The Hard Way Bet

Although I will describe them briefly, I refuse to go into detail. These bets, along with the other proposition bets, exist only to make the house easy money, they all have horrible house edge values, and nobody in their right minds would bet on them with any consistency. The only real advantage to the player is the ability to put some unlikely bets on the table to break the monotony. Not everybody wants to play the pass line with odds all the time.

Making a hard way means to make the total of the two dice on doubles. Say you wanted to hit a hard six, the only way to do it is with two threes. Why is it called the hard way? Because it sure isn't easy to win anything on it. There are only four hard way combinations: 4 (2x2), 6 (3x3), 8 (4x4), and 10 (5x5). These are not one-roll wagers. Hard ways win if the selected hard way is rolled before a seven appears or an "easy" combo of the hard way total is hit. So if you have a bet on a hard 4, if a 3 and 1 comes up before two twos you're out of luck. The payouts for hard four and hard ten are 7 to 1, and the true odds are 8 to 1. The house edge is 11.11%. The payouts for hard six and hard 8 are 9 to 1, and the true odds are 10 to 1. The house edge is 9.09%.

See the Hard Way Bet demonstrated here.

All bets:
Pass Line Bet | Pass line bet with odds | The field bet
The don't pass bet | The come bet | The don't come bet
The hard way bet | The place bet | Proposition bets | Big 6/big 8