Counting Cards to Gain Advantage
Card counting does not always win. Nevertheless, the mathematical advantage means that they will eventually win. This strategy can be used to achieve a long term advantage over the house.
The same cannot be said for baccarat. There are a series of numbers that make the odds slip in favor of the player or the house.
However, card counting is laborious. The attention and discipline required to maintain accurate counts effectively is hardly worth the slight advantage in return.
In fact, all players are better off focusing their attention on things like money management. Money management won’t give you a favorable chance, but in a game where the casino edge is so low, it can keep you alive until you go on a winning streak.
Baccarat is an excellent game for players who want to be entertained, but Blackjack is better suited for the convenience of advantageous gamblers.
Change your bets for a better chance of winning
Talk to any veteran baccarat player and they will tell you that it is foolish to alternate bets between the house and the player.
Gamblers have a costly tendency to look for patterns where they are not intended to exist. For example, if a player bets eight times in a row, many people think the next hand or two must go to the dealer.
Probability suggests that a player with 15 winning hands in a row is unlikely. However, each result in baccarat is independent of all previous results.
This is a gambler’s fallacy, which follows the logic that it may somehow affect the following outcomes because one outcome has already occurred.
It is true that the casino edge on the banker’s bet is 1.04% lower than on the punter’s bet. This difference is less than 0.25%, but it is enough to be felt at the table.
The casino tries to promote the idea that players can make informed decisions by placing conspicuous displays on the baccarat table showing previous results. You should ignore it completely and just bet against the dealer.
Banker betting commissions make it a fool’s bet
Because of the commission on winning bets, there seems to be a general perception that banker bets are foolish. Banker bets do have a 5% commission on winning bets. This means that if you bet $25 per bet to the banker, you will still lose $25 when the player wins. However, when the banker wins, you only win $20. At first glance, this appears to be a raw deal.
The 5% commission is meant to give the house an edge. Otherwise, a savvy gambler might bet on the house all night long, essentially guaranteeing a profit.