Baccarat House Edge: Banker, Player, Tie and Side Bets Explained

The house edge is, put simply, the casino’s share of the money wagered. The lower the house edge, the smaller your losses tend to be over the long run, and in baccarat the house edge varies widely depending on where you place your bet.

What You Will Learn

• The house edge is the casino’s share of the money wagered. The lower it is, the smaller your long-term losses.
• In baccarat, the house edge is about 1.24% on the Player bet, about 1.06% on the Banker bet and about 14.36% on the Tie bet.
• In standard baccarat, the Banker bet has the lowest house edge, but in no-commission baccarat the Player bet has the lower house edge.

This article takes about 10 minutes to read.

What Is the House Edge in Baccarat?

It is a figure that shows how much of each bet the casino keeps. The lower the house edge, the smaller the casino’s share, which makes it easier to keep your long-term losses down.

In baccarat, you bet on either Player or Banker, and the hand whose total (counting only the last digit) is closer to 9 wins. At first glance, each bet seems to win 50% of the time and pays 1 to 1, so a $10 bet wins $10. It might therefore look as though the casino takes nothing.

In baccarat, cards are dealt to two hands, called Player and Banker, and you bet on which one will win. “Player” is the name of a bet, not a reference to you. From here on, we write “Player hand” and “Banker hand” to keep the two apart.

However, the rules for drawing a third card are designed so that the Banker hand wins slightly more often. As a result, the Player hand wins slightly less than 50% of the time, while the Banker hand wins slightly more than 50%, and to offset this, a commission is deducted from winning Banker bets.

This adjustment gives the casino a steady share over the long run.

How to Calculate the House Edge

To calculate the house edge in baccarat, you first work out the expected value and then divide it by the amount bet. The formulas are as follows.

As an example, take a simple game that costs $10 per play. A win, which comes up 30% of the time, pays back $30 in total, and a loss pays nothing.

A win is a profit of $20 with a probability of 30%, and a loss is a loss of $10 with a probability of 70%, so the expected value is 20 × 0.3 − 10 × 0.7 = −1. In other words, each play has an expected value of −$1.

The house edge of this game is −(−1 ÷ 10 × 100) = 10, which means the house keeps 10%.

Using this formula, the house edge on the Player bet, the Banker bet and the Tie bet works out as follows (assuming 8 decks).

Betting on the Player Hand: About 1.24%

In a typical live baccarat game (8 decks), the Banker hand wins 45.86% of the time, the Player hand 44.62% and the Tie 9.52%. A winning Player bet pays 1 to 1, so a $10 bet wins $10 and you get $20 back in total. The expected value of a Player bet is therefore calculated as follows.

The expected value is −0.0124 per unit bet, which corresponds to a house edge of about 1.24%.

Because the Player hand pays 1 to 1 with no commission, it is easy to combine with betting systems. Keep in mind that a betting system only changes the swings in your results (the variance) and how quickly your bankroll goes down; it does not change the house edge itself.

Betting on the Banker Hand: About 1.06%

When a Banker bet wins, a 5% commission is deducted, so it pays 0.95 to 1: a $10 bet wins $9.50 and you get $19.50 back in total. The expected value of a Banker bet is therefore calculated as follows.

The expected value is −0.0105 per unit bet, which corresponds to a house edge of about 1.06%.

Note: The probabilities in this calculation are rounded to two decimal places, so the result differs slightly from the figure obtained with the exact probabilities (Banker 45.8597%, Tie 9.5156%). The figures given in the text are the exact values: a house edge of 1.06% and a return to player (RTP) of 98.94% on the Banker bet, and a house edge of 14.36% on the Tie.

Because its house edge is slightly lower than the Player bet’s, the Banker bet is the better value. If you play with flat betting (betting the same amount every round), the Banker hand is the standard choice.

Betting on a Tie: About 14.36%

A winning Tie bet pays 8 to 1, so a $10 bet wins $80 and you get $90 back in total. The expected value of a Tie bet is therefore calculated as follows.

The expected value is −0.1432 per unit bet, which corresponds to a house edge of about 14.36%.

Some games, such as Lightning Baccarat from Evolution, apply a multiplier to the payout when the winning hand contains certain cards. These games have different payout and fee conditions from standard baccarat, such as a 20% fee added on top of each bet, so the figures above do not apply to them directly. Check the official game rules for the actual values.

At a standard table paying 8 to 1, the Tie has a house edge more than 10 times that of the Player or Banker bet, so it is not suitable as your main bet if you want to keep your losses down.

Betting on a Pair: About 10.36%

Player Pair and Banker Pair are side bets that the first two cards dealt to that hand will be of the same rank. The standard payout is 11 to 1, so a $10 bet wins $110. The house edge is about 10.36%, which corresponds to an RTP of about 89.64%. That is nearly 10 times the house edge of the Player and Banker bets, so a pair bet should not be treated the same way as those main bets.

