Baccarat doesn’t require much in the way of strategy. But it’s essential to know how and why to approach the game.

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2.  In general, most advanced Baccarat players will admit
to you that there is no reliable system or strategy that
can be used to gain some kind of advantage over the
house. Some games really are just designed around
chance, fortune and the draw of the card. This, of
course, doesn't preclude many so-called “gurus” from
sharing their supposedly tried and tested strategies.

3.  But a simple recourse to mathematics and statistics
reveals that the odds of applying strategy to baccarat
are probably the same as trying to apply assistant
flipping a coin–you just can't do it. You could lie about,
sure, but believing something to true doesn’t make
necessarily make it true in fact. We’d rather look at
solid numbers and give you rational advice.

4.  When in doubt, refer to the odds rather than promises
of ersatz know-it-alls. When you bet on the player
hand, the casino advantage is 1.24%. When you bet on
the banker hand however, the dynamics of the game
are such that the casino holds a 1.06% advantage.
Casinos realize this, and so to even out their odds,
there is a 5% commission on all winnings derived from
the banker hand.

5.  This becomes an especially important rule when it
comes to “paying back” the house. There are many
casinos that take their 5% cut only when the player
leaves the table. It's unclear whether this is done to
encourage greater risks as the cash in hand seems
more than it really is. To combat this, any baccarat
player worth his salt will keep a running tally of what
he owes the house.

6.  Do not under any circumstances put yourself in the
position where you owe the house more than you
currently have in your bankroll – that's just courting
trouble and while most mainstream casinos don't live
in the world of hoodlums, mobs and gangsters, we can
assure you that there remain many casino back rooms,
somewhere you certainly do not want to find yourself.

7.  Without a doubt, if you're looking to make money on
the baccarat table then you should categorically avoid
the tie bet. A tie bet is a wager that both the player's
hand and the banker’s hand will share either a natural
eight or a natural nine. And although a successful
wager on this type of bet will pay you out at 8 times
your original wager, the odds are firmly pitted against
you at about 14%.

8.  That's just enormous, and unless you feel you had
some kind of divine prophecy urging you to make the
tie bet, we strongly advise you to stick to the player or
banker hands.