OK, let’s be honest: Baccarat is a game of luck. In fact, the house edge in a baccarat game is greater than most other card games and according to most people; it’s impossible to win in the long term. Baccarat is a game that makes the casino money, but it’s very doable to approach the game with a financial strategy that allows you to keep your winnings and bank your way into real winnings.
First, however, let’s discuss streaking, a false strategy that many people use to place their bets. The reasoning behind this is that you can lose many times betting against streak but you’ll only use one bet if you bet with a streak. The practitioners of this strategy in a brick and mortar casino can be seen with pencil and paper, recording the results of hands. The problem is that streaks are an illusion. The odds of winning from one hand to the next remain constant.
Betting and banking is a common strategy that I’ve actually found quite useful in maintaining a certain amount to play with. It works with some of the same principles as streaking, but instead of placing all of the money in the bet each time, you use your wins to bank money and keep moving upward. Let’s say you bet $10 and win. On the next hand, add $10, making your total bet $30 and if you win, then bank $40 and use the remaining $20 on hand #3. If you win, add $20 more, bet on hand #4 with $60.
If you win on the fourth hand, take all of the winnings and start over at hand #1.If you lose a hand, you start over at hand #1. While you do need to “run hot” in order to be successful, you bank money and keep a significant chunk of your winnings as you progress.
Finally, let’s talk about card counting, which is something that comes up because of Baccarat’s use of playing cards. Don’t even bother. You have to add and subtract large numbers quickly to keep track of the house’s edge and even if you’re able to keep an accurate count, the math works out as such: you’ll only have an advantage once every 345 hands.
Statistically, the best move is to always bet on the banker, as the house’s edge is smallest here. That is especially true as the shoe reaches its end. The house’s edge on the Banker gets smaller as the number of cards remaining diminishes. This strategy, however, gets rather dull, and you should want to have fun when you’re playing in a casino, either it’s online or a brick and mortar resort in Vegas.