And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose

My youth is bent by the same wintry fever. -- Dylan Thomas

In this post I am going to give the win-rate statistics against the Tie bet using computer-perfect play. In this analysis, I assume the AP is keeping track of the cards that have been played from the shoe. Before the start of each round, the AP uses a computer to give him the exact edge on the Tie bet based on the knowing the composition of the cards left in the shoe.

In this post, I wrote about exploiting advanced knowledge of the specific location of a Ten or Ace in the shoe.

From time to time the question of card counting in baccarat comes up. Because baccarat is dealt from a shoe, it follows that the odds for the banker/player/tie bets change as cards are dealt. As more and more cards are dealt, a counter will get an ever more precise estimation of the composition of the cards that remain.

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.