Baccarat Strategy

Punto Banco can be said to have been fashioned after the popular Baccarat game. Punto Banco is however different from Baccarat game in that there are no optional plays. It is a kind of Poker game that can be played on the single dealer black jack table which is the regular tables found in conventional casinos. Some big casinos in Europe do opt for the kidney-shaped tables, in which the three dealers sit comfortably in arm chairs and deal the cards themselves. The Punta Banco table normally consist of 12 Punters sitting at the table. There might be up to 10 or more Punter tables depending on the size of the Casino.

The Punto Banco poker game is played with only the players at the table allowing to make bets. These players determine which of the two sides will win after placing their bets in a box of their choice. One can choose a player by placing a bet on the player region in front of their numbered seat. A player can choose a bank when he passes the bet to a dealer who places the bet in the “bank”. A player can decide to bet on a tie after making his choice on the Punto Banco table. This implies that all hand-betting will be a draw and there wouldn’t be any more cards to come because all the hands will have equal value.

Now that the bets have been placed by the players, the first player on the first seat will start to deal with the cards using the “shoe” and he used this shoe to send the cards toward the center of the table, all other players will follow in the same fashion and the dealer at the center of the table will thereafter rearrange the cards in an orderly manner. The mini version of the Punto Banco is quite different in that only the house dealer is allowed to do all the dealings.

In Punto Banco, the dealer allows the game to flow by letting the first card goes to the players and the second to the bank. The dealer of the Punto Banco Poker game allows play by “running the game” or otherwise known as spreading. The shoe in Punto Banco game is used to hold the cards that is used in dealings when playing the Punto Banco in a Casino. The player and the bank are the two competing sides in this type of Poker game, while the Punters play the game by betting on either the player or bank depending on who is winning.

Before the cards enter the shoe, a cut card is inserted so that players wouldn’t run out of cards while the Punto Banco game is being played. The game of Punto Banco is visible in most Casinos and it is a game of perfect attention and Psychology. An individual who is not smart enough cannot make an headway in a Punto Banco game, it is strictly for those who understand how to turn the table to their favour.

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It is no secret that casinos operate with a “House Edge” or advantage against the player. This is a fact of life, whether you are playing at The Luxor in Las Vegas, The Venetian in Macau or online in your pyjamas. Casinos aren´t registered charities. They are businesses, and the way they make their money is to charge a fee or margin for people to carry out transactions in their casino, much like a bank would. In poker, this is called the rake. You´ll pay a certain fee for the dealer to deal you a hand. A casino will keep a percentage of the overall money placed on bets for itself. This money does not go into the pot that pays out the winnings: it goes to the casino to run its business.

That much is general knowledge. What I always find surprising, is not that people play at casinos- it is great entertainment and there are winners as well as losers- it´s that often people tend to play the games that are the most “expensive” to play, i.e. that have the biggest house advantage.

If you are going to play at a casino, in my view, you are better off playing those games that give you the best odds, or at least play a mix of games that are weighted to those games that offer the best odds.

Let´s take a look at online baccarat, for example. The baccarat banker bet carries a house advantage of just 1.1%. This compares to American Roulette, for example, that weighs in at a hefty 5.3% and keno that scrapes off an eyewatering 25%. You´ll get even better odds if you play blackjack. BUT, you´ll need to play to a perfect strategy (i.e. stand at the correct time to give yourself the best chance of beating the banker). Baccarat is a reasonably simple game- there is little room for error, so it is easy to play to a perfect strategy.

This is one of the reasons that Baccarat is so popular, particularly with high stakes players and high roller casino players, as it offers one of the lowest house edges in the casino. Often you will see baccarat rooms in Vegas and Macau cordoned off from the public. There is glamour surrounding this game- that’s because generally baccarat is popular with the big time players and there is generally alot of money flowing around (not to mention the beautiful people).

But play baccarat online, and you´ll sidestep all of the velvet ropes stopping access to the general public. Your best bet is the banker bet as the house edge is a mere 1.17%, while the casino tax for a player bet is slightly more, but still a reasonable 1.35%. Don’t bother with the tie bet. Although the payout is higher (8:1, compared to 2:1) the house edge is a lot steeper at 14%.

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Every casino has an area set aside for its Chinese clientele. These areas are always characterised by their noisy, exciting atmosphere in which huddles of players stake vast amounts of cash on seemingly mystifying games with exotic-sounding names. Not for them Blackjack or roulette. They prefer Sic Bo, Pai Gow, Keno. Even the European favourite Baccarat is referred to as Punto Banco.