House Edge in No-Commission Baccarat

No-commission baccarat is a version of baccarat in which the 5% commission normally deducted from winning Banker bets is removed. The one exception is when the Banker hand wins with a total of 6: the bet then pays only half, at 1 to 2, so a $10 bet wins $5 and you get $15 back in total. Apart from this reduced payout on a 6, no commission is charged. This reduced payout is what offsets the Banker hand’s higher chance of winning.

The house edge on the Player bet and the Tie is the same as in standard baccarat, so only the Banker bet is calculated here.

As noted above, the Banker hand wins 45.86% of the time. Of this, 5.39% of the time (about once every 18–19 rounds) it wins with a total of 6, and 40.47% of the time it wins with any other total. The expected value of a Banker bet in no-commission baccarat is therefore calculated as follows.

The expected value is −0.0146 per unit bet, which corresponds to a house edge of about 1.46%.

Compared with the Banker hand in standard baccarat (about 1.06%), the house edge rises by 0.40 percentage points, so the Banker bet ends up with a higher house edge than the Player bet (about 1.24%). The difference is small, but “no commission” does not mean a better deal for the player. The house edge on the Banker bet actually goes up.

Betting on the Super 6 Side Bet: About 13.82–29.98%

Some no-commission baccarat tables offer a side bet called the Super 6 side bet.

This side bet wins when the Banker hand wins with a total of 6. The payout varies by casino, from 12 to 1 (a $10 bet wins $120) to 15 to 1 (a $10 bet wins $150). It pays nothing if the Player hand wins, and nothing if the Banker hand wins with any total other than 6.

A payout of up to 15 to 1 catches the eye, but Super 6 has a very high house edge. At a table that pays 12 to 1, the house edge is about 29.98%, which means nearly 30% of the money bet goes to the casino.

Even at tables with the highest payout, 15 to 1, the house edge is about 13.82%, which is still high. If you combine Super 6 with a Banker bet, your overall house edge will not be this high, but whatever you put on Super 6 adds to your losses. If you want to keep your losses down, it is best to avoid this bet.

Number of Decks and the House Edge

Live baccarat is played with several decks shuffled together in a shoe (the device that holds the cards). With 6 decks, for example, six standard 52-card decks are shuffled together, for a total of 312 cards.

The house edge also changes with the number of decks. The effect is largest on the Tie: the fewer the decks, the less likely it is that cards of the same value remain in the shoe, so the Tie wins less often, and with a single deck its house edge rises to about 15.75%.

On the Banker and Player bets, however, the differences are very small. The house edge on the Banker bet changes by only about 0.05 percentage points between 1 deck and 8 decks.

Most shoes used in live baccarat contain 6–8 decks, so in practice the difference is negligible.

A small number of casinos offer single-deck baccarat, at RNG (computer-dealt) baccarat tables rather than in live baccarat. At those tables, betting on the Banker hand minimizes the long-term cost.

Three Basic Baccarat Strategies Based on the House Edge

These strategies will not be the best choice in every situation, but keeping them in mind makes it easier to avoid unnecessary losses.

(1) Avoid Side Bets and Bet on the Banker or Player Hand

Side bets in baccarat have a fairly low RTP. The Tie and side bets such as the pair bets and Super 6 do not win often enough to justify their payouts, and their house edge is around 10 times that of the main bets. At tables with lower payouts, the house edge on Super 6 is more than 20 times as high. If you want to keep your losses down, the standard approach is to bet on the Banker or Player hand.

The difference between betting on the Player hand and the Banker hand is small, but in terms of house edge, the Banker bet costs you less over the long run. In no-commission baccarat, however, the Player bet has the lower house edge.

(2) 6–8 Decks Is Standard, So There Is No Need to Seek Out Fewer Decks

As shown above, the house edge also changes with the number of decks, but on the Banker bet it differs by only about 0.05 percentage points between 1 deck and 8 decks. Most live baccarat shoes contain 6–8 decks, and single-deck games are found only at some RNG baccarat tables. The number of decks can be treated as a low priority when choosing a table.

(3) Check Whether the Table Charges Commission

Before betting on the Banker hand, you need to know whether the table offers standard baccarat or no-commission baccarat.

Tables labeled “NC” or “No Commission” offer no-commission baccarat, and tables without these labels offer standard baccarat with the usual 5% commission. Make sure you are at the type of table you intended to play.

Summary: In Standard Baccarat the Banker Bet Has the Lowest House Edge, and Side Bets Should Be Avoided

Baccarat has a relatively low house edge compared with other casino games (and far lower than lotteries or horse-race betting). The house edge is about 1.06% on the Banker bet and about 1.24% on the Player bet, which keeps the long-term cost low.

The Tie and side bets such as the pair bets and Super 6 pay too little for how rarely they win, so their house edge is much higher. Avoid side bets wherever possible and stick to the two main bets, Player and Banker, to keep your losses lower.

Because of its low house edge, baccarat combines well with promotions such as VIP programs and rebate bonuses. These promotions reduce your effective losses, but they do not remove the house edge.