Category · 1.06% on banker
BACCARAT: THREE BETS, ONE ANSWER
Bet banker. Pay the commission. That is the entire strategy for a game with no decisions in it, and everything else on the layout is more expensive.
Baccarat has no choices. Cards are drawn according to a fixed table, the player makes no decisions after placing a wager, and the only thing under your control is which of three boxes the chips go in.
Banker at five percent commission costs 1.06 percent. Player costs 1.24. The gap is small, it is real, and it is entirely a consequence of the drawing rules favouring the banker hand slightly.
The tie is where the money goes. At eight to one it costs over fourteen percent, which is worse than any standing bet on a Canadian casino floor except a keno ticket.
Every line, priced
| Bet or rule | Edge | Per hour | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Banker, eight decks, five percent commissionPLAY THIS ONE | 1.06% | C$18.55 | The commission is what keeps this line playable rather than free. Pay it and take the price. |
| Player | 1.24% | C$21.70 | No commission, slightly worse. The difference across an evening is small and it is still a difference. |
| Banker, no commission variant | 1.46% | C$25.55 | Commission removed, banker wins on six pay half. The house takes it back on the back end. |
| Tie, paying 9 to 1 | 4.84% | C$84.70 | Same bet, one better paytable, a third of the cost. Read the felt. |
| Player pair or banker pair | 10.36% | C$181.30 | Eleven to one on a pair that arrives about one hand in fifteen. |
| Tie, paying 8 to 1 | 14.36% | C$251.30 | The worst standing bet on a Canadian casino floor by a distance. |
Per hour is the edge multiplied by 70 decisions and a C$25 stake. It is a long-run rate rather than a prediction about an evening. Every figure above is a property of the rules and applies at any table running them.
Cashiers running a live floor
22 of the 23 cashiers inside the 24 hour rule run a live floor, 3,515 tables between them. 20 casinos sit past the rule and carry no link anywhere on this site. GO pays a commission when an account opens through it.
Commission-free is not free
Variants that remove the five percent commission usually pay half on a banker win with six, and the arithmetic works out worse than paying the commission. 1.46 percent against 1.06.
That is the general shape of every no-commission table game: the house takes its cut somewhere, and moving it out of sight usually means moving it up.
Where both tables are open, take the commission version and stop thinking about it.
Roads, patterns and the shoe
The big road, the bead plate and the various derived grids track what has happened. They do not predict what will happen, because a shuffled shoe has no memory and the drawing rules do not change based on the last six hands.
Following them is harmless as ritual and expensive as strategy, particularly when a pattern pushes a player onto the tie.
The bet with the lowest edge is the bet with the lowest edge on hand one and on hand four hundred.
Asked about baccarat tables
What is the best bet in baccarat?
Banker, with the commission, at 1.06 percent. Player is 1.24. Everything else on the layout is several times more expensive.
Why is there a commission on banker?
Because the drawing rules give the banker hand a real advantage. The five percent is what brings the two sides close enough for the table to be worth running.
Is the tie bet ever worth taking?
At nine to one it costs 4.84 percent, which is bad rather than absurd. At eight to one it is over fourteen. Check the paytable printed on the felt before deciding it does not matter.