Western gamblers spend time and money looking for systems – strategies that allow them to turn the odds in their favour. They play games in which the casino has the smallest advantage (or house edge). This attracts them to ‘safe’ bets in games like Blackjack, where the casino advantage is around 0.5%.

The Chinese games are completely the opposite. Some of the bets in these games are the worst of any in the casino. For example, the tie bet in Punto Banco has a house edge of 14%, while in Sic Bo, for any bet other than the Big or Small bets it’s between 8 and 18%. Keno is barely more than a lottery, with extremely high casino advantages of at least 25%.

The chance of winning is clearly not the major motivator in these games. So what is it that attracts the Chinese players?

It comes down to why they play. Unlike the typical gambler, they are not necessarily seeking to get rich quick. Instead, they see it as a way to test themselves against the world. To the Chinese, luck is considered a moral attribute. If fortune is smiling on you, you are seen as blessed.

The Chinese – maybe because of Chinese society’s essentially feudal past – regard life as a gamble, so these games are just an extension of the random nature of life.

Another factor is their confidence in their own business acumen. They believe that any money lost while gambling can and will be recouped through more legitimate channels.

The Chinese attitude to gambling is far more healthy than ours in the West. It is not perceived as an immoral activity, but as a social outlet in which the individual tackles and tries to overcome improbable odds, much as life itself.

If you’re a gambler sick of trying to find that tiny margin of probability, or you just want to know if fortune is smiling upon you, perhaps you should try your hand at Sic Bo or Keno.

If you’re still not convinced to take a chance, there are plenty sites out there than can give you the low-down on these games and explain how best to tackle them. Fortune Palace, for example, will explain the rules, odds and advantages for Sic Bo, Keno, Pai Gow and Punto Banco.

Change your motivation for gambling and relax a little.

Just place your bets and let fate decide if you win or lose!

Andy Follin runs Fortune Palace, regarded as the best online gambling guide for gamblers of all levels, from beginner to high roller, that includes game strategies, online casino reviews, the latest online casino bonus offers and a detailed casino deposit guide for ALL players, including those from the USA.

Card Counting is one of those phony ideas published in baccarat strategy books. Card counting is most often associated with the game of blackjack – and is very effected, used correctly in the right casino. It could also seem to be of real worth in baccarat as the game does work off a comparable shoe. The issue that causes the problem is that of used cards be reintroduced into the shoe before very many have been taken out, thereby flummoxing any count made up to that point! Baccarat also, unlike Blackjack, does not allow the player the right to change his bet mid-hand in play. Blackjack allows this practice in a number of specific cases, and the player can increase his bet if his count changes during play. In baccarat, card counting presents very few situations with an advantage against the house that the actual overall labours are of no value to the player at all.

Baccarat can be considered a very elaborate coin toss game. This oversimplified impression of the game lures many players to using the Martingale based system of betting which entails doubling up on ones’ bet each time a hand is lost. The Logic being that you eventually have to win, and the doubling will allow you to recoup all losses made from all the preceding hands! A perfect system indeed and one that actually can’t be beaten in games like baccarat or roulette, and it is because of this that casinos issued new rules. The new rules limit how much a player can bet in 1 hand.

Casinos effectively got rid of the threat of the Martingale System gambler or player by setting Table maximums (and minimums). i.e. A player bets $5 on the banker and lost. Next bet, $10 on the banker, next bet $20, etc, and he continues to lose. Before long, his bet will have doubled up to a point that it will exceed the table maximum. In this case the player can’t bet any higher and his system has failed, he must quit.

The Martingale System is a horrific betting system that follows a human beings panic thinking – their natural thought pattern that somehow believes that if a coin lands heads up 9x in a row, there is a greater chance than 50% that it will land tails on the 10th flip! IT DOES NOT WORK!

So – if all these strategies and systems – card counting, pattern spotting, streak spotting etc are worthless strategies for baccarat – is there any good one? Well…practically and mathematically speaking… when you analyse the numbers, the odds do seem to always be in favour when a player bets on the banker, though this is a very boring tactic to play. Perhaps throw in some pattern chasing to break the tedium, or count the scorecards!

Ryan D. has been involved in the online casino and online gambling industries for over 6 years as an operator, marketer and consultant. He can be contacted via his website at http://www.online-gambling-insider.com