb (then rise
with a full stomach?). It also represents the entire
cycle of life, as a year has 12 months and a day
has 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness (more
or less). The Romans and other ancients looked upon
12 as a sacred number. There were 12 Olympian gods,
12 tablets of the Roman law, and 12 signs of the
Zodiac. There would have been 12 commandments but
Moses wanted to be different. There are 12 tribes
of Israel, 12 Apostles, 12 Days of Christmas, and
I once had a neighbor who had 12 kids (all, except
one, rotten) but some other time for that. Aaron’s
breastplate also had 12 precious stones and it is
believed by some religions that at the end of time
the final Judgment will see only 12,000 people/souls
from each tribe of Israel get to heaven. So out
of all the individuals who ever lived on earth only
144,000 (12,000 X 12) have a shot at the pearly
gates, and the rest of us have to content ourselves
with casinos.
Craps and numbers,
numbers and man, looking at the world and counting
the ways, somehow it all ties in. Perhaps the fact
that craps is a very primitive game -- a group of
(mostly) men hunkered over a large altar-like structure,
trying to divine the will of the deities through
the dice -- makes it the best possible game for
gaining insights into reality.
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