Top Baccarat Strategies for Maths Dummies

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Both novice and experienced gamblers believe that your easiest wins can come from playing Baccarat. So if you’re looking for simple rules and high RTP rates, the Baccarat table is the right one to play at!

When we were searching for Baccarat winning strategies, we found most of them were written as if they are targeted at math professionals. But what if you’re not in their league? Don’t worry! Look at the following easy strategies, to help you get started with winning some serious money in Baccarat.

Can You Count Cards?

While Baccarat is considered to be one of the simplest games, even simpler than Blackjack, the probability of guessing the exact shoe outcome is quite low. The main reason for this is because the cards are being shuffled in a random way. Plus, in online Baccarat (as distinguished from live) you have to deal with practically an endless digital deck, where anything is possible!

Nevertheless, if you’re really good at counting in your mind, let’s try and assess the probability of getting a certain number of points in Baccarat.

In every possible combination of Kings, Queens, Princes, and Tens, it appears that we can get a total of…

10 nulls per one deck

Now let’s look at every possible combination of numbered cards….

00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

33 34 35 36 37 38 39

44 45 46 47 48 49

55 56 57 58 59

66 67 68 69

77 78 79

88 89

99

If we translate those numbers to actual Baccarat points (meaning you add it up and drop the left number), here’s what we get…

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1

6 7 8 9 0 1 2

8 9 0 1 2 3

0 1 2 3 4

2 3 4 5

4 5 6

6 7

8

Now, as you can see from the table below, total numbers appear five or six times per deck on average. So if the house plays with, let’s say, six decks, then you should multiply these values accordingly…

The simplest card count shows that the “2” will appear 36 times in six decks, while the “7” will appear 30 times on average. Also, you shouldn’t forget to keep in mind the probability of tie bets appearing throughout the game.

In theory, you could base your strategy on the principle of exhausting the numbers; particularly where seven points have already appeared 30 times, in which case there is no probability of another seven in the game.

But as you can clearly imagine, the world holds a very small pool of players, who all have enough funds to play hundreds of rounds and eliminate probable combinations of numbers on the way.

That’s why we have to come up with more effective strategies of conquering probabilities in the game of Baccarat. Remember they may be not all quite convincing from a mathematical point of view. Still, at the end of the day, the more experienced players just “feel” it.

Baccarat Strategy #1: Stand Your Ground

No matter how much your Baccarat experience you’ve had, there’s one thing you need to know for sure: no hand can be a winning or losing one forever. Generally, the Player vs. Banker outcomes change in a zigzaggy fashion, which is something that is expressed very well by your shoe outcomes form.

Thus, the simplest strategy in Baccarat, and the one that is sure to bring you your much-anticipated win sooner or later, is to hold on to either one of two hands. You may stick to a player’s side because the payout is 1:1; or else, you can experiment with a bet on the Banker as well. Sooner or later, you’re going to win! Furthermore, there’s a good probability of winning a few times in a row while betting on one of the hands when you play Baccarat.

As trends have shown, the Player vs the Banker wins occur in clusters, which means that multiple wins from one hand usually go side by side, or else at small distances from one another. Meanwhile, betting experts recommend to set yourself a loss limit (usually between 2 and 5 losses), after which you should switch to another Baccarat table; or else have a little break from your betting! Otherwise, you may just lose all your money.

Whichever hand you choose, remember that the house edge on both sides doesn’t differ greatly (1.24% on the player bet and 1.06% on the banker bet). This means the banker doesn’t really have a crucial advantage over the player, regardless of what you may have heard from the older and more experienced Baccarat players out there.

In other words, your RTP rates (the upper-limit amount of money to return to gambler) in Baccarat betting is between 98.76% and 98.94%, which is significantly higher than in a variety of other slots and table games as well.

Baccarat Strategy #2: Follow the Trends

As we already mentioned it before, the shoe of outcomes will show you what kinds of trends are present on the table you play. Most commonly, Baccarat trends regularly switch from opposite streaks like these:

Player-Banker-Player-Banker,…

to double streaks like these:

Player-Player-Player, then Banker-Banker-Banker.

Thus, to win at Baccarat, you need to catch the wave of a certain trend. Let’s see how you can do it.

Playing Baccarat online is more convenient because you have all your game history displayed at the bottom of your screen, so you can easily recognize the appearing trends. They could be, for example, small streaks of each hand going one after another; long streaks close to each other; or lines of opposite streaks followed by zigzaggy ones.

However, the downside of this strategy is that you end up doing too much of a guessing game, and you never know exactly when the trend is going to fluctuate or alter completely; so there’s also a pretty high chance you might lose. We recommend you don’t bet big unless you’re sure of the forthcoming trend activity.

Seasoned players have also mentioned they often encounter a so-called hovering state, when no particular trend seems to be maintained (which is also a kind of trend, in and of itself!)

If you happen to encounter a hovering state, we suggest opting for one of these simple strategies:

• Cautiously make your way with little bets
• Try your luck with tie bets
• Sit it out until you recognize the dominance of any trend

Baccarat Strategy #3: Break the Doubles

Breaking the Doubles is the modern strategy for Baccarat betting. The whole point of this one is to bet the opposites (PBPB) until you run into a double streak (BBB or PPP). If you’ve actually lost, you’ll then have to wait for the triggering of the outcome, which would indicate the point at which the double streak is going to end and switch to the opposite. That’s when you know you should bet on the opposite and win!

Baccarat pros swear that they can overcome the house edge when sticking to this strategy. Simply put, you need to wait for times when double streaks end and then bet on the opposite hand. However, you should be aware that trends do tend to alter from time to time, especially at the very beginning of the game, and around the middle of the game.

So, if you’ve been having some long streaks of doubles in clusters, they may as well suddenly change to opposites or zigzaggy ones; so, you may well need to be prepared for those moments.