Baccarat isn’t a popular game in most countries, but it offers a combination of benefits that no other game has. Baccarat is one of the easiest casino games to play and it offers a great return to player percentage.

But you have to play it the right way to get the highest return to player number, and that’s basically what all of the tips in this article cover.

Some live baccarat players try to make the game more complicated than it needs to be. Continue reading to learn how to keep things simple and play in a way that gives you the highest possible return.

Don’t Waste Your Time Looking for Patterns

I often see baccarat players using a pencil and slip of paper or small notebook. They track the results of each hand, making a mark beside the tie when the tie bet wins, beside the banker when the banker wager wins, and beside the player when the player wager wins.

These gamblers try to recognize patterns or tendencies by tracking the results. This seems like it might be a decent system, but the truth is that it’s a waste of time.

Most baccarat games are dealt using eight decks of playing cards. And within the content of the eight decks, the results are as close to random as they can be. Yes, there are only 32 of each of the 13 ranks of cards in the shoe. But the odds of a tie, banker, or player win are basically the same at any point in the shoe.

I don’t mean that a tie is as likely as a player or banker winning hand. What I mean is that the odds of a tie don’t really change based on what’s happened in the past. If the last hand was a tie, the next hand has the same odds of being a tie as it is if the last hand wasn’t a tie.

The fact of baccarat, backed up by mathematical facts, is that the best wager is a bet on the banker hand. No matter what the past results are, the banker wager is always the best baccarat wager. You’re just wasting your time tracking past results looking for patterns.

Don’t Try Counting Cards Either

When you play blackjack, you can get a small edge if you learn how to count cards and make larger wagers when the deck or shoe has a higher ration of high cards than low cards. This is true and has been proven using math and in practice. Several years ago, a few smart gamblers decided to try the same conFcept with baccarat. Because the contents of the remaining cards in the shoe had a small influence on the results, these gamblers wanted to see if they could get an edge counting baccarat the same way they did when they counted blackjack.

Here’s what they found. They could alter the return a small amount. But they couldn’t alter it enough to get an edge, and they couldn’t alter the return until the very end of the shoe. In other words, they had to count through seven or more decks to see if they could alter the edge. And even if the remaining cards were promising, they couldn’t bet enough to get an overall edge.

Basically, what all of this means is that counting cards at the baccarat table is a waste of your time. If you’re smart enough to count cards, you can actually make money playing blackjack. You’re wasting your talent and an opportunity to gamble with an edge if you’re trying to count cards playing baccarat.

Only Losers Make Tie Wagers

You only have three options for wagers when you play baccarat. Some baccarat games offer a side bet, but you can ignore all side bet offers. Side bets in baccarat and all other casino games are designed to get more money in play and make more money for the casino. The best baccarat strategy in the casino is to never make any side bets on any game.

The three baccarat wager options are a tie hand, a winning player hand, and a winning banker hand. In comparison to other casino games, the player hand and banker hand have a high return to player percentage.