Springbok Casino baccarat: three bets, one shoe

Baccarat asks one thing of you: pick a side before the cards come out. The game deals and settles every card after that.

1. Choose your bet. Player, Banker or Tie, within R1–R500 for the round. "Player" and "Banker" are just the names of the two hands, and you may back either one.
2. Two cards to each hand. The game deals two cards to the Player hand and two to the Banker hand from the six-deck shoe.
3. Count the totals. Card values are added and only the last digit of the sum counts (see the table below).
4. Maybe a third card. A fixed drawing rule decides whether either hand takes a third card, and no hand goes past three. You make no choice here.
5. Closest to nine wins. The higher final total takes the round, and equal totals are a tie. A two-card eight or nine, called a natural, ends the round straight away.

Springbok's article does not spell out how Player and Banker bets are settled when the two hands tie. The game's help panel does, so read it once before your first real-money round.

So a seven and an eight make fifteen, which counts as five. A nine with a King stays at nine, the best total a hand can have.

The Banker commission

Banker pays even money less 5% commission. The commission comes off the winnings, not the stake: a winning Banker bet hands back your stake plus winnings that fall 5% short of it. Keep that in mind when you tally a session, because Banker wins are always a touch smaller than the amount you risked.

The Tie

Tie pays 9:1, the richest pay on the table. It is also the result that turns up least often, and Springbok's house edge for it shows the price.

The Player bet

The rule card lists the Banker and Tie pays. For Player, the Springbok figure quoted here is its house edge, 1.24%; read the Player pay off the paytable in the game before you stake.

Each percentage is the share of every rand staked on that bet that the game keeps over a long run of rounds. On Springbok's figures the order is Banker at 1.06%, Player at 1.24% and Tie well behind at 4.93%.

Banker comes out cheapest despite the commission. Under the drawing table the Banker hand acts second, after the Player hand's third card (if any) is showing, and that small advantage makes it win slightly more often than Player. The commission trims the advantage back without removing it.

Unlike blackjack, these numbers don't depend on how you play, since nothing is left to decide once the bet is down. That makes Banker, at 1.06%, the lowest figure on Springbok's house-edge list that asks for no strategy at all. Springbok blackjack only gets down to 0.65% if every hand follows the chart.

With nothing to decide after the bet, baccarat strategy comes down to which bet you make and how much you put on it.

Past hands do not tell you what the next one will be. And the R500 ceiling on a round cuts off any doubling run after a string of losses, exactly when a progression would need more room.

• Backing the Tie for its big number. 9:1 looks generous, but its 4.93% edge is the highest of the three bets by a wide margin.
• Ignoring the commission. Count Banker wins net of the 5% commission, or your session totals will look better than they are.
• Covering two outcomes in one round. Each bet carries its own edge. Spreading money across Player, Banker and Tie never lowers the cost; it stacks it.
• Losing track of time. With no decisions, rounds settle fast. Set a budget and a clock before the first hand.
• Betting with a bonus live. Covered below; it can void the bonus outright.

Baccarat is not among the games Springbok's T&Cs count toward bonus wagering, and a table bet placed before wagering is complete can void the bonus and its winnings. Every bet during wagering is also capped at R100. Bring a deposit with no coupon and keep the two apart. Open the baccarat table at Springbok.

If baccarat's one-call rhythm suits you, Andar Bahar and Lucky 7 work in a similar way: you make your call before the deal and the cards do the rest. To learn the drawing rules with no stake at all, see Springbok's free table games for practice.