Baccarat gives you three bets, two of them close to fair and one of them the worst thing on the table. Banker costs 1.06 percent of what you stake. Player costs 1.24. The Tie costs 14.36, which is more than thirteen times the Banker bet, and it sits on the same felt an inch away.
That is the whole game, and it is a short page because of it. You have no decisions once the cards come out. The drawing rules are fixed and the dealer applies them automatically, so your only choice happens before the hand starts: which of three squares to put the chips on.
Baccarat is the inverse of blackjack. There, the way you play decides the price and the bet is always the same. Here, the bet decides the price and the play is out of your hands entirely.
Every figure below carries a named source or is arithmetic you can repeat yourself. No casino has paid to appear here.
The Three Bets, Priced
| Bet | Pays | House edge | Cost per €100 staked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Banker | Even money, less a five percent commission | 1.06% | €1.06 |
| Player | Even money, no commission | 1.24% | €1.24 |
| Tie | 8 to 1 | 14.36% | €14.36 |
| Tie on a table paying 9 to 1 | 9 to 1 | 4.84% | €4.84 |
| Player or Banker pair | 11 to 1 | 10.36% | €10.36 |
Eight deck shoe, standard drawing rules. Edges from Wizard of Odds. The nine to one tie is uncommon, and it is still four times the price of the Banker bet.
Read the first and third rows together. Staking a hundred euros on Banker costs about one euro on average. The same hundred on the Tie costs over fourteen. Nothing else about the hand changes between those two outcomes.
Why the Commission Is Not a Catch
Players avoid the Banker bet because of the five percent charge, which is exactly backwards. The commission exists because Banker wins more often, not less.
Of the hands that reach a decision, Banker takes about 50.7 percent and Player about 49.3. That gap would make Banker a positive bet at even money, so the house charges five percent of each win to claw it back. After the charge it still costs less than Player, which is why it stays the best bet on the layout.
There is a version that removes the fee, usually sold as no commission baccarat. It pays a Banker win on a total of six at half instead, and that single change raises the edge from 1.06 to about 1.46 percent. Taking the visible fee away makes the bet nearly half again more expensive.
The Tie Is the Most Expensive Bet in the Building
A tie happens on about 9.5 percent of hands, which is roughly one in ten and feels due far more often than that. The payout of 8 to 1 is priced for an event that occurs closer to one in eleven once the arithmetic is done, and the gap is the 14.36 percent.
To put that beside the rest of this site, the Tie costs nearly three times what the American roulette wheel costs and more than thirty times a good blackjack table. It is on the layout for the same reason insurance is offered at blackjack, and the correct response is identical.
The Scoreboards Are Not Information
No other game decorates itself with its own history the way baccarat does. The big road, the bead plate, the bug road: whole grids of past results displayed beside the table, free of charge.
They record what already happened. The shoe does not read them. After six Banker wins in a row the next hand is still about 50.7 percent Banker among decided hands, exactly what it was before the run began, and every pattern you can see in that grid is a pattern that has finished.
Casinos provide those displays willingly, which tells you how much they cost the house. It is the same logic as the scoreboard of recent numbers at a roulette wheel, and I set out that arithmetic on the roulette systems page.
If you want the grids taken apart properly, the baccarat tips and tricks page does it, including why three of the four are drawn from the fourth and what a run of six is actually worth.
Speed Is the Only Lever You Have
With no decisions in the hand and one correct bet, the remaining variable is how many hands you play. The edge is charged on each one, so the same stake spread over twice as many hands costs twice as much.
That is the practical case for a live dealer table over the software version. Neither is fairer, because both deal the same rules from the same shoe. A live table simply runs slower, and slower is cheaper when the price is per hand.
Where Baccarat Runs Live
Six of the casinos I review list live baccarat in the lobby: Nomini, 22Casino, 1Bet, Playfina, Asino and BetLabel. None of them publishes the commission rule or the tie payout in the lobby description, so both are worth checking on the table itself before the first hand.
