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Sunday, February 21, 2010

Play Online Baccarat For A Low House Edge

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%.