Baccarat Tips

Non-negotiable (NN) rolling chip programs are used by casinos to award cash back rebates to their high-rollers for their play. The rebate is based on returning a fixed percent of all NN chips purchased and lost by the player.

Sometimes a side bet comes along that dwarfs the others in terms of its card counting vulnerability. Such was the case with the Slingo Bonus Bet 21 side bet for blackjack.

Although baccarat is dealt from a shoe, it does not have a substantial vulnerability to card counting (see this post).

The Dragon Bonus (DB) baccarat side bet is by far the most popular baccarat side bet in the domestic market. Internationally, I have not seen it that much in my travels, but maybe I just haven't been to the right places.

I recently received an e-mail from an individual at an overseas casino, asking if I would review his casino's baccarat loss rebate program for advantage play vulnerability.

Edge sorting in baccarat takes place when the player can observe the back of one or more cards before making his wager (see this post for an introduction).

An AP who wants to edge sort in baccarat is like a Sumo wrestler who wants to perform ballet: just because he wants to do it does not mean it is possible. In most baccarat games, the player doesn’t touch the cards.

Lucky 8 (L8) is a baccarat side bet I first heard about on the Wizard of Vegas website in this thread. As the name implies, a Player/Banker final total of 8 is key to winning this bet.

In this post I am going to give the win-rate statistics against the Tie bet using computer-perfect play. In this analysis, I assume the AP is keeping track of the cards that have been played from the shoe.

From time to time the question of card counting in baccarat comes up. Because baccarat is dealt from a shoe, it follows that the odds for the banker/player/tie bets change as cards are dealt.

There are two common commission free variations of the basic game of baccarat. Each leaves the drawing rules unchanged. Each pays winning Player bets even money, maintaining a house edge of 1.2351% on winning Player bets (assuming an eight-deck shoe). The key feature of these variations is that each has a payout reduction for a distinguished winning Banker bet.

I received the following question from a reader:

Up until "7 Up Baccarat" (7UB), there has not been a variant of baccarat that is substantially vulnerable to card counting.

There is a variant of baccarat that was brought to my attention last July. This version, called "2-to-1 Baccarat," is non-commission. It has a fairly significant twist in the rules. A three-card winning total of 8 or 9 pays 2-to-1 for bets on the winning side.

The baccarat Tie bet allows the player to wager that the result of the next hand of baccarat will be a tie between the Player and Banker hands. This wager is a standard part of the layout, like insurance in blackjack.