Most baccarat bets ask who wins. The side bets at Final Score Baccarat ask what the final score looks like. A three-card 9 beating a three-card 7 pays 200 to 1. A natural 9 over a 7 pays 50 to 1. Bad Beat pays whenever the winner gets there by exactly one point. The main game is classic Punto Banco. Nevada casinos deal these side bets as Golden Bacc.
How to play
Main bets. Player pays 1 to 1, Banker pays 0.95 to 1 (5% commission), Tie pays 8 to 1. If the hands tie, Player and Banker bets come back.
Score bets. Each line is its own bet. For the first four, it doesn’t matter whether Player or Banker is the winner.
| Bet | Wins when | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| 3-Card 9 over 7 | a three-card 9 beats a three-card 7 | 200 to 1 |
| 3-Card 9 over 1 | a three-card 9 beats a three-card 1 | 150 to 1 |
| Natural 9 over 7 | a two-card 9 beats a 7 | 50 to 1 |
| 8 over 6 | an 8 beats a 6, any number of cards | 25 to 1 |
| Banker 3-Card 7 | Banker wins with a three-card 7 | 40 to 1 |
| Player 3-Card 8 | Player wins with a three-card 8 | 25 to 1 |
Bad Beat pays when the winning hand is exactly one point ahead:
| Final score | Pays |
|---|---|
| three-card 9 over three-card 8 | 40 to 1 |
| natural 9 over natural 8 | 10 to 1 |
| 8 over 7 | 5 to 1 |
| 7 over 6 | 4 to 1 |
| any other one-point win (6-5, 5-4 and so on) | 1 to 1 |
Player Pair / Banker Pair pay 11 to 1 when that hand’s first two cards are the same rank.
Chips come in 20, 100 and 500. Every spot takes up to 1,000 credits, in steps of 20.
The cards. Aces count 1, 2 to 9 count their pips, and tens and picture cards count 0. Only the last digit of a total matters. Two cards each go to Player and Banker. A total of 8 or 9 is a natural and nobody draws. Otherwise Player draws on 0 to 5, and Banker draws by the standard third-card table. The higher total wins.
What each bet costs
House edge, counted exactly over every possible deal from an eight-deck shoe:
| Bet | House edge |
|---|---|
| Banker | 1.06% |
| Player | 1.24% |
| Banker 3-Card 7 | 7.61% |
| Natural 9 over 7 | 8.10% |
| Bad Beat | 10.02% |
| Player 3-Card 8 | 10.19% |
| Player Pair / Banker Pair | 10.36% |
| 3-Card 9 over 7 | 11.89% |
| 3-Card 9 over 1 | 13.87% |
| Tie | 14.36% |
| 8 over 6 | 21.79% |
Strategy
The best side bet is Banker 3-Card 7, at 7.61%, followed by Natural 9 over 7 at 8.10%. Both still cost seven to eight times as much as a Banker bet.
8 over 6 is the trap. It wins about 3 rounds in 100, far more often than the 200 and 150 to 1 lines, but 25 to 1 doesn’t cover it. At 21.79% it’s the worst bet on the table, worse than the Tie.
Bad Beat wins often but mostly pays little. A one-point win comes up about one round in six. Nearly half of those are low scores (6-5, 5-4 and below) that pay 1 to 1, and the 40 to 1 line needs two three-card hands.
The long shots are long. 200 to 1 for a three-card 9 over a three-card 7 sounds big, and the house still keeps nearly 12% of it.
If you enjoy Final Score Baccarat, try First Look Baccarat or Fish Hunter next.
