Baccarat Strategy – Awesome Tips For Winning More

online baccarat guideDespite its simplicity, Baccarat is quite a complicated game once you get deeper into it. The rules may be easy enough to understand but developing an effective strategy around them is something else entirely. Baccarat strategy articles across the net will swear by set systems, which players can use effectively and win if they stick rigidly to them.

We’re here to tell you that you can be flexible with these strategies and even develop your own. In either case, we have plenty of tips to help you develop an effective Baccarat strategy which will help you get better at playing the game.

We cannot guarantee you’ll win every time with these suggestions but if you implement them, we’re sure you’re going to get an increase in successes.

Baccarat Strategy

In a live casino baccarat game, the cards are drawn from a shoe without reshuffling on every round. Thus, all outcomes are predetermined until the next re-shuffle occurs.

Knowing this, professional baccarat players often count the game rounds in shoes between the shuffles:

  • Even shoe (where player and banker wins equally often)
  • Player dominant shoe (where player wins more often)
  • Banker dominant shoe (where banker wins more often)

Usually, a shoe will include both player/banker win streaks and opposite streaks (where each hand wins every other round). However, as the game progresses, it’s possible to predict the best course of action for winning the next round:

Single-Hand Betting

One proven method of gambling on baccarat is focusing on a single hand – either that of player or banker. The idea behind this is that one side gains an advantage at some point in most shoes.

However, since the advantage is rarely significant, it’s important to know when to back out. Thus:

  1. Keep betting on the same hand as long as it’s winning
  2. When your hand loses but your balance is still positive, it’s time to stop

This means either switching tables or waiting for another re-shuffle of the cards.

On the other hand, you shouldn’t join a game in the middle of a shoe. Instead, you should pay attention to the card arrangement from the beginning and keep track of various streaks. For example, the more banker streaks you missed, the lower odds are for them happening again.

House Edge & Odds

It’s important to realise that there is always a house edge when it comes to Baccarat, no matter which version of the game you play. Depending on which bet you choose to make, the house edge can increase or decrease dramatically, so we advise you make decisions accordingly.

House Edge

Understand that when we say “house edge” we mean how much the game is in the casino’s favour, rather than the player’s. This has almost no reflection on the actual odds of the game.

Here are the average house edge figures concerning the main bets in Baccarat:

Bet  House Edge
Banker 1.1%
Player 1.4%
Tie 14.4%

As you can see, you’d be better off making either Banker or Player bets based on these figures alone as the house edge is much lower than making a bet on a Tie.

Odds

But what about the odds? What is the likelihood you’ll actually win on any of the above bets? Well, we have some figures on that too.

Bet  Odds
Banker 45.86%
Player 44.62%
Tie 9.52%

Again, this implies a strategy focusing on Banker and Player bets to be the better course of action. While Ties have a much higher return, the odds of them occurring are too low for cautious players to consider.

Keep Track

This can be applied to any other form of gambling but keeping track of all your bets is very important. Luckily, in some casinos, this isn’t a problem as players are offered sheets of paper in which to keep track of their scores.

Here are a few methods you can use to keep track of your bets:

  • Mobile app
  • Excel spreadsheet
  • Notebook

There are other ways of keeping track, however, and these include physical limitations such as only drawing out £20 from an ATM and only using that note to make your bets. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. You could even draw a budget and stick to it rigidly, but we know this is difficult.

Whichever way you choose to keep track of your bets, doing so helps form a better strategy and help you put restrictions on your spending. After all, you don’t want to end up spending more than you wanted to.

Know When To Stop

Overall, the most important aspect to any Baccarat strategy is to know when to stop. This is easier said than done. Knowing when to stop is one thing but actually stopping, especially when it comes to gambling can be deceptively difficult.

The key thing to keep in mind is that if it stops being fun, then you should stop.

Above winning, your primary objective is to enjoy the game. Getting frustrated after suffering many losses will throw you into an emotional state and people make poor decisions when they’re emotional. Better to quit while you’re ahead rather than through caution to the wind at the drop of a hat.