Originally appeared Sep 23 2003

Resist the Allure of the "Doey Don't"
By
Dale S. Yeazel

Last week I discussed the reasons against playing the hedging system known as the “dinner bet.” This week I will dissect the hedging system known as the “doey don’t.”

Experienced don’t pass bettors don’t mind laying odds on their flat bet after the shooter has come out on a point. The reason they don’t mind risking more than they can win is because they have an opportunity to make a bet that is in their favor of winning. In fact, the only time the don’t bettor is bucking the odds is on the come-out roll. There are eight losing combinations of seven and eleven and only three winning combinations of two and three.

The “doey don’t” is a system where the player bets an equal amount on the pass line and the don’t pass. After the shooter has come-out on a point the player is free to take odds on his pass line bet or lay odds on his don’t pass bet. However, taking odds on the pass line bet doesn’t make much sense since the pass line had the advantage on the come-out roll. So, most players will lay odds on the don’t pass, feeling they have what amounts to a lay bet against the point, without paying the juice.

Of course the bettor feels his bets on the pass line and don’t pass always push and he is only risking the amount of the lay. That is, he feels this way until a twelve is rolled on the come-out roll when his pass line bet loses but his don’t pass bet is not paid but only pushes. Whether this comes as a shock to the bettor or he anticipated it, he may feel it is a small price to pay to avoid losing his don’t pass bet to far more numerous sevens and elevens on the come-out.

After all there is such a thing as “volatility” in gambling which is fancy way of saying that what happens in the short duration of a gambling session is usually not indicative of the overall probabilities of events occurring. The “events” the doey don’t player is concerned about is likelihood of several sevens and elevens appearing on the come-out roll and that would perhaps wipe out the regular don’t pass bettor before he has had a chance to lay odds against a point. Besides if this player was the type of don’t bettor that didn’t like to lay odds against a point of six or eight, he can now merely leave his flat bets with no odds and wait for a point that is more appealing.

I suppose there is nothing wrong with playing like this unless the bettor has delusions of escaping the house percentage on the flat bets. A pass line bettor suffers a house percentage (HP) of 1.414% and the don’t pass bettor suffers a HP of 1.403%. If someone were to bet $100 dollars each on the pass line and don’t pass, he would be minus a $100 don’t pass payoff after all thirty-six dice combinations appeared on the come-out roll. Since he should have the equivalent of $7200 but has only $7100, we can compute the HP suffered by dividing what he is short, by what he should have: 100 / 7200 = .01389 = 1.389%.

At this point, some of you may be noticing that 1.389% is smaller than both 1.414% and 1.403%! Yes, this is true. However, the doey don’t player is paying 1.389% on an amount twice as great as someone that merely bet the pass line or the don’t pass alone.

You see, the HP is the magic number that takes all events into consideration. Sure the don’t bettor may lose his bet on a come-out roll of seven or eleven but the doey don’t player doesn’t win on come-out rolls of aces or ace-deuce and goes from pushing for a roll of boxcars, to losing. The doey don’t player also doesn’t win for his don’t pass bet on a seven-out.

Of course the doey don’t advocate might still insist that he never intended to escape the HP only isolate it to cases of boxcars on the come-out roll. But I prefer to think of it as a system where the bettor makes two bets that can never be won but one of them can be lost.

Sometimes it doesn’t pay to go both ways.