It takes a few seconds. A table paying 9 to 1 on the tie and charging the standard commission is the version you want, and the one that advertises no commission is usually the one to avoid.
The Bonus Will Not Let You Play It
Baccarat sits in the same category as blackjack and roulette in every bonus term I have read. Seven of the casinos I review count table games as nothing at all toward a wagering requirement: National Casino, Spinanga, HellSpin, DragonSlots, BillyBets, SafeCasino and Spinline.
Playfina is the single exception, at 5 percent, so twenty euros staked on a baccarat table counts as one euro of turnover. A bet that costs the house barely one percent is a poor destination for borrowed money. If baccarat is what you came for, decline the bonus and keep your balance withdrawable, for the reasons set out on the page about whether to take the bonus at all.
How I Checked These Numbers
The edges come from Wizard of Odds for an eight deck shoe under the standard drawing rules, and the cost column is simply the edge applied to a hundred euros. The Banker and Player win rates are the published frequencies of decided hands, which is where the commission comes from.
The casino facts are a different kind of number. Each comes from a full review on this site, read out of the operator’s own terms, with the date it was last read recorded on the review itself.
Where to Go Next
Baccarat is three lines in a longer table. These pages carry the rest of it.
Where to Play Baccarat for Real Money
The three bets are identical everywhere, so what actually differs is who holds your balance and how quickly they give it back. Each casino below has been scored on exactly that.
FAQ About Online Baccarat
Which baccarat bet is best?
Banker, every time. It costs 1.06 percent after the five percent commission, against 1.24 for Player and 14.36 for the Tie on a standard eight deck table.
Why does the banker bet charge commission?
Because it wins slightly more often than Player, about 50.7 percent of decided hands. The commission exists to take that advantage back, and even after it the bet is still the cheapest on the table.
Is the tie bet ever worth taking?
Not at the usual 8 to 1 payout, where it runs 14.36 percent against you. A few tables pay 9 to 1, which brings it to about 4.84 percent, still far worse than either main bet.
What about the pair side bets?
They cost roughly 10 percent on an eight deck shoe, which puts them closer to the Tie than to the main bets. Treat every side bet on the layout as decoration.
Is no commission baccarat a better deal?
No. It pays banker wins on a total of six at half, which raises the banker edge from 1.06 to about 1.46 percent. Removing the visible fee makes the bet more expensive, not less.
Do the scoreboards on the table mean anything?
No. The roads and scorecards are a record of what already happened, and the shoe has no memory of it. They are the gambler’s fallacy printed on the felt.
Can I influence a hand once it starts?
No, and that is what separates baccarat from blackjack. The drawing rules are fixed and automatic, so your only decision is which bet to place before the cards appear.
Does baccarat count toward bonus wagering?
Almost never. Seven of the casinos I review count table games as nothing at all, and the one exception counts them at 5 percent, which the bonus arithmetic prices in euros.
Is live dealer baccarat different from the software version?
Only in speed and presentation. Both deal the same odds from the same rules, and a live table simply runs slower, which costs less per hour at the same stake.
How often are these figures checked?
The edges come from a named source and are fixed by the rules rather than by operator terms, so they do not expire. The casino facts come from reviews with their own last read date in the review index.
Who Wrote This
I came to this from finance, which is probably why baccarat interests me more than it should. It is a game with one correct answer, repeated for as long as you care to sit there, surrounded by scoreboards designed to make you doubt it.
I am responsible for everything published here. Every figure on this page is either arithmetic you can repeat yourself or a number with a named source beside it. If you find one that no longer holds, write to me.
18+. Gambling can be addictive. Every house edge on this page is a long run average. It describes thousands of hands and tells you almost nothing about tonight. The Banker bet is the cheapest on the table, not a winning one, and no pattern on a scoreboard changes what the next hand will do. The only reliable way to control what a session costs is to decide the amount before you start. If gambling has stopped being entertainment, free and confidential help is available in Slovenia through NIJZ.
