Games · Baccarat
Baccarat: bet, deal, and watch the edge
Baccarat has no decisions after you bet — which makes it the cleanest way to watch a fixed house edge play out. Build any mix of Banker, Player, Tie, and Pair bets, pick your variant, and run thousands of hands to compare the observed result with the exact fresh-shoe expectation — and see why the Tie and Pair bets are traps.
Educational simulation — fun credits only, no real money. The house edge is real: Banker 1.06%, Player 1.24%, and the tempting Tie a brutal 14.36%. The longer you play, the more the math wins.
Build your bet
- No bets yet — add one above.
Educational simulation — fun credits only, no real money. The observed edge wobbles over a short run; over many hands it tends toward the selected model's long-run expectation, but random variation never fully disappears.
| Bet | Pays | Win chance | House edge | Loss / $100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bankereven money, minus 5% commission | 1:1 * | 45.86% | $1.06 | |
| Playereven money | 1:1 | 44.62% | $1.24 | |
| Player Pairfirst two Player cards match rank | 11:1 | 7.47% | $10.36 | |
| Banker Pairfirst two Banker cards match rank | 11:1 | 7.47% | $10.36 | |
| TiePlayer and Banker tie | 8:1 | 9.52% | $14.36 |
* The Banker bet wins slightly more often than Player, so the casino takes a 5% commission on Banker wins — that's what lands its edge at 1.06%, still the lowest on the table.
Banker across the three variants
- Standard — 5% commission1.06%
- No commission — Banker 6 pays ½1.46%
- No commission — Banker 6 pushes4.15%
A "commission-free" table isn't a free lunch — it makes up the commission by shorting the Banker-6 win (and the push rule is actually worse than paying the 5%).
Pair side bets by payout
- Pair pays 11:1 (common)10.36%
- Pair pays 12:1 (rare)2.89%
At the usual 11:1 a Pair bet is one of the worst on the table; only the rare 12:1 table makes it close to reasonable.
The third-card rules, made simple
Baccarat's drawing rules look complex but involve no choices — pick a situation to see exactly what the Banker does. The full guide is at How to play & odds.
Pick a Banker total and the Player's third card to see the rule.
| Banker ↓ / Player 3rd → | Player stood | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw |
| 1 | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw |
| 2 | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw |
| 3 | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Stand | Draw |
| 4 | Draw | Stand | Stand | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Stand | Stand |
| 5 | Draw | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Draw | Draw | Draw | Draw | Stand | Stand |
| 6 | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Draw | Draw | Stand | Stand |
| 7 | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand |
Banker totals of 8 or 9 on the first two cards are a natural — the hand ends immediately, so they're not in the table. The Player draws on 0–5 and stands on 6–7.
How this simulation works
- Rules modeled
- 8-deck Punto Banco. Banker / Player / Tie (8:1) and Player/Banker Pair side bets. Three variants: standard 5% commission on a Banker win; no-commission with a Banker-6 win paying ½ (1:2); and no-commission with a Banker-6 win pushing. Pair payout 11:1 (default) or 12:1. Stakes are whole dollars.
- Assumptions
- The third-card drawing rules are the fixed Punto Banco table — no player decisions. Fun credits only, no real money. The 'house edge' shown is the exact stake-weighted combined edge; combining bets changes the variance, not the edge. Over many hands the observed edge tends toward the exact figure (the 'fresh shoe each hand' mode targets it exactly; the 'continuous shoe' mode models depletion and drifts to a slightly different long-run target) — random variation always remains over any finite run.
- Mathematical basis
- Odds and edges come from an exact analytic solver (integer counts over a shared bigint denominator, enumerating the shoe without replacement), the displayed source of truth; the simulator only validates against it. Reference edges: Banker 1.06%, Player 1.24%, Tie 14.36%, no-commission Banker 1.46% (6 pays ½) / 4.15% (6 pushes), Pair 10.36% (11:1) / 2.89% (12:1).
- Engine version
- baccarat engine 1.0
- Validation
- Unit-tested (every bet's edge across all variants, the exact value-level and rank-level solvers cross-checked, pair-by-rank, exhaustive third-card rules, naturals, settlement, seeded reproducibility, SE-scaled convergence, validation).
- Last reviewed
- Independently reviewed for math and code correctness; every reported finding was addressed and regression-tested. Last reviewed 2026-06-23 (2 review passes).