Baccarat

Why Banker costs a commission

Two hands, fixed rules, no decisions

Two hands are dealt — Player and Banker — from an eight-deck shoe, in table order: Player, Banker, Player, Banker. Tens and face cards count zero, aces count one, and only the last digit of the total matters, so a seven and a six make three rather than thirteen.

Whether a third card is drawn is entirely determined by the rules. If either hand totals eight or nine on the first two cards that is a natural and the coup ends immediately. Otherwise Player draws on a total of five or less, and Banker’s decision depends on both its own total and the value of Player’s third card if one was drawn.

You have no decisions at any point. Your only choice is which outcome to back and how much, before any card is dealt.

Banker is better, and the commission is why

Banker acts after Player and its drawing rule depends on what Player drew, which gives it an informational advantage. That advantage makes Banker win slightly more often than Player over the long run. The house recovers that edge by taking a five percent commission on Banker wins — a winning Banker stake returns your stake plus ninety-five percent of it rather than double.

Even after the commission, Banker remains the better of the two main bets. The commission is calibrated to claw back most of the advantage but not all of it, which is why every serious treatment of the game reaches the same conclusion: back Banker, or back Player if you dislike the bookkeeping, and treat the difference as small.

Tie is the bet to avoid. It pays 8 to 1 while ties occur meaningfully less often than one time in nine, which makes it far worse value than either main bet. It is the only genuinely bad decision available at this table.

What each bet returns

Player pays even money, returning twice your stake. Banker pays 19 to 20 after commission, returning your stake plus ninety-five percent of it. Tie pays 8 to 1, returning nine times the tie stake.

One detail regularly surprises people: when the coup is a tie, Player and Banker stakes are returned rather than lost. A tie is a push for the main bets, which is why backing Player or Banker is less volatile than the raw win percentages suggest.

Common mistakes

Baccarat attracts more superstition than any other table game, and all of it costs money.

• Backing Tie for the big payout. Eight to one sounds generous but is well short of the true odds, making it comfortably the worst bet available here.
• Following the scoreboard. Streaks of Banker or Player are ordinary randomness; the shoe has no memory of the previous coup and no pattern predicts the next one.
• Avoiding Banker because of the commission. The commission exists precisely because Banker wins more often, and Banker is still the better bet after paying it.
• Thinking a third card can be requested. Every draw is mandated by the rules — no decision you could make would change a single card.

What is different about this version

The drawing rules are implemented as the real punto banco table, including the awkward part most simplified versions skip: Banker’s third-card decision genuinely depends on the value of Player’s third card, not just on Banker’s own total. That is what produces Banker’s real advantage rather than an approximation of it.

Commission is applied as an exact five percent of the Banker stake, computed on the stake rather than folded into an approximate multiplier, and cards are dealt in true table order from a genuine eight-deck shoe. Credits are local practice credits with no cash value.

Written by the Silverweb Games team from this game’s own implementation. Last reviewed July 31, 2026.