Blackjack or Baccarat?
Updated
This is the closest comparison in the casino. Baccarat’s banker bet keeps 1.06% and demands nothing of you. Blackjack keeps 0.46% but only if you play it correctly — and if you do not, baccarat is the better bet.
- Baccarat banker: 1.06%. Player: 1.24%. Tie: 14.4% — never.
- Blackjack with the chart: 0.46%. Without it, worse than baccarat.
- Baccarat needs zero decisions. That is its genuine advantage.
- Neither is realistically beatable by counting, but for different reasons.
The comparison
The banker bet is the best in baccarat even after the 5% commission, and the tie bet at 14.4% is one of the worst bets on the casino floor. Our baccarat page works through where those figures come from.
Against blackjack the contest is genuinely close, and it turns entirely on whether you are willing to learn a chart.
Baccarat’s real advantage
There are no decisions. You bet banker, the drawing rules play themselves out, and no skill exists to be lacking. That means the 1.06% is the edge you actually face — not a best case you might fall short of.
In blackjack the published 0.46% is a best case. The average player faces something closer to 2%, which is worse than every baccarat bet except the tie. Baccarat is the better game for someone who will not study. That is not a criticism of anyone; it is just what the numbers say.
Can either be counted?
Blackjack, in principle. Baccarat, effectively no — the edge from counting is a tiny fraction of a percent and appears only near the very end of a shoe. We went through why.
So the ceiling is higher in blackjack, but the floor is much lower too. Baccarat has neither.
Keep reading
By Martin Kosek · every number on this site is computed by us, not copied.
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