Baccarat: House Edge & Odds

BACCARAT ODDS and House Edge

The game of baccarat can be played with 1 through 8 decks of cards and the probability for a hand is following:

# of decks	Banker wins	Player wins	Tie
1 deck
6 decks	0.458653	0.446279	0.095069
8 decks	0.458597	0.446247	0.095156

The casino always takes the commission on the winning Banker hand. As a rule it is 5%, rarely 4%. The payouts on a tie bet are 8:1 or 9:1 thereby offering the following house edge:

# of decks	Banker bet 5%	Banker bet 4%	Player bet	Bet tie 9:1	Bet tie 8:1
1 deck*	1.01%		1.29%		15.57%
6 decks**	1.0558%	0.5972%	1.2374%	4.9313%	14.4382%
8 decks***	1.0579%	0.5993%	1.2351%	4.8440%	14.3596%

* Single deck Baccarat is offered by some Microgaming casinos.
** Six-deck Baccarat can be found in Playtech casinos
*** 8-deck Baccarat is offered by NetEnt, Microgaming Gold Series Baccarat

The calculation for the probabilities for possible hands can be found in the book "The Mathematics of Gambling" by Edward O. Thorp.