Baccarat Strategy Guide

Baccarat is a classy game, marked by well-dressed players with calm demeanors and large bankrolls. As a favorite among high rollers, baccarat is rarely offered at low limit tables at live casinos. You can find plenty of low limit baccarat tables online, however, so if you have a limited bankroll, the best place to play is online.

The game offers some of the best odds in the casino, with a house edge of just 1% on certain bets. If you find the right game, make the right bets and follow these simple strategies, you won't be much worse off than 50/50 against the house.

Pick Good Baccarat Games

If you have several casinos available to you, find the one that offers the best baccarat games. Good baccarat games are characterized by having a low house commission and using fewer decks. The fewer decks the game uses, the better the odds are for you.

Most casinos charge a 5% commission for bets on the banker because there is no house advantage on that bet. If you find a casino that charges less than 5% commission, you should definitely play there.

About the Score Card

Some baccarat players swear by the score card and use it to try to identify patterns and then bet accordingly. There's nothing wrong with having a little fun with the score card but just know that there's no advantage to be gained by following the score card. Baccarat is completely random so past results do not affect future results in any way.

Bet on the Banker

The banker bet is the best bet in baccarat. With the commission included, the house advantage of the banker bets is only slightly greater than 1%. Bets on the player aren't too bad either but if you're looking to maximize your return, the banker is the best bet to make.

Do Not Bet on Ties

The tie bet is an absolutely horrible bet in baccarat. Despite its generous payout, the tie bet is a bad bet because ties rarely occur in comparison to the payout rate. The house advantage on tie bets is 14%. When compared to the 1% advantage on banker bets, this bet looks even worse.

Money Management

Baccarat has such a small house advantage that if you use a smart money management system, you can play quite a while on a limited bankroll. One of my favorite money management systems is to set aside a certain amount of money and divide it up into units so that I can play X number of bets with it.

For example, let's say you can spend $1,000 at the baccarat table tonight and decide to stick with $50 bets. Now what you do is make your bets like normal but set aside all your winnings.

After you've gone through your initial $1,000 bankroll, call it quits and take your winnings home with you. If you're lucky, you could have quite a bit of money by this point but even if you don't run so hot, will almost never walk home empty handed.