Online baccarat in Canada: rules, odds and house edge

The three bets

The version of baccarat in almost every online casino is punto banco. Older versions such as chemin de fer, where players take turns holding the bank, are rarely offered online. Two hands are dealt, one called Player and one called Banker. The names are labels only: you do not play the Player hand and the casino does not play the Banker hand. You simply bet on which hand finishes closer to 9, or on a tie.

• Player pays 1 to 1.
• Banker pays 1 to 1 minus a 5% commission on the win.
• Tie usually pays 8 to 1, at some tables 9 to 1. On a tie, Banker and Player bets push and are returned.

How a hand is scored

A hand is worth the last digit of its total, so it is always between 0 and 9.

• Cards 2 to 9 count at face value.
• 10s, jacks, queens and kings count as 0.
• An ace counts as 1.

A 7 and an 8 make 15, so the hand is worth 5. A 9 and a king make 9, the top hand. Each side gets two cards. If either side has 8 or 9 from those two cards, it is a natural: both hands stand and the round is over.

When a third card is drawn

Nobody decides whether to draw: the dealer follows the same rule every time.

The Player hand draws on 0 to 5 and stands on 6 or 7.

The Banker hand follows the same rule if the Player stood. If the Player drew a third card, the Banker acts on its own total and the Player's third card:

That table is the whole reason the Banker side wins more often. The Banker acts second, and its rule takes the Player's third card into account. With eight decks, the Banker wins about 45.86% of rounds, the Player about 44.62%, and about 9.52% end in a tie.

Two hands, step by step

As a first example: the Player gets a 4 and a 2, a total of 6, and the Banker gets a king and a 3, a total of 3. Neither has a natural. The Player has 6, so it stands. Because the Player stood, the Banker follows the Player's rule and draws on 0 to 5: it draws a 4 and finishes on 7. Banker 7 beats Player 6. A $20 Banker bet wins $20 minus the $1 commission, so you are paid $19 and get $39 back in total. A $20 Player bet loses.

As a second example: the Player has a 2 and a 3, a total of 5, and draws a 7. The total is 12, so the hand is worth 2. The Banker has 5 and the Player's third card was a 7, which is in the 4 to 7 range, so the Banker draws: a 9, for a total of 14, worth 4. Banker 4 beats Player 2. In both hands the dealer applied the rules and nobody made a choice; the only decision was the bet.

What each bet costs

The house edge is the average share of every stake the casino keeps over the long run. The standard published figures for the usual eight-deck game:

The commission exists because of the drawing rules. Without it, the Banker bet would win more than it loses and the casino would be paying the players. Taking 5% from Banker wins turns that into a small edge for the house, still smaller than on the Player bet. Online, the commission comes off each Banker win automatically, so the amount credited is already net of it.

The Tie bet looks generous because of the 8 to 1 payout, but a tie comes up in fewer than one round in ten. At 8 to 1 it is more than ten times as expensive as the Banker bet. A 9 to 1 table cuts the edge to about 4.8%, which is still several times the Banker's cost. The payout is in the table's rules panel.

No Commission tables cost more

On a No Commission table, a Banker win pays 1 to 1 with no commission, except when the Banker wins with a total of 6: then it pays 1 to 2, half the stake. The name suggests a better deal. It is not. The Banker wins with 6 in about 5.4% of rounds, and paying half on those hands costs more than the 5% commission did: the Banker edge rises from 1.06% to about 1.46%. The Player bet is unchanged. If a lobby offers both, the classic table with commission is the cheaper place to back the Banker.

Other versions remove the commission in other ways, for example by turning a Banker win with a three-card 7 into a push. Each has its own published edge, printed in the game rules; read them before assuming the standard figures apply.

Pair and other side bets

A Player Pair or Banker Pair bet wins when the first two cards of that hand are a pair, and usually pays 11 to 1. With eight decks the first two cards form a pair about 7.47% of the time, which at 11 to 1 gives a house edge of about 10.36%: roughly ten times the cost of the Banker bet. Other side bets, such as Perfect Pair, Either Pair and Dragon Bonus, have their own pay tables. Read the pay table in the game's help panel before you place them.

Speed, squeeze and multiplier games

• Speed baccarat uses the standard rules with a shorter betting window and faster dealing. The edge per bet is the same, but more rounds an hour means more wagered. As a worked example only, $10 on Banker at 50 rounds an hour costs about $5.30 an hour on average; at 100 rounds an hour it is about $10.60.
• Squeeze baccarat has the dealer bend and reveal the cards slowly, a ritual from land-based high-limit rooms. It changes the drama, not the odds.
• Multiplier versions add random multipliers to some winning hands. They fund them through a fee on each bet or lower base payouts, so the return differs from the classic game; the help panel lists it.

Live baccarat

Live baccarat deals from a real shoe, usually of eight decks, in a studio. The dealer burns cards at the start of a shoe, deals both hands by the drawing rules and reshuffles at a cut card. You place your bet before a timer closes betting, and the result is settled automatically once the cards are read. Unlike blackjack, there are no decisions to miss, so a slow connection rarely matters once your bet is accepted.

Live tables show scoreboards: rows of red and blue marks known as the big road, bead plate and other "roads". They record what has happened. They do not predict anything. Every round is dealt from the same shoe by the same rules, and the previous hand does not change the drawing rules of the next one. Every table also has a minimum and maximum bet, shown in the lobby. How studios, limits and connection rules work is in our guide to live dealer casinos.

Patterns and systems

Doubling after a loss, the 1-3-2-4 sequence and other systems change the size of your bets, not the edge on each of them. A Banker bet costs 1.06% whether it is your first bet or your fortieth. Our roulette guide shows the arithmetic of the best-known systems, and it is the same here.

Baccarat and bonus wagering

Because its edge is low, baccarat usually counts toward a wagering requirement at a reduced rate, often 5% to 20%, and live baccarat often at 0%. Some bonus terms also forbid betting on both Banker and Player in the same round. As a worked example only, a $3,500 requirement at 10% needs $35,000 in baccarat bets. If baccarat is your game, playing without a bonus is usually simpler. The full arithmetic is in our guide to wagering requirements.

What to take to the table

• The Banker bet costs the least, about 1.06% at a table with 5% commission.
• The Player bet is close behind at 1.24%.
• The Tie at 8 to 1 and the pair bets cost about ten times more.
• No Commission does not mean cheaper: the Banker edge rises to about 1.46%.
• The tie payout and the side-bet pay tables are in the table's rules panel.

Our Canadian list and casino reviews cover licences, payments and terms. Terms such as natural, commission and shoe are defined in the casino glossary.

More guides in the academy

• Online slots: how they work
• Online roulette: wheels, bets and house edge
• Online blackjack: rules and house edge
• Live dealer casinos: how live games work
• Wagering requirements explained, in dollars
• Casino glossary
• Beginner's guide to online casinos in Canada

The longer you play, the closer your result comes to the house edge. Set a budget and a time limit before you sit down, and if gambling stops being fun, our responsible gambling page lists free, confidential help for every province we cover.