If you’ve ever tapped open a mobile craps table on the train to Central Coast and thought the buy bet looked like a quiet corner of the layout worth exploring, this walkthrough is for you. The buy wager sits next to the pass line, behaving a lot like a place bet but with a vig that adjusts the maths in a specific way. Knowing how it pays, when it makes sense, and how to tap it cleanly on a phone keeps the action smooth when you’re playing for fun at Legacy of Dead, or simply testing strategy on a free-to-play craps demo like the one covered in this online craps practice guide.
How the Buy Bet Actually Behaves at the Table
Mechanically, a buy bet is a wager that a specific point number (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10) will land before a 7. The dealer places it on the number you call out, and you pay a 5% vig up front, collected when you win. The real payout is true odds: 2:1 on the 4 and 10, 3:2 on the 5 and 9, and 6:5 on the 6 and 8. Compare that to a standard place bet, which pays slightly less (9:5, 7:5, 7:6) but charges no commission. “From a margin perspective, the buy bet wins on the 4 and 10 only, and even then only at sufficient stakes,” notes Lachlan O’Brien, Strategy Director at Capital Territory Gaming Forum. “On smaller bankrolls, place bets usually produce a better realised return.”
So the bet is really a volume-versus-commission trade-off, the same kind of trade-off I used to model when running cost-per-acquisition forecasts for subscription products back in my commercial finance days. Edge per dollar shifts depending on bet size and hit frequency, and only the player can decide where their breakeven sits.
Placing It on a Mobile Craps Screen
On a well-built mobile interface, the buy bet should feel like two taps, not a hunt. You select the chip size, tap the number you want, and the layout offers “Place” or “Buy” as a follow-up prompt. The dealer on a live dealer table then confirms and collects the vig automatically. If you’re playing RNG craps on a mobile browser, the same flow runs through a bet-slip pop-up, and the app highlights the commission line so you can’t miss what you’ve staked beyond the base amount.
Georgia Johnson, Gaming Technology Consultant at Top End Gaming Advisory, points to a usability gap many studios miss: “Responsiveness matters, but clarity matters more. A buy button that auto-applies commission without showing the dollar figure is a quiet revenue leak for the player. The best implementations show the vig line itemised.” Watch for that line item on your phone before you confirm, because the difference between a 5% vig and a hidden flat fee is exactly the kind of detail that quietly flattens a session’s outcomes.
When the Maths Makes It Worth Tapping
The honest reason to choose a buy over a place is simple: the 4 and 10. Those numbers pay 2:1 true odds on a buy, versus 9:5 on a place, and once your stake clears around the $20 mark the 5% vig becomes a smaller proportion of the win. Below that threshold, the commission eats the advantage. On the 6 and 8, the maths is closer than most punters expect, and place bets win on average because the 7:6 payout avoids the vig entirely.
Amelia Phillips, iGaming Regulatory Consultant at Pacific Wager Analytics, flags the broader lesson: “Players often chase the ‘better’ odds label without sizing the bet to make it worth the commission. Treat the buy bet like any other margin decision: run it only when unit economics favour it.” That framing sits neatly with how I’d evaluate a pricing tier in an FP&A model, where a premium option only outperforms the standard tier when the volume crosses a specific threshold. The same logic applies on the felt. Keep your unit size deliberate, the commission line visible on your mobile screen, and the rest of the session behaviour-focused rather than label-focused.
A buy bet isn’t a secret weapon, and it’s not a trap. It’s a tool that does a particular job well above a certain stake on a couple of specific numbers, and a slightly worse job elsewhere. Treat it the way you’d treat any small line item in a P&L, measure it, and only deploy it when the maths supports the spend.