Baccarat Tips

In this post I am going to examine the earnings that are possible in baccarat if the player is using computer-perfect play. I investigated card counting in detail in this post.

(flim′flam′) noun 1. nonsense; rubbish; humbug (ref. Webster’s New World Dictionary)

The intention of this post is to put the gaming mathematicians out of business. Not really. But I do want to tell you how you can easily figure out the house edge for baccarat, its variants and most of its side bets. You can do this without needing a computer program or fancy spread sheet analysis. All you need to know is one advanced Excel function, “sumifs”.

Baccarat card counting is a hopeless endeavor. That doesn't mean that I can't develop better card counting systems or run more accurate simulations than I have in the past. This post improves upon earlier results I first presented in December, 2011 (see this post).

(flim′flam′) noun 1. nonsense; rubbish; humbug (ref. Webster's New World Dictionary)

I have long avoided the subject of baccarat mythology on this blog. I am a seeker of scientific truth. As substitutes for truth, fiction, story telling, anecdotes, false memories, mythology and outright lies frustrate me.

Baccarat insurance is a side bet that players can make during the play of a hand of baccarat. This side bet is really an aggregate of sides bets, some of which can be made based on the first two cards exposed, and some of which can be made later during the play of the hand. Each of these side bets has its own separate wagering rules and payout.

In this blog post I covered the basics of advantage play against the Lucky Pairs (LP) baccarat side bet. After looking around a bit, I found that several “live-play” online casinos offer LP. It is easy to use perfect play against live-play online LP.

Lucky Pairs (LP) is one of the names given to the non-proprietary baccarat side bet that simply pays 11-to-1 for a dealt pair. The player can wager on either or both of the Player or Banker side to be dealt a pair. This wager is also available for blackjack (player only), with varying payouts depending on the number of decks used.

One of the great heroes of casino game analysis is Edward O. Thorp. He is best known for his seminal work, Beat the Dealer, originally published in 1962.

The “Easy Six” (ES) baccarat side bet pays 6-to-1 if either the Player hand or Banker hand wins on six points, or if a tie occurs on six points.  Otherwise, the ES wager loses.

I first considered if the Dragon 7 baccarat side bet was susceptible to a card counting methodology in mid-2011 when it was exclusively a proprietary side bet owned by DEQ that was associated with the commission free baccarat variant EZ Baccarat.

The Dragon Bonus (DB) wager is arguably the most common and popular side bet for baccarat on the market. DB allows the gambler to not only wager that either the Banker side or Player side will win, but that the winning side will crush the losing side by a significant number of points.  The larger the margin of victory, the larger the payout for the DB wager.

While looking around for what to do next, I decided to visit one of my favorite sources for interesting baccarat side bets: the website ukcasinotablegames.info . There I found the “Colour Match” (CM) baccarat side bet.

Card counting baccarat side bets is one of the strongest ongoing opportunities for advantage players. These opportunities arise from the intersection of four game protection deficiencies, none of which has a good solution. Consider: