Baccarat is one of the few games that give players good odds of winning, and it has made a place for itself at casinos. Though most players of the game prefer to place high stakes on the game, there are others who play with small bankrolls. One of the key reasons the game appeals to both types of players is because the rules of the game are simple. All you have to do is place a bet on one of the three options - the player, banker or tie.

House edge on each bet

Of the three options, the bets on the player and banker have the lowest house edge. In an eight deck game, a wager on the banker will have an edge of just 1.17% and that on the player 1.36%. Compared to these two options, the house advantage on the tie is big, 14.4%. The house edge on the bets is contingent on the probability of each winning. The chance of the banker winning non-tie hands is 50.68%, and that of the player is 49.32%.

Probabilities of banker and player bets

If you place bets with 100 credits against the probabilities, you will most likely earn 49.32 credits and lose 50.68. The house gets an edge of 1.36 as the difference between what you lose and earn is equal to that, giving the gaming site an advantage when you use the player bet.

Similarly, you can calculate banker odds - if you make bets on the banker in baccarat with 100 credits, you will win back 0.95 credits for each coin you wager. This is based on the fact that the casino will charge a 5% commission on your wins. If you win 50.68% of the bets you place and multiply that amount with 0.95, you will get back 48.15 credits. The losses you are likely to face in this will be 49.32. The difference of your loss and win will be 1.17, which is the house advantage in percentage.

In the case of the banker bet, the site does not have a big edge, as it wins more than 50% of the times. As gaming sites cannot give the advantage to players because it will result in big losses for them, they charge a 5% commission on all banker bets that win.

Probability of tie bet

A tie bet can happen about 9.55% times. This means that the actual odds of getting a tie wager are 9.47:1. To get this you will have to divide 100 by 9.55. It will give 10.47, which when considered in light of the possibility that you will get back the original wagering amount, the odds will be 9.47:1.

So if you win a tie bet, you will only earn 9.47 credits per one coin bet, instead of 10.47. When 10.47 is divided by the difference, the site will get a house edge of 14.4%. This brings the odds on the bet to 8.

The probabilities in baccarat change with the number of decks used in the game, even though the odds are the same. For instance, while the tie bet has odds of 9:1 when played with eight and six decks, it will have a house advantage of 4.84% in the former and 4.93% in the latter.