For example. A place bet on the 5 or 9 pays 7 to 5. If a player were to bet $5 on the 9 five times he could expect to win two of those five wagers. With each win he would collect $7 plus his $5 wager for a total of $12. When he wins his bets two times out of five he collects $24. His initial wager is $25.

He has a $1 expected loss divided by $25 initial wagers for a House Advantage of 4%.

Does that clear up the issue for you?

Lets say for instance if smart craps says you have a 2% advantage, would that mean you
can play the pass line and no matter what your point number was you would have that
advantage.

Also if smart craps says you have a 2% advantage, that would not apply to a place bet, since
all have a different house edge.

gman

The House Advantage on the Pass Line is 1.41% so with a 2% advantage you would have a .59% advantage on the PL.

The HA for a place bet on the 6 or 8 is 1.52% so you would have a .48% advantage for place bets on the 6 or 8.

Place bets on the 5/9 and 4/10 have a 4% HA and 6.67% HA respectively so you would not be able to overcome the HA with place bets on those numbers with only a 2% advantage.

Buy bets on the 4/10 carry a HA of 4.67% if the commission is always paid and 1.67% if the commission is only paid on a win. Thus you can overcome the HA with a buy bet on the 4/10 if the commission is paid on a win only.

As you can see you will have an advantage with certain wagers and still be at a disadvantage with other wagers. Your advantage will be small but never the less you will have a positive advantage.

This is why we stress making proper bets and only playing when conditions are optimal so that you can maintain your advantage. Even with a small edge like this you will have a mathematical advantage that should pay off over the life of your gaming career if you follow the advice of the previous sentence.

One more thing to note and I am hesitant to point this out because some folks can go crazy with what I am going to say and use it as an excuse to ignore all common sense and advice about betting. But for the reasonable and responsible advantage player, you need to realize the 2% advantage is an average of your skill over time. Since it is an average it will be higher and lower at different times but overall it will average out to the 2% number. There will be days when your shot is working extremely well and it feels like you can do no wrong with the dice. If you are having a hot hand, it is possible you have a greater than 2% advantage on that specific roll. In that case once you have a sufficient profit, it may be possible for you to have a positive advantage with place bets on the 5/9 and buy bets on the 4/10 even if commission is paid always. The aggressive player may want to try to take advantage of these situations judiciously when it is warranted.

Of course the conservative or moderate player can stick with the bets that he knows he can overcome with his advantage and over time he will come out ahead. He will lose on days when his advantage is below his average and win on days when his advantage is right on his average or over his average. But overall he will come out ahead by only making wagers where his average advantage is greater than the HA. The risky or aggressive player may try to increase his profits more by trying to guess when he thinks he has an advantage that surpasses the HA on bets that he normally can not overcome. With greater risk comes greater reward but also greater peril. The choice is yours as to how you want to handle it. I am giving you the information so that you can make an informed decision and become a better player.

Remember the words of Master Po, "The undiscerning mind is like the root of a tree. It absorbs equally all that it touches, even the poison that would kill it." Hopefully you will choose wisely grasshopper :).