Lesson 3 of 3
House edge and odds
Every bet at a baccarat table is priced so that the casino comes out ahead over time. The amounts are small on two of the bets and large on the third. Knowing which is which is the most useful thing this course can teach you.
3.1 How often each hand wins
Because the drawing rules are fixed, the chance of each outcome can be worked out exactly by counting every possible arrangement of cards. For an eight-deck shoe the figures are:
| Outcome | Share of coups |
|---|---|
| Banker wins | 45.86% |
| Player wins | 44.62% |
| Tie | 9.52% |
Banker comes out slightly ahead because it acts second. When the Banker hand decides whether to draw, it already knows whether the Player drew and, if so, what card arrived. The tableau from lesson 2 uses that information well.
3.2 What the house edge means
The house edge is the average share of each stake the casino keeps over a very large number of bets. It is not what happens on any one hand, where you either win, lose or get your stake back. It is the drift underneath the ups and downs.
| Bet | Pays | House edge | Average cost per 1,000 staked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Banker | 1 to 1, less 5% | 1.06% | about 10.6 |
| Player | 1 to 1 | 1.24% | about 12.4 |
| Tie | 8 to 1 | 14.36% | about 143.6 |
Note the last column carefully. It does not mean you lose exactly that amount. Over a short session you may finish ahead or well behind. It means that the longer you play, the closer your overall result tends to drift towards that loss.
3.3 Why the tie is a poor bet
Eight to one sounds generous. But a tie comes up on fewer than one coup in ten, about once every 10.5 hands. For the bet to be fair it would need to pay about 9.5 to 1. Paying 8 to 1 instead leaves the house a margin of 14.36%, more than thirteen times the edge on Banker.
Some casinos pay 9 to 1 on ties, which cuts the edge to 4.84%. That is better, but it is still more than four times the Banker figure. Side bets such as pairs follow the same pattern: large advertised payouts, larger hidden margins.
3.4 Why Banker pays commission
If Banker wins more often and paid evens, the bet would favour the player. The 5% commission exists to tip it back. After commission, Banker is still the cheapest of the three bets, but only just.
You may also meet no-commission tables. These pay Banker at evens except when Banker wins with a total of 6, which pays only half. The house edge on that Banker bet is usually around 1.46%, a little higher than the classic game.
3.5 Patterns, streaks and systems
Baccarat tables are surrounded by scorecards, bead plates and screens of coloured roads. They record what has happened. They cannot tell you what happens next, because each coup is drawn from the shoe as it stands, and the cards have no memory of previous winners.
Betting systems, such as doubling your stake after every loss, change how your results are spread out, not their average. They tend to produce many small gains and the occasional very large loss. Card counting has been studied seriously for baccarat too, and the useful opportunities turned out to be tiny and rare.
The honest conclusion is a short one. There is no way to beat punto banco over time. The only choices that change your expected result are which bet you pick and how much you stake.
3.6 What practice is good for
Practice with virtual coins lets you see the rules in action, get used to the pace and recognise naturals and third-card decisions without counting on your fingers. It does not train you to win, because there is nothing to train. The practice table on this site deals a fair shuffled shoe, so you will see the same small drift against you that the figures above describe.