Baccarat Strategy: How to Give Yourself the Best Odds

 Baccarat Strategy: How to Give Yourself the Best Odds

Baccarat is one of the most popular card games, both online and in land-based casinos ⁠— and it’s easy to see why the table game has become a darling of casual and seasoned players alike. With the right baccarat strategy, you can help grow your bankroll, raise your winning odds, and take your gameplay to the next level.

You have seen the game in popular media, especially in James Bond movies, thanks to its glitz and glamour. Because baccarat has a relatively low house advantage and is fairly easy to master, it has become a player favorite across the entire casino spectrum, from the mini-baccarat tables in Macau’s Cotai Strip to the high-limit rooms of Monte Carlo and even online.

As far as the best odds go, baccarat is among the top four casino games, alongside blackjack, Jacks or better (the 9/6 variant), and craps. In a lot of ways, you could say it resembles blackjack, but it is much simpler and more exciting. It’s a rookie-friendly game too Baccarat site.

Although it’s partly a game of chance, baccarat has a few nifty tips, strategies, and hacks you can use to dramatically improve your odds of winning. That’s why we put together this Baccarat strategy guide.

 

Quick History of Baccarat

The fascinating and colorful history of baccarat dates as far back as the 1400s when it was invented by an ardent Italian gambler called Felix Falguierein. Baccarat is derived from the Italian word “baccara” which simply means “zero,” reflecting the fact that all face cards and tens have a value of zero.

Though the game initially began with popular medieval-era tarot cards, these were soon replaced by the standard playing cards, and the game made its way to France where it took the moniker Chemin de Fer, a variant of Baccarat en Banque. Between the 18th century and 19th century, the game of baccarat spread quickly across Europe.

It’s believed that Tommy Renzoni, a write-cum-gambler, brought the game to Las Vegas from Cuba. The rest, as they say, is history. And now, baccarat is permitted in all brick-and-mortar and online casinos in US states where gambling is legal, including Nevada and New Jersey.

 

The Basics of Baccarat: How to Play

With European appeal and all the glitz and glamour, baccarat can be a little intimidating at first. However, behind the tough exterior, you’ll find a decent card game with only three possible outcomes per hand. In fact, there’s little to no skill required to get started.

Like most table games like Blackjack, baccarat uses three to six standard 52-card decks which are shuffled together and placed in a dealing machine called the ‘shoe.’ Playing the game is as simple as it can get.

Despite what it might sound like, the croupier does all the heavy-lifting, including dealing out the cards from the shoe. All you have to do is place your bet, sit back, and let the fall of the cards decide your fate.

First things first: you have to wager using chips/tokens/checks on the Player hand, Bank hand, or make a tie bet.

The croupier will then deal out two cards to the Player (also known as the Punter), and two cards to the Banker, all of them face up. The goal here is to guess which hand has a count that’s as close to 9 as possible.

●  Cards 2 through 9 carry their face values.

●  Each of the Tens (10s) and Face (also called Court = J, Q, and K) cards has a numerical value equal to zero (0).

●  Every Ace card counts as 1 numerically.

The values of the two cards are added to determine the worth of each hand. If the Player has 2 and Q, for instance, then the hand is worth 2 points. If the Banker has 3 and 5, the hand’s value is 8.

If the total of any hand is more than 9, the count is adjusted by deducting 10 or by dropping the sum’s first digit. Therefore, if the hand’s two cards are 9 and 6, the total comes up to 5 and not 15.

Each hand can hold up to three cards, and there are rules specified by the casino on whether the Player hand or Banker will receive a third drawcard. Most house rules dictate that a Player must stand when the count is 6 or 7.

When the Player hand is worth less than 5, a third card is drawn. If the count is exactly 5, the Player can either stand or call for a third card.

When does a Banker receive the third card? This happens if the Banker’s count is less than 3 or as stipulated by the most favorable odds.

On the other hand, the Banker must stand at any count of 6 or higher.

The Banker may stand or draw a third card if the Bank hand’s count is exactly 3 to a Player’s 3rd card of 9. The same should happen when the Banker’s count is 5 and the Player has received a 4 in the third-card draw Baccarat game.

 

Baccarat Payouts

Player Hand Bets: You win if the Player hand is closer to 9 than the Banker hand. And it pays double or evens (1:1). That is, a winning wager of $20 on the Player hand wins $20, bringing your total payout to $40.

Banker Bets: If you bet on a Bank hand and it wins, you will be paid evens minus 5% house commission. For example, if you bet $20 on the Banker and it wins, you will get $19 in winnings. In this case, $1 will go to the house as a commission.

Tie Bets: When you make a tie bet, you are essentially wagering that the Bank hand and the Player hand will have an equal count. A winning tie bet pays out at 8:1. So, if you bet $20 on a tie and it wins, you will get $160 in winnings as well as retain the original bet of $20.

One thing to note is that all bets placed on the Banker and Player hand will be pushed if the result is a tie, meaning that neither hands loses or wins. You can decide to leave the bet as it is, remove it, switch it, or reduce/add the chips.

Of course, relevant state and federal taxes may apply.

 

The One Baccarat Bet to Always Avoid

Baccarat is overall one of the safest casino games to wager on, but some of its bets are safer than others. More specifically, avoid the tie bet at all costs as it’ll drain your wallet like crazy.

Why?

The tie bet may have the biggest payout — it pays 8 for 1 — but also has, by far, the worst odds of winning. The house advantage for this type of wager is a whopping 14.36 percent. That means if you were to make a hundred wagers of $1, you could theoretically lose $14.36.

That’s a lot of money. After all, the core objective of gambling is to enrich yourself, not lose your money to the house.

By comparison, bets on a Banker (which pays 1:1) come with a very favorable house edge of 1.06 percent. What that means is that you will lose an average of around $1 for making one-hundred $1 bets on the Bank hand.

If paying a 5 percent commission on the Banker irks you, it might be best to try your luck on the Player hand, which comes with a marginally worse house advantage of 1.24 percent.

The bottom line is that a tie bet should not be a part of any optimal baccarat strategy Baccarat system betting.