The Importance of Luck: How to Incorporate Chance into Your Baccarat Strategy

Baccarat is a fairly simple game with a long history and an allure that continues to draw players. Players only have three choices. Will the Banker or the Payer end up with the closest total to nine, or will it be a tie? Luck plays an important part in this game, which is surrounded by an aura of glamor and sophistication. 

Is it a game of pure chance?

When playing baccarat at an online casino, you will find that when you understand how baccarat works and the probabilities of the game, your performance will improve. There are obviously aspects of the game where luck plays a large role. You do not influence which two cards you will receive. 

If you take probabilities into account, it’s helpful to know that the Banker bet is always the best one to play. The house edge is 1.06%, and it wins around 46% of the time. When betting on the Player’s hand, the house edge increases slightly, so you have less chance of being successful. 

Do strategies make a difference?

If Baccarat is purely a game of chance, no strategies you use will make any difference. You may just as well believe you are going to win because it’s your birthday or you’re wearing lucky socks. The odds will remain the same no matter what you do. Baccarat isn’t like blackjack, where players can use strategies once cards are exposed. The randomly dealt cards you receive in a Baccarat hand have exactly the same odds of success as any other hand. 

What about the Martingale strategy? 

All the betting progression strategies in Baccarat go back to the Martingale approach. This is an age-old theory based on doubling your wager after a loss. Doubling your bet after a loss or a string of losses ensures that you clear a small profit when the win eventually comes in. 

Unfortunately, unless you have an unlimited bankroll, taking this approach could be a disaster. Chasing small wins by continually increasing your bet sizes is not feasible for most players. 

Understand the underlying probabilities

When you understand the underlying probabilities in Baccarat, you can boost your luck. The various guidelines for drawing can be complex, but every hand follows a basic structure. The Banker deals, the Player hand acts, and then the Banker hand acts. Acting last gives the Banker a slight advantage as the Player hand has to draw or not draw beforehand. 

Casinos will charge a small commission on winning Banker hand bets to make up for this. If they didn’t have to pay this, players would end up betting on the Banker hand every time. Always betting on the Banker hand can be very boring, and many players prefer the excitement of attempting to guess correctly. Even if you prefer to mix things up a bit, avoid a tie bet. It is also better to steer clear of strategies that promise the world but don’t deliver.