Walk past the baccarat pits of an Asian casino and the layouts look busier than in the West. The game in the middle is still ordinary Punto Banco, but around it sit a ring of side bets on how the hand turns out: a pair in the first two cards, a Banker win on 6, a Player win on 7, or simply how many cards get dealt. Macau Baccarat puts that whole set on one table. The main game is the commission version of Baccarat: eight decks, fixed drawing rules, no decisions to make once the cards are out.
How to play
Chips and spots. Chips come in 20, 100 and 500. The three large spots are Player, Tie and Banker. Below them sit six smaller side bets: Player Pair, Small and Banker Pair on the first row, Lucky 7, Big and Lucky 6 on the second (on a short screen they share one row). Every spot takes up to 1,000 credits in steps of 20, which keeps every payout, including the 0.95 Banker win and the 0.55 Big win, a whole number. Tap a spot to add the selected chip, then Deal. Rebet repeats your last bets and Clear removes the ones you have not dealt yet.
Scoring. Tens and picture cards count 0, aces 1, other cards their face value. Only the last digit of the total counts, so 7 and 8 make 5. The hand closer to 9 wins.
Drawing. Player and Banker get two cards each. If either side has 8 or 9 (a natural), nobody draws. Otherwise Player draws on 0 to 5 and stands on 6 or 7, and Banker follows the standard third-card chart, which depends on Banker’s total and on Player’s third card. The game applies the chart for you; the full table is on the Baccarat page.
Payouts
| Bet | Wins when | Pays | House edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Player has the higher total | 1 to 1 | 1.24% |
| Banker | Banker has the higher total | 0.95 to 1 | 1.06% |
| Tie | Both totals are equal | 8 to 1 | 14.36% |
| Player Pair | Player’s first two cards share a rank | 11 to 1 | 10.36% |
| Banker Pair | Banker’s first two cards share a rank | 11 to 1 | 10.36% |
| Lucky 6 | Banker wins with a total of 6 | 12 to 1 with two cards, 20 to 1 with three | 16.68% |
| Lucky 7 | Player wins with a total of 7 | 6 to 1 with two cards, 15 to 1 with three | 18.30% |
| Small | Exactly four cards are dealt (nobody draws) | 1.5 to 1 | 5.28% |
| Big | Five or six cards are dealt | 0.55 to 1 | 3.72% |
Player and Banker bets are returned on a tie. The side bets do not depend on your main bet: you can bet on Small alone if you like. A tie on 6 or 7 loses Lucky 6 and Lucky 7, because they need a win. For pairs, the suit does not matter but the rank does: a ten and a king are both worth 0, yet they are not a pair.
Many Macau tables pay Big at 0.54 to 1. With 20-credit steps that would leave fractions, so this table pays 0.55, which lowers the Big edge from about 4.35% to 3.72%. Every edge in the table is calculated exactly for eight decks in the game’s own tests.
Strategy
Banker is still the best bet. At 1.06% it is the cheapest spot on the layout, followed by Player at 1.24%.
Big is the gentlest side bet. Rounds with a third card are the more common kind (about 62%), so Big wins often and pays little. At 3.72% it costs far less than any other side bet, though still more than three times the Banker bet.
Small is the mirror image. Natural or stand-stand rounds (about 38%) pay 1.5 to 1, for a 5.28% edge.
Lucky 6 and Lucky 7 are long shots. They pay well when they hit, especially with three cards, but they give back only around 82 to 83 credits of every 100 over time. Keep them small if you play them at all.
Pairs hit about once in thirteen hands. With 416 cards in the shoe, the chance that the second card matches the first’s rank is 31 in 415. At 11 to 1 that is a 10.36% edge.
Ignore the road. The strip of P, B and T beads shows up to the last 30 results of the current shoe. Each round comes from a shuffled shoe (reshuffled when fewer than 16 cards remain), so a run of Banker does not make Player “due”.
If you enjoy Macau Baccarat, try Midi Baccarat or Mines next.
