Why Baccarat Should Be Avoided by Serious Gamblers
Baccarat has long been a casino mainstay, and is one of the few table games in which players place bets against other gamblers. The game is played on a specialized table with a padded area for the player to stand, and is usually situated in high-limit gaming areas. In the game, cards are dealt to two hands: the banker’s and the player’s. Bets are placed on whether the hand will win, lose or tie. The goal is to get as close as possible to a total of nine points. The rules are simple: all numbers count as zero except for tens, jacks and queens. In addition, any total over ten is dropped.
When the dealer deals a player and banker’s hand, they must make certain that a winning combination is made. This is done by looking at their total and adding the values of each card. The winner is the hand closest to nine. The cards are re-dealt if the player or banker lose.
The game of baccarat has an interesting history, starting in Italy and then moving to France, where it became a favorite with King Charles VIII and the French nobility. The game then spread to Asia, where it now accounts for a huge portion of casinos’ profits. In Macau, baccarat is the most popular game, with more than 88 percent of the city’s casinos making money from it in 2009. In Singapore and Las Vegas, the game is also highly profitable.
But while the game is attractive to high rollers, there are many reasons why it should be avoided by serious gamblers. Bill Zender, a former Nevada Gaming Control Agent and casino executive who literally wrote the book on managing casino games, says that Asian high rollers love baccarat for cultural reasons, but that its low house edge (1.2 percent) on both banker and player bets is not enough to justify the risk. There is a third bet, called the tie, which pays eight to one but has a much higher house edge of over 14 percent.
But even this doesn’t deter hordes of high rollers from lining up at the tables. Kerry Packer, the Australian media tycoon who once raked in $20 million at a single Caesars Palace table, is just the latest big name to place massive bets on baccarat. The symbiotic relationship between casinos and high rollers is well documented, but as with any gambling game, it’s important to know your limits. If you’re going to play the game, decide ahead of time how much you’re willing to spend and stick to that number. That way, you’ll have a good time and you won’t have to worry about what happened the next day. This article appears in the August 20, 2015 issue of Forbes Passport. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.