Baccarat Strategy 2023 – How To Win at Baccarat

Whether you’re looking for a how-to-beat baccarat strategy or a better way to handle your bankroll, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, our experts explore a multitude of winning baccarat strategies, explain how they work, and when you should use them.

How To Play Baccarat

Baccarat is a type of casino card game in which the player and the banker go head-to-head. The aim here is to draw cards whose value adds up to a total of nine, or as close to nine as possible without exceeding that number.

In both theory and practice, baccarat is an easy game to wrap your head around and has one of the highest RTPs for any casino game. Nevertheless, there are a few important rules that you will need to understand before trying to make a baccarat gambling strategy part of your gameplay.

In our guide to the top real-money baccarat casinos, we explain exactly how the game is played, what the value of each card is, when you can and should draw a third card, and what the wagers are. So, if you’re a novice to this game, we recommend reading that article before continuing our experts’ winning baccarat strategy article below.

Things To Keep In Mind When Using Strategies

Before we get cracking with the best baccarat strategy you can use, there are a few things to keep in mind.

1. In baccarat, you can bet on the banker or the player having the winning hand, or else on a tie. Betting on the banker has the highest RTP at 45.84%, while betting on the player has an RTP of 44.61%, and a tie an RTP of only 9.45%. The lower the chances of you winning, the higher the payouts will be if you do win.
2. When making a bet on the banker winning the round, the casino is very likely to take a cut of the bet. This is done because the house edge in this case is lower, and so the casino needs to ensure it doesn’t make a loss. The banker’s cut is usually 5%, but there are some casinos that take as much as 20% – which, in our opinion, is too much.
3. In this article, we mention the term ‘even-money bets’ a couple of times. This refers to bets where your odds of winning or losing are 50%, and therefore the payout is usually 1:1. Bets on the banker’s hand and the player’s hand in baccarat are considered to be even-money bets.

Winning Baccarat Strategies

Baccarat strategies follow the same path as those for roulette and other casino games. These strategies can be used for both Real Money Baccarat and Live Dealer Casino Baccarat – all you need to keep in mind is that these strategies are there to guide you in your gameplay and can never be 100% infallible. So always keep your budget in mind, and never wager more than you can afford.

The Martingale System for Baccarat

As one of the simplest betting strategy baccarat, the Martingale baccarat system works on the premise that a player should double their wager after every loss, and go back to their original wager after every win.

Here’s how it works in baccarat.

In theory, this strategy seems quite sensible, but there are a number of things that can go wrong. For a start, you can only use this with even-money bets, so you should never utilise this strategy when making bets on the banker and the player being tied.

Secondly, it’s crucial to think ahead. If you have a string of bad luck, your £/€5 initial bet can end up being a £/€640 bet within eight losses. That’s a lot of money already lost and a lot more money that needs to come out of your bankroll in order to potentially recuperate your losses and make a relatively small profit.

Thirdly, some casinos have table limits that include how low the lowest bet can be and how much a single player can wager throughout the whole duration of the game. If the lowest bet is £/€10 and you’re unlucky enough to have a losing streak, you will exceed the table limit within eight consecutive losses, as your eighth wager alone would be of £/€1,280.

The Fibonacci System for Baccarat

The Fibonacci Sequence was devised by the Italian mathematician Fibonacci in the Middle Ages, and it has served as a great system for roulette and many other casino games that allow for even-money bets. The system starts from 1 and works by adding the previous two numbers together to create a third. So, starting from 1, the sequence goes as follows: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, and so forth. (1, (1+0=)1, (1+1=)2, (1+2=)3…)

For the Fibonacci baccarat strategy, you will need to look at the numbers in the sequence as units (for example, 1 unit = £/€5), and you should follow through with the sequence when you make a loss, and then go back two numbers whenever you make a winning bet.

Here’s how it works in baccarat.

When looking at it like this, this system is effective, but there are some obvious flaws to it.

For a start, if you experience a losing streak, a unit of just £/€5 can result in a £/€165 deficit in your bankroll within eight bets. That cannot be gained back with just one win, as a winning bet after this would give you £/€105, leaving you £/€60 in the red.

Secondly, as we mentioned before, many casinos have table limits that include how low your lowest bet can be. If your one unit is £/€10, you’ll be making £/€80 bets within six losses – so unless your budget is high, this baccarat basic strategy won’t really work.

The Paroli System for Baccarat

Unlike the two baccarat winning strategies mentioned above, the Paroli System works on the premise that wins and losses tend to come in streaks, and players should therefore make smaller bets when they’re losing and larger bets when they’re winning.

In essence, the Paroli Baccarat works by starting with wagers of one unit and doubling them when you win, and going back to one unit when you make a loss.

Here’s how it works in baccarat.

Once again, this betting system seems like a sensible solution to managing your bankroll, but the flaws of this system lie in its logic. That is because there is no guarantee that wins or losses come in streaks, and even when there is a 50% chance of winning for every bet, there is also a 50% chance of losing the same bet. With that in mind, one can quickly realise that five or six one-unit losses are not that uncommon, and that would leave you in the lurch before you’ve even started.

The Labouchere System for Baccarat

In this particular land-based and online baccarat strategy, the first step is to decide how much you’d like win. Let's say that we’d like to win £/€50.

The next step in the Labouchere baccarat is to break up the £/€50 into smaller numbers that add up to 50. So, we’ll say: 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13.

Now, it’s time to start betting, and our first bet will be the first number in the sequence (in our case, 5) added to the last number in the sequence (13). The result is a bet of £/€18.

If we lose, we will add our loss (£/€18) to the sequence, which will then look as such: 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 18. Then, for our second bet we will add the first and last numbers (5+18) and make a bet of £/€23.

