If you look for baccarat strategy, if you can find anything at all, you find that the main strategy is to bet on banker. While this is the correct strategy for baccarat play, it leaves a few things out.
This article explains why the banker wager is the best choice, and it also covers many other strategy considerations every baccarat player needs to know about.
Here’s a list of seven baccarat strategies that are proven to work whether you’re a seasoned baccarat gambler or playing the game for the first time. None of these strategies is complicated, so there’s not an excuse to refuse to use them.
Don’t Bet on a Tie
I’ve been gambling for close to four decades, and I’ve seen many wagering opportunities that simply shouldn’t exist. Some of these options are stand-alone bets, but many of them are offered side by side with much better options.
The tie wager at the baccarat table is a casino sucker bet that doesn’t have any reason to exist. The return to player percentage is almost 10 times worse than either of the other two wagers that you can make when you play baccarat.
The reason why the tie wager option exists is because some gamblers use it. The casino offers it because they know that some people might make the wager, and when people do make a tie wager the casino makes more money.
Educated baccarat players know how bad the tie option is. And now that you know how bad it is you can skip it every time you play.
To make a long story short; never use the tie wager option when you play baccarat. It’s a terrible wager and either of the other two wager options in considerably better. You’re going to learn more about both of the other wager options in the next section.
Banker and Player Are Almost the Same in the End
The other two wager options at the baccarat table are the player hand and the banker hand. While these are two different hands, for wagering purposes they’re very similar.
When you compare two or more gambling options, the best way to do it is to look at how much each option returns as a percentage of all of the money you risk. This is called a return to player percentage. The gambling activity or wager with the lowest casino house edge is almost always the better option.
But over time the slightly higher return offered by the banker hand is going to add up. This is why you should stick with the banker hand when you play baccarat, because it gives you the best return.
All winning banker hand wagers are charged a commission. The standard commission is a 5% charge. The return numbers listed above include this commission, so the banker hand is best even after the commission.
Baccarat Gambling Bankroll Considerations
When you play baccarat, even though it has a high return percentage, you’re still going to lose some money as you play. In other words, you’re not going to be a winning baccarat player.
This means that no matter how much money you have, your bankroll is really never going to be big enough. So you need to constantly add to your bankroll if you want to keep playing baccarat.
Baccarat isn’t the only casino game that works this way. In fact, unless you learn how to play as an advantage gambler you’re going to have to keep adding to your bankroll no matter what you play.
You can do some things to help when it comes to your baccarat bankroll. You’re going to learn one way to build your baccarat bankroll in the section about baccarat bonuses.
A couple other things that you can do to help your baccarat bankroll are make the smallest wagers you can find and play at a slower pace. These are usually found online, but even when you’re playing in a live casino you should always bet the table minimum.
When you play baccarat in a live casino you don’t have much control over the pace of play. But when you play online or in a mobile casino you do control the pace of play. When you make smaller bets and play slower you limit the amount of money you put at risk, which leads to lower overall baccarat losses.
Baccarat Casino Comps Considerations
When I play baccarat I’m either using a bonus or getting comps. And sometimes I do both things at the same time. You need to do the same things.
When you get a bonus it helps your bankroll, and when you get comps it also helps your bankroll, even if it’s not in a direct way.
Normal comps programs don’t give you cash, so what you earn doesn’t go right back into your bankroll. But the things you earn from a comps program do have some value. For example, if you get a buffet ticket you can use it to eat and save the money that you’d have spent eating.
Mobile and Online Casino Baccarat
I rarely play baccarat in live casinos anymore. Playing baccarat online simply offers too many benefits for baccarat players.
You can make small wagers, starting at $1 in most online and mobile casinos. And you have complete control over how fast you play.
With a decent baccarat bonus you can double your bankroll, and I’ve been able to get 200% or 300% on a baccarat bonus a few times.
When you combine a bonus, small wagers, and slow play you can play for a lot longer online or using mobile than in a live casino. Even if you play the same number of hands online that you play in a live casino you can play a lot longer.
If you’re risking $20 a hand in a live casino and only $1 a hand online, you can play 20 times as long. And if you get a 100% bonus it doubles your playing time.
Baccarat Casino Bonuses Are for Bankroll Building
I mentioned comps and bonuses in an earlier section. I covered comps in that section, and you’re going to learn about baccarat bonuses in this section.
Anytime you play baccarat in an online casino or in a mobile casino you need to get an online casino bonus. If the casino doesn’t offer a bonus for baccarat players you can quickly sign up and play at a different casino that does offer a bonus.
Most baccarat bonuses do at least a 100% match on your deposit. This basically gives you twice as much money in your bankroll, so you can play twice as long. Baccarat bonuses are a great way to build your bankroll.
Baccarat Betting Systems Are a Waste of Time
You learned the best way to play baccarat in the second section of this article. The only strategy you need when you play baccarat is to use the banker wager option. Nothing else you do is going to help you win.
You can also find some research about using card counting when you play baccarat, but the math shows that you can’t get an edge using counting. It’s not that in the perfect situation that counting won’t move the needle a small amount; it’s that the effort isn’t worth it.
Conclusion
You only have three wagering options when you play baccarat, and in the end there’s only one of these three options that you should ever use. The banker and player wagers are close to the same, but banker is slightly better. The tie option is so bad that nobody should ever use it.
Even though baccarat has a good return to player percentage, it’s still not a game you can beat. So the best strategies are to risk as little as possible and figure out how to build a big bankroll. Mobile and online baccarat games can help in both of these areas.
