Card Counting

There are two common commission free variations of the basic game of baccarat. Each leaves the drawing rules unchanged. Each pays winning Player bets even money, maintaining a house edge of 1.2351% on winning Player bets (assuming an eight-deck shoe). The key feature of these variations is that each has a payout reduction for a distinguished winning Banker bet.

There is a common misunderstanding among surveillance, security, and management that blackjack card counters are among the top reasons that shifts lose money (or have a reduced hold). One floor manager said to me that: “they walk out of here with $600 to $800 each time.” The primary purpose of game protection is not to catch card counters.

Up until "7 Up Baccarat" (7UB), there has not been a variant of baccarat that is substantially vulnerable to card counting. While baccarat side bets can be a lucrative opportunity, the best an AP can do card counting standard baccarat is an earning rate of about 87 cents-per-shoe with a $1000 maximum bet (see this post).

There is a variant of baccarat that was brought to my attention last July. This version, called "2-to-1 Baccarat," is non-commission. It has a fairly significant twist in the rules. A three-card winning total of 8 or 9 pays 2-to-1 for bets on the winning side. To balance this extra payout, a bet on Banker or Player loses if the hand ends in a tie.

Blackjack has earned its place as the most popular casino table game for two main reasons. First, the house edge is typically less than any other table game, making it very cheap for the recreational player. Second, its notoriety as a game that is beatable by card counting and other methods.

When a player decides he wants to beat a casino fair and square, the first attempt is almost always ordinary blackjack card counting. There are many reasons for this obsessive misdirection, not least of which is the sheer bulk of movies, books and websites devoted to the topic.

Over/Under (O/U) is a new table game that has recently been approved and is starting to get domestic placements. There has been considerable discussion on advantage play message boards about card counting this game and an associated side bet.

In this post I considered ordinary blackjack card counting (BJCC) for six decks. The purpose of that post was to compare BJCC to card counting the various side bets for the six-deck shoe game.

Baccarat card counting is a hopeless endeavor. That doesn't mean that I can't develop better card counting systems or run more accurate simulations than I have in the past.

(flim′flam′) noun 1. nonsense; rubbish; humbug (ref. Webster's New World Dictionary)