Only Bet on Banker
The most powerful force behind the popularity of pure luck games like baccarat is the inexplicable belief in fate and a faithful logic behind head-or-tails phenomena. At land-based casinos, you find players bending laboriously over score cards, scribbling down results in the expectation of a pattern or a lucky streak to jump on.
In some Macau casinos, computer monitors installed at the baccarat tables show the history of all wins and if the same hand scores again and again at a certain table, that table gets overcrowded in no time. Math experts and weathered gamblers frown at such zealous attention to patterns and consider it a complete waste of time. It falsely ascribes some governing logic to randomness.
However, statistically speaking, the Banker hand has an in-built advantage over the Player hand, thus, the mathematically logical thing is to keep betting on the Banker. The Banker bet has an RTP of 98.94%, whereas the Player bet has an RTP of 98.76%. Math whiz gamblers advise: always bet on the Banker!
Debunking Baccarat Strategy Myths
On a similar note, many players assume that a shoe will seek to balance itself over time and compensate for ‘unnaturally’ repetitive wins on one side, thus eventually switching to the other side. This is known as Gambler’s Fallacy. It is the presumption that nature seeks balance, especially in a casino, no less at a baccarat table. For instance, it is well known that the typical 8-deck baccarat shoe (excluding the last 13 cards marked by a cut-card) will have about 81 hands before the shuffle. Statistically, the chances for each bet are the following: 37 Banker wins, 36 Player wins, and 8 Ties. The so-called regressive player, i.e. the one assuming a shoe will make up for a deficit of certain wins, will bet on the Banker mid-shoe, if Player has already won most rounds. Don’t assume that the baccarat shoe has a mind of its own, it will not seek to compensate imbalances! You could get tails 3 or 50 times out of 50 flip coins, the coin has no preference.
Baccarat Tips: How to Optimize Your Betting Strategy
Even though baccarat experts warn against trusting patterns, there are still basic tips that can be useful to novice and experienced punters alike, including how to manage your bankroll and how to optimize your bets in terms of bet size and side to bet one.
