Improving your Baccarat Odds

In baccarat, there is a basic formula that many players use to minimize the house edge: bet on the banker hand, and repeat again and again. Just by following this basic pattern, you can work the house edge down to 1.06% in both six and eight deck games. However, what many baccarat players don’t realize is that you can improve your odds of winning even more by looking for less decks and searching for reduced banker bet commissions. This being said, here is how you go about finding the most favorable baccarat games at casinos.

In order to keep their house edge with the banker bet, casinos take a 5% commission out of every banker hand that a person wins. And it’s this 5% commission that gives the house a 1.06% edge in most games. But what if you could find games that lowered the 5% commission on banker bets?

Well the answer is that you would be dealing with a much lower house edge in the end. For example, if you found 4% commissions, this would take the house edge down around 0.6%. And if the commissions go low enough, you can actually gain the long-term edge over casinos. As you may have guessed though, it’s not easy to find baccarat games where the house readily gives away their advantage, so be prepared to do some searching!

Typical baccarat games either feature six or eight decks because this gives the house their highest edge. As discussed before, the banker bet edge is 1.06% in six and eight deck baccarat; however, you can drop the banker bet house edge to 1.01% in single deck baccarat. So if single deck baccarat is easily accessible, you should definitely go for less decks at the online casino.

One interesting phenomenon that happens with the move from six and eight deck baccarat to the single deck version is that the house edge actually gets worse on both the player and tie bets. In six/eight deck baccarat, the player bet house edge is 1.24%, but the edge is 1.29% with the single deck game. The tie bet moves from a 14.36% (eight deck) and 14.44% edge (six deck) to a 15.75% house edge in single deck baccarat. Of course, you should be avoiding these bets anyways, but it’s still worth noting.

Most baccarat players realize that the tie bet is by far the worst in the game. In fact, it’s one of the worst wagers in gambling period! However, those who love making bets with big payouts should be pleased to know that you can actually improve your odds with tie bets by searching for the right payouts.

The average casino offers 8-to-1 payouts on tie bets, which doesn’t mix well with your 9.55% chance of winning this wager. However, there are some casinos that offer 9-to-1 tie bet payouts in an effort to promote these wagers. With this being the case, the house edge is 4.8%, which is close to 10% better than what you can normally expect with this bet. So if you enjoy baccarat and the thrill of going for bigger payouts, look for 9-to-1 tie bet payouts.

Looking at things from a broader perspective, you should definitely search for single deck baccarat and/or reduced commissions to really improve your chances of winning with this game. As mentioned before, reduced commissions are especially key since these lower the house edge considerably.