If we win, however, we will remove the two numbers we have just bet. So our sequence would be cut down to: 6, 7, 8, 10. Then, our next bet will be the first and last numbers in the new sequence, resulting in a bet of £/€16.

Here’s how it works in baccarat.

This system is quite simple to understand and execute, whether you’re an old hand at baccarat or a novice. It can also help you win larger sums of money – but that, once again, is all down to luck.

As can be seen from the example above, it is easy to quickly deplete one’s bankroll, especially if you end up on a losing streak. So, while this may seem like a great system, we honestly wouldn’t recommend it to anyone with a small bankroll.

The D’Alembert System for Baccarat

The d’Alembert baccarat system is another easy-to-understand betting strategy baccarat. Indeed, all you have to do is to decide how much each unit is worth for you, make an initial bet of one unit, and then add one unit every time you lose, and deduct one unit every time you win.

For our example below, we will imagine our unit is worth £/€5.

Here’s how it works in baccarat.

As far as any baccarat game strategy goes, the d’Alambert is one of the more sensible ones that allows for gradual increases when you’re losing, and gradual decreases when you’re protecting what you’ve won. Indeed, this baccarat winning strategy is one of the best systems for those with smaller bankrolls. Overall, there’s not much to fault it on other than that a large sum per unit can result in a huge loss if you don’t know where to stop. Of course, this strategy is not foolproof and you need to understand that a risk is always involved when gambling.

The 1-3-2-4 System for Baccarat

The 1324 baccarat system is one of the easiest-to-follow baccarat strategies and one that returns a profit from the second winning bet in a row. How it works is all in the name: you basically set an amount for your unit, and then bet one unit, followed by three units, two units, and four units. If at any point you make a losing bet or get to the fourth bet unbeaten, you then return to the first wager and start over.

In the example below, each unit is worth £/€5.

Here’s how it works in baccarat.

The main advantage of such a system is that it works both with small and large amounts (there’s nothing stopping a high-roller from having one unit being worth £/€100 instead of £/€5). Moreover, while the 1-3-2-4 baccarat limits your losses to a maximum of two units and can give you up to 10 units in profit, those numbers are per round and not for the whole game.

Which Baccarat Strategy Works Best?

In the section above, we explored numerous baccarat systems that professional and amateur players use both at land-based and online casinos. Nevertheless, we understand that for those who are not well-versed in such systems, it may be confusing to pick a winning baccarat strategy. So, which one works best?

The answer depends on a lot of factors, but none are more important than your budget. As we’ve seen, systems like the Martingale, the Fibonacci, and the Paroli can help you manage your bankroll while playing, but to account for potential losing streaks, one must have a rather large budget. So, given that you can afford such a budget (you should never, ever play more than you can afford to lose), these systems are worth exploring.

Nevertheless, for those who have more modest budgets, we’d recommend trying the d’Alambert or the 1-3-2-4 Systems, as these two baccarat winning strategies may help keep huge losses at bay.

Ultimately, however, what you need to keep in mind is that no betting strategy baccarat is infallible, so none of them can guarantee a sure win or even change the house edge.

How To Handle Your Bankroll When Playing Baccarat

Many players often think of baccarat gambling strategies as a safe way to manage their bankroll but, in reality, all these do is help you break down your budget, which can lull you into a false sense of security that a win is just around the corner. For that reason, it’s important to:

• Set a budget that is reasonable and only play amounts that you can afford to lose.
• Never increase your budget to chase losses or because you’re on a winning streak.
• Consider your winnings as being independent of the budget and put them aside. Alternatively, if you’d like to continue playing with your winnings, then set aside a sizeable percentage (such as 25 or 50%) so that you can walk away with something even if you lose.
• Quit while you’re ahead. If you’re on a winning streak, don’t continue playing until your bankroll goes down to zero. If you’re on a losing streak and your bankroll is down to zero, call it a day.
• Remember that you can’t win every bet, every time. Sometimes you’ll have a good round and, on other occasions, you won’t. Both are okay so long as you stick to your allocated budget.
• Ensure you know how the baccarat game strategy you choose works. So take your time to familiarise yourself with it, think about how much each unit is going to be worth, and see how your budget fits into the system.

Tips & Hints for Baccarat

There’s more to winning at baccarat than just using a strategy. Indeed, choosing a strategy should be the last step before playing.

• Understand The Game

Baccarat is by no means a complicated game, and there are only a handful of rules to wrap your head around. Nevertheless, knowing the value of each card and when the player or banker need to draw a third card are crucial to understanding exactly what is happening. In other words, baccarat rules and strategy go hand in hand.

• Think Logically

As in all other games of chance, luck plays a big part in a game of baccarat. This means that even the best baccarat strategy may be thrown off-course due to multiple back-to-back losses. This is something you will need to take into account before you begin playing, because it can happen and you’ll need a plan on how to handle your bankroll if it does.

Moreover, do remember to keep emotions in check. Whether you are winning or losing, keeping a cool head and an eye on your bankroll will make the experience more enjoyable.

• Pick a Baccarat Game That Suits You

There are tonnes of variations on the baccarat card game, including Baccarat Squeeze, where you take a peek at the cards; EZ baccarat, which has no 5% commission on the banker’s hand, and the Chemin de Fer, which is baccarat but faster. What this means is that you can find a type of game that you like and which you feel comfortable playing easily.

• Try Playing for Free First

Before you employ a baccarat winning strategy during your real-money gameplay, try it out while playing for free. Many online casinos let you do so, and you’ll get a better understanding of how a basic or an advanced baccarat strategy can work in a real-life scenario.

Baccarat Gambling Strategy Conclusion

A winning baccarat strategy is the stuff dreams are made of, but these systems – although they can be extremely helpful – are not foolproof. That’s why, while these strategies can help, they cannot guarantee a win.