Games    

Baccarat Tips and Advice

 

One of the most important tips anyone can give you in the game of baccarat is to avoid the tie wager at all costs. Remember that it pays you at 8-to-1 when it wins, but there is a tremendous amount of ground you have to give up to make that bet, because the house advantage on this bet is better than 14%. This is truly what is known as a "sucker bet," because the frequency of a tie occurring is less than one in ten (9.55%). yet it pays off at odds that, if they were "true," would reflect it happening one out of every nine times.

It's also a pretty good idea for you to know what the house edge is on the other bets. The Banker is going to win a little less than 46% of hands, and that carries with it an advantage of 1.06%. The Players wins about 44.6% of hands, and so the house edge on the Player bet is going to be a little bigger, at 1.23%. The Banker wins a little more than half of the hands that do not end up in ties. As you can see, you are going to win more by betting on the Banker, and most people would tell you that you should bet on the Banker all the time. Let us assume that this is the wisest policy. The tendency on the part of some people not to want to do the same thing over and over again is what will bring them down.

There are a number of procedural points you may want to be aware of that are outside the basic rules, although you don't have to know them, since the process takes place automatically. For the banker has a total of four (4), another card will be drawn unless the Players had drawn either a 1, 8, 9 or 10 as a third card. This is all complicated, and maybe the better tip is to not concern yourself with all of this.

If you encounter something called "No Tax Baccarat" or "No Commission Baccarat" exercise the practice of "caveat emptor," that is to say "let the buyer beware." In this variation of baccarat, you are told that you do not have to pay a commission on winning bets on the Banker. That looks very appetizing, because you're automatically taking 5% off of what you have to pay back to the house. That's a good deal, right? Well, no, not when you consider that you are only going to get paid half what you would normally be paid when the Banker wins on a total of six points. What this does, in effect, is increase the overall house edge on Banker bets to 1.4%, instead of the customary 1.06%. So logic dictates that you are in a less advantageous position using this option.