Banker vs Player vs Tie: Which Baccarat Bet Is Best?
Baccarat only has three bets. Here's how they actually stack up.
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The verdict
Banker is mathematically best. Player is a close second. Tie should generally be avoided.
| Banker | Player | Tie | |
|---|---|---|---|
| House Edge | 1.06% | 1.24% | 14.36% |
| Payout | 1:1 (minus 5% commission) | 1:1 | 8:1 |
| Verdict | Best bet on the table | Close second | Avoid |
Banker: pros and cons
Pros — lowest house edge of the three bets, by a wide margin over Tie and a real (if smaller) margin over Player. Cons — the 5% commission means a win never pays quite what it says on the table, and tracking commission owed can feel like friction compared to a clean even-money win.
Player: pros and cons
Pros — no commission, so a win pays exactly 1:1, no math required. Cons — a slightly higher house edge than Banker (1.24% vs 1.06%) — small on any single hand, real over a long session.
Tie: pros and cons
Pros — by far the biggest payout on the table if it hits. Cons — a 14.36% house edge, more than ten times worse than Banker. It wins rarely enough that the big payout doesn't come close to making up for it.
Example: $1,000 in total wagers
Spread the same $1,000 of action across each bet exclusively, and the long-run expected cost looks like this:
- Banker: $1,000 × 1.06% ≈ $10.60
- Player: $1,000 × 1.24% ≈ $12.40
- Tie: $1,000 × 14.36% ≈ $143.60
Betting Tie the whole time costs roughly 13x more than betting Banker the whole time, for the same amount of action.
The common misconception: streaks don't change the math
Baccarat scoreboards at real tables track which hand has won recently, and it's tempting to read patterns into a run of Banker or Player wins. Every hand is dealt from a shoe that doesn't "remember" the last one — a run of six Banker wins in a row doesn't make Player more likely on the seventh, and it doesn't make Banker less likely either. The house edge on each bet is fixed and doesn't shift based on what already happened.
For the full math behind these numbers, see Baccarat odds & house edge. To see how baccarat compares to every other game on the site, read the house edge ranking.