Hello, Mini Baccarat

25 August 2024

By Royal Flushes

CINDY: Mini-baccarat is a great game except when it isn’t.

ABBY: You’ve got to explain that one to me.

CINDY: Well, it is based on the original baccarat game which was a long table with several really well-dressed dealers and the game was leisurely and expensive to play but the leisure allowed the expenses to spread out a bit.

ABBY: Okay, you had three bets: the banker with a 1.06 percent house edge. This bet actually won more than 50 percent of the time so the house took a five percent commission on it to get the edge down to 1.06 percent. The player bet had a 1.24 percent house edge and the “tie” bet came in with a double-digit house edge. That was a wasted bet and should never be made. So basically you had two bets you could make.

CINDY: It was flipping a coin you could say.

ABBY: The game was almost always played in the high roller room with $100 minimum bets – or more! It was a rich person’s game. We five-dollar players could look but the big money made us stay far away from playing it. Heck, a couple of bets and you could lose your session bankroll.

CINDY: And to top it off, the players could deal the cards!

ABBY: That had no effect on the game because the hitting and standing decisions were written in cement. You had a long list of what you did with this hand or that hand but it really had no effect on the game. You just made your decision of which bet to make and that was really that. Some people tried to develop a card counting system for the game but it was a waste of time. You should just bet bank if you wanted the best possible game.

CINDY: The highest hand you could get was called a natural and that would be a nine. “Dressed to the nines!” as they say. And eight was also a natural but a nine beat an eight.

ABBY: The game was slow and elegant. The people who played it were well dressed. Mostly the true high rollers.

CINDY: Now today that original game has mostly disappeared from the casinos. Not enough players willing to bet what it took to make the game worthwhile for the casino to offer it.

ABBY: Instead, they have substituted another game called “mini-baccarat” which is played on a blackjack-style table and the dealer deals the cards and that dealer is supposed to make his or her deal really, really a fast one.

CINDY: The original game was slow, maybe 40 hands per hour. The mini-game is fast, maybe 150 or more hands per hour. The house edges are the same but the new speed makes the mini-version much more dangerous.

ABBY: Plus, the casinos have added a whole bunch of side bets that can make the players bet on certain propositions – all of them bad ones!

CINDY: The tremendous speed of the game that has a relatively small house edge makes that house edge have a far, far greater impact.

ABBY: And one last thing to think about.

CINDY: Oh, yes, indeed. Superstitious players!

ABBY: You will notice that the table seating goes 1, 2, 3 and then skips to 5. The seat is there but the number of the seat has been dropped.

CINDY: Why? Superstitious players have told the casinos that the sound of the number 4 in their language means death – or something like that. The casinos want to keep their players so they changed the seating number!

ABBY: If you want to play this game, do so, but heed the following rules: Only bet bank. Only play about 50 hands. Do not make side bets. And good luck.