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Playing Baccarat and Winning Consistently. If you wish to play baccarat at the casinos, you are. If you want to play baccarat, stick with the banker bet and enjoy yourself. Don't play with money you can't afford to lose. They Take Advantage of Casino Comps. Casinos love to comp players who put a lot of money into action. You'd think the opposite would be true, but comps are a cost-effective way for a casino to generate more profits.

Baccarat is a card game for gamblers that's best-known to United States citizens because of its role in James Bond movies. The game tends to attract high rollers, and Asian players also love the game. Mini-baccarat is a newer version of the game with a broader appeal. It's more appropriate for low rollers.

Keith from BeatTheCasino.com talks about how to become a Successful Baccarat Player. The myths and the total process of how to achieve success.

Like blackjack and craps, baccarat offers some of the best odds in the casino. But only if you place the right bets. Some of the bets at the baccarat table have downright lousy odds.

It's also a casino game, so the bets do have a house edge which can't be overcome with any amount of skill. Our definition of winning baccarat players must be different from our definition of winning blackjack or poker players. You can get an edge in those latter two games, but you can't get an edge at baccarat.

Smart players can and often do walk away from the baccarat table with some winnings in their pockets. These winning baccarat players do certain things repeatedly-they have habits. This post examines those habits so that you can emulate them when you play.

Winning Baccarat Players Know How to Play the Game

Baccarat seems more complicated than it is. But you really don't have to make any decisions besides how you want to bet. You should still understand how the game is played. It's no fun gambling if you don't understand what's going on.

In every game of baccarat, there are only 2 hands:

• 1. A banker hand
• 2. A player hand

Each of these hands has two cards in it (in this respect, baccarat resembles blackjack).

Your goal is to bet on either the player or the banker to get closer to a total of 9. Each card is worth between 1 and 10 points. Aces are worth 1 point, and never 11 points, which might confuse blackjack players. The other cards have a point value equal to their value. Face cards are worth 10.

To get the final point value of the hand, you add the points together and only look at the right-most digit. The final hand value is a number between 0 and 9.

For example, if you're dealt a king and a queen, that hand is worth 0 points. (10+10 is 20, and you only look at the digit on the right.)

Hitting and standing are determined by the rules. There are no player or banker decisions.

If either hand has a total of 8 or 9, no one gets any more cards, regardless of the total in the other hand.

Otherwise, if the player has a total of 5 or less, that hand gets an additional card.

If the player stands (doesn't take another card), the banker takes another card if the hand totals 5 or less.

If the player takes another card, the banker hits or stands based on the banker's total and the value of the player's additional card, as shown below:

You don't make any decisions here. All the action is prescribed by the rules, and the dealer at the table ensures that the action proceeds accordingly.

The hand with a total final value of 9 is the winner.

You can bet on the banker hand, the player hand, or you can bet on a tie.

They Understand How the Odds Work and Which Bets to Place

With any bet on a casino game, the house has a mathematical edge. This is a long-term expectation of how much the player is going to lose out of every $100 he bets. It's almost always expressed as a percentage.

The house edge in baccarat varies based on which bet you place:

• The house edge is 1.06% on the banker bet.
• The house edge is 1.24% on the player bet.
• The house edge is 14.35% on the tie bet.

What does this mean to a player who understands the probability behind the game?

It means that you expect to lose $1.06, on average, every time you bet on the banker.

It means that you expect to lose $1.24, on average, every time you bet on the player.

It also means that you expect to lose $14.35, on average, every time you bet on a tie.

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In the short run, you expect to run hot or cold and either have a winning or losing session. The predicted results only happen in the long run.

But generally, you're more likely to win when you place bets with a low house edge.

In this game, the bet with the best odds is the banker bet.

If you're betting $100 per hand at baccarat, and you're at a table dealing 70 hands per hour, you're putting $7000/hour into action.

You can predict the amount you'll lose if you stick with any one of those bets throughout your session:

If you look at gambling on baccarat as an entertainment expense (which you should), you should consider the average cost of that entertainment. In this case, it's clear that you're getting the most entertainment for your dollar by sticking with the banker bet on every hand.

You'll see plenty of baccarat players tracking results with a pencil and paper. This seems like it might be useful, because baccarat results-like any gambling game's results-run in streaks. The problem is that you can't predict these streaks based on previous results.

Every hand of baccarat is an independent event. What happened on the previous hands doesn't change the odds of what's going to happen on the next hand.

Losing players might find some benefit from changing their bets based on previous patterns, but those patterns-even though they exist-aren't useful as a predictor in any way.

They Manage Their Money Well

Money management has earned a justifiably bad rap among legitimate gambling writers. Most money management systems try to convince you that you'll increase your odds of being a winner by quitting when you're up by a certain amount or down by a certain amount.

These amounts are called win goals and stop loss limits.

What these money management proponents often ignore is that gambling odds are a long-term prospect. You're not really playing multiple sessions. In reality, your life as a gambler is one long gambling session. If you play any game long enough, your eventual, actual results will start to resemble your predicted results.

