Baccarat Card Counting Systems
Card counting does works to increase winning at blackjack games. Card Counting for baccarat has also been studied by Edward Thorp the creator of the blackjack card counting method and Peter Griffin another gambling expert.
Both concluded that Baccarat Card Counting was not practical. However, that does not prevent a lot of people from devising strategies that are supposed to work.
Odd Card Tie Bet Baccarat System
One such Baccarat Card Counting strategy assigns a +1 value to odd value cards. When the shoes reaches a vlaue of 160, there is supposed to be a 62% chance of a tie. However, this is also supposed to occur only once every 10,000 hands.
Best Basic Baccarat Card Counting System
Another Baccarat Card Counting system assigns values to cards as follows:
Shoe is Positive for Banker Bets After These Cards Have Been Dealt:
Ace’s and 2′s are +1 , 3′s and 4′s are +2A Negative Shoe is Good for Player Bets After These Cards Have Been Dealt :
5′s are -1, 6′s are -2, 7′s are -2, 8′s are -1Little Affect for Player or Banker Bets on 9′s and 10′s
After 10 hands have been dealt, with a positive shoe count bet on the banker or for a negative shoe count bet on the player.
How To Develop Your Own Baccarat Card Counting System
The card counting system is based upon the difference in the house edge on banker bets after cards have been dealt from the deck. Mathematically speaking, your odds on a banker bet versus a player bet are as follows.
Bet on the Banker after more 10′s, A, 2, 3 and 4′s are dealt in previous hands.
Avoid Banker Bet after more 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9′s are dealt in previous hands.
If you want to develop your own baccarat counting system, you should know that the house edge on Banker Bets after 10′s and 9′s are dealt is about the same as when they are not dealt. In other words, you could ignore 10′s and 9′s as in the above card counting system. Then you are be left with these cards:
Bet on the Banker after more A 2 3 4 are dealt in previous hands &
Avoid Banker Bets after more 5, 6, 7 and 8′s are dealt in previous hands.Or More Simply
Bet on the Banker after more A 2 3 4 are dealt in previous hands &
Bet on the Player after more 5 6 7 8 are dealt in previous hands.
Then it would be much simpler to count cards. You ignore 10′s and 9′s and have 4 cards which are good for banker bets and 4 cards which are good for player bets.
To make it even simpler to count, you could just look at the hand before it is removed from the table. So you would ignore 10′s and 9′s and then compare the ratio of ‘Aces to Fours’ and ‘Fives to Eights’. If there are more ‘Aces to Fours’ just use the number of cards as negative. If there are more ‘Fives to Eights’ just use the number as positive.
We use negative for lower cards and positive for higher cards because it is easier for the mind to keep a running total when you are adding low numbers to a minus count and high numbers to a positive count. To keep it straight in your mind as to which hand to bet on with a negative count, view it as negative for players (that’s you).
So you would bet with the banker (the casino) when the shoe is negative for players.
Then when you have a comfortable negative number, you bet on the banker (banker bet odds are better, especially when more banker favorable cards have been dealt = A234). To keep it simple we suggest a system of 10′s. After 10 hands have been played, bet when their is a count of 10. If it is -10 or more bet on the banker. If you are bored or not conservative, then if the count it is +10 or more you should bet on the player.
You could even toss in a progressive bet when you win more than one hand in a row
Conservative Baccarat Bet Progression = 1 2 3 4
Medium Baccarat Bet Progression = 1 3 2 4
Agressive Baccarat Bet Progression = 1 3 2 6
However, we suggest a much shorter progressive win series
Conservative Baccarat Bet Progression = 1 2 3
Medium Baccarat Bet Progression = 1 3 2
Agressive Baccarat Bet Progression = 1 3 6
Before you know it, you could be rich!
Real Life Betting
In land based casinos where the shoes have been shuffled less than 12 times it is believed that the deck is not randomly spaced. This system may be most useful in those situations with high plus or minus counts.
In playing online games with computerized random number generators, you should not experience high counts extremes. If the casino game does not allow hands to be dealt without a bet, you could place a bet on both player and banker or just reduce your basic bet.
When playing Live baccarat games you can easily skip betting on hands you where do not have a favorable high count. Also, since some live casinos allow a portion of baccarat bets to satisfy bonus wagering requirement you get that extra nudge over the long term.
More Research
There is a lot more detail on the subject in the book “Winning Baccarat Strategies: The First Effective Card Counting Systems for the Casino Game of Baccarat” by Henry J. Tamburin,
The Tamburin book covers various methods that can used to count cards, but it is very in depth and technical. For a more general overview you would want to check out the book “Baccarat For The Clueless” by John May.