Does this mean money management techniques are useless?

I don't think so-not as long as you understand that they don't really change the odds of the game.

From a practical perspective, though, money management techniques do give you a chance of walking away a winner-at least some of the time.

Here's an example of how money management might work for a baccarat player:

You're playing baccarat at Circus Circus for $10 per hand. You sit down with $500. Your goal is to quit when you've met one of the following two conditions:

• 1. You've won $50.
• 2. You've lost $100.

The $50 is your win goal. If you're up by $50, you call it a night and walk away a winner. You can find something else to do. Maybe see a show.

The $100 is your loss limit. Once you've lost $100, you call it a day. You don't feel like a total loser, because you still have some money left.

You'll walk away a loser more often than you will a winner. The casino uses long-term math to ensure this.

But if you're like a lot of losing gamblers, you're apt to stay at the table until you've lost everything, unless you put some arbitrary conditions on the starting and stopping time of your play.

They Understand What Their Real Goal at the Baccarat Table Is

Your real goal at the baccarat table is to have a good time. If your goal is to make money, you need to find another activity. The math behind baccarat ensures that in the long run, you will NOT make money.

Different casino games suit different temperaments. Baccarat has a sophisticated atmosphere. It's slow-paced, even elegant. It's not an adrenaline junkie's game. It's also not a thinking man's game.

If that sounds like the kind of gambling game you'd enjoy, give baccarat a try. Compared to a lot of other casino games (ahem, roulette), baccarat has a low house edge and a low expected loss per hour.

Losing baccarat players are the ones who go into the casino hoping to win enough money to make up for the shortfall in their rent payment or electric bill. They're playing with scared money.

Scared money always loses.

Players on the Internet Stick with Legitimate Casinos

I personally don't think that online baccarat at an online casino compares well with baccarat in the brick-and-mortar casino. It lacks the social element. In fact, if you're going to play baccarat online, I recommend playing at a so-called 'live dealer casino.'

Most online casinos use random number generators and video game animation to emulate the casino experience. But live dealer casinos use webcams and real people to deal card games like baccarat and blackjack. If those are your preferred games, give a live dealer casino a try.

But no matter which kind of online casino you try, do some due diligence first to make sure you're dealing with a legitimate company that's not going to make it hard for you to withdraw your winnings.

Some online casinos cheat, but they don't rig their games. They don't have to. The games already have a mathematical edge for the casino. They don't have to cheat to get a mathematical edge.

Illegitimate casinos will make it hard for you to withdraw your winnings, though. They'll delay your cash-out requests with multiple requests for information and documents you've already provided. They're hoping that as long as the money stays in your account, you'll reverse the withdrawal and play some more.

Avoiding those kinds of online baccarat casinos is as easy as finding a gambling information site you trust and looking at the recommendations there. For example, this site offers detailed reviews of dozens of online casinos. They're real reviews, too, listing the pros and cons of each casino.

You can also spend some time on gambler forums to see what kinds of experiences other players have had with the customer service at some of these companies.

They're Not Superstitious

I touched on this briefly earlier, but it bears repeating and emphasizing. Winning gamblers understand probability and how it works. This means that they also understand that their hunches don't matter.

I made a case earlier that what had happened on the previous baccarat hand has no effect on what happens on the next baccarat had.

I'd like to make the case now that when it comes to random events-like the outcomes of gambling games-you don't really have any kind of special mental powers that change the odds of winning or losing.

If you could use some kind of ESP to predict gambling game results, you'd never have to work again. It would be impossible to keep that kind of ability a secret, though. And casinos are famous for looking for countermeasures.

No, the odds are the odds, the math is the math, and your hunches don't matter.

If you want to play baccarat, stick with the banker bet and enjoy yourself. Don't play with money you can't afford to lose.

They Take Advantage of Casino Comps

Casinos love to comp players who put a lot of money into action. You'd think the opposite would be true, but comps are a cost-effective way for a casino to generate more profits.

You should always ask the pit bosses and the dealers to make sure that your play is rated and tracked so that you can get the comps that the casino wants to give you.

At their most basic level, comps come in the form of free food and drink. But you can also get show tickets and travel perks, including lodging.

Most of these comps have a value exceeding the casino's cost for them. A buffet comp might have a retail value of $15, but the casino's restaurant only spent $5 on the food. A room might normally sell for $199, but if it was going to be empty anyway because the hotel is under-booked, it didn't cost the casino anything.

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You won't get enough in comps to compensate for the money you're losing at the baccarat table. But those comps will offset some of your losses, which means that you're getting more entertainment for your money.

And that's what winning at baccarat is really about.

Baccarat is a great gambling game offering better odds than many games. Winning baccarat players understand that there's no way to guarantee a profit. They also know that the game is meant for entertainment.

But they also understand how to walk away from the table a winner more often than others.

Now you understand how to do the same.