Baccarat vs blackjack: one choice against many

Baccarat vs blackjack comes down to a trade. Blackjack has the lower house edge, but only if the table rules are good and you play every hand by the chart. Baccarat has a higher edge on its best bet, 1.06% on banker, and you cannot play it badly, because the game makes every drawing decision for you. If you know basic strategy and find a 3 to 2 table, blackjack costs less. If you do not, or the table pays 6 to 5, baccarat is the cheaper evening.

Baccarat vs blackjack: the house edge side by side

The baccarat figures below are the standard 8-deck maths. The blackjack figures come from Wizard of Odds' house edge table, which states that its numbers assume optimal or near-optimal play. Its "Liberal Vegas" row means: dealer stands on soft 17, you may double on any two cards and after splitting, resplit aces, and late surrender. The table does not give the number of decks for that row.

Rules move the blackjack number; nothing moves the baccarat one. The same source's rule table lists what single rules cost against its base game of eight decks:

• Blackjack pays 6 to 5 instead of 3 to 2: the player's return drops by 1.39%. That one rule costs more than the whole edge on banker.
• Dealer hits soft 17: down 0.22%.
• No doubling after a split: down 0.14%.

Read the rules panel on a blackjack table before you sit. On a baccarat table, the only rule that changes the main bets is the commission. On a no-commission table, banker loses some of its advantage and player becomes the better bet; see banker or player.

Decisions per hand: none against a chart

In baccarat you place a stake on banker, player or tie, and the dealer finishes the hand. The third-card rule decides whether each side draws. You have nothing to get wrong after the bet is placed, which is why the edge on banker is the same for a beginner and for someone who has played for twenty years.

In blackjack you decide on every hand: hit, stand, double, split, and at some tables surrender. The 0.28% and 0.43% figures are the price for playing each of those decisions the way the strategy chart says. Every hand played by feel instead of by the chart moves the real edge above the published one. The source we read gives no single number for "average player" mistakes, so we do not print one. What we can say is plain: if you are not going to learn the chart, the blackjack edge in the table above is not your edge.

There is one more difference in how the edge is counted. Blackjack's house edge is measured against your first stake, but doubles and splits put more money on the table. Measured against all the money you actually bet, the Atlantic City game comes out at 0.38% (Wizard of Odds calls this the element of risk) instead of 0.43%. Baccarat has no such gap: you stake once per hand.

Hands per hour and cost per hour, baccarat vs blackjack

The cost of an evening is stake × hands per hour × house edge. The pace figures here are our assumptions for live tables, not numbers from a studio: about 70 hands an hour at a standard baccarat table, about 130 at a speed table (see speed baccarat), and about 60 at a live blackjack table where several seated players each make their decisions. Your table can be faster or slower; change the middle column and the result follows.

At $25 a hand:

The 6:5 line adds the 1.39% from the rule table to the 0.28% liberal-rules edge. The two figures come from different base games, so treat it as a rough guide, not an exact edge. Its point holds either way: a 6:5 blackjack table costs more per hour than banker at a standard baccarat table.

Two notes on the blackjack rows. They assume you play the chart on every hand. And the doubles and splits put more than $25 on some hands, so the money that passes through your balance is higher than the staked column shows, even though the expected cost is the same.

Variance: how far a session can swing

The house edge tells you where a long run ends up. The standard deviation tells you how far a single session can stray from it. Wizard of Odds lists 0.93 units per hand for banker, 0.95 for player, 2.64 for the tie, and 1.15 for blackjack under liberal rules.

Over 100 hands at $25, one standard deviation is $25 × that figure × 10 (the square root of 100):

"Most" here means about two sessions in three, the usual one-deviation band. In plain words: blackjack swings a little more per hand than banker or player, because doubles and splits raise the money at risk on the hands where you use them. Over a hundred hands the swing is about nine times the expected loss on banker and about forty times on blackjack, so a winning evening tells you almost nothing about which game was cheaper. The tie is a different animal: large swings and a large drain at the same time.

Side bets on both tables

Both games add optional bets next to the main one. They are where most of the cost of a session hides.

• Blackjack, Perfect Pairs. On eight decks, the four pay tables Wizard of Odds lists for the classic version range from 2.17% to 7.95%. A single "Perfect Pair" version is 8.05%.
• Blackjack, 21+3. The original version paying 9 to 1 on every winning hand is 3.24% with six decks. The "21+3 Xtreme" pay table is 13.39% with six decks. The same name can hide very different pay tables.
• Baccarat, the tie. It sits on every table as part of the main layout, at 14.36% when it pays 8 to 1. Details on the tie bet page.
• Baccarat, pair and other side bets. We could not open a studio page that publishes their returns, so we print no figure. The return is listed in the game's help screen at the table; read it before you bet.

Every side bet in this list costs more per dollar than banker, player, or blackjack played by the chart. If you want them, give them a separate, small budget.

Which game suits which player

The baccarat vs blackjack choice is less about which game is "better" and more about how you want to spend the hour.

1. You know basic strategy and can find a 3 to 2 table with good rules. Blackjack is the cheaper game, often by a wide margin per hour.
2. You do not want to learn a chart, or you play while talking, watching or relaxing. Baccarat banker: 1.06% that cannot slip.
3. The only blackjack tables you can find pay 6 to 5. Baccarat banker is cheaper.
4. You want a simple game at a fast pace. Speed baccarat, but cut the stake: the same edge on nearly twice the hands nearly doubles the cost of the hour.
5. You like long, quiet sessions on a small budget. Blackjack by the chart, or a standard-pace baccarat table with a low minimum. See live baccarat for what changes between live tables.

The rest of baccarat strategy is short, and it applies whichever game you choose: pick the bet with the lowest edge, the table whose rules keep it low, and a stake your budget can carry. The full version is on baccarat strategy.

Where to play

Whichever side of baccarat vs blackjack you land on, the board below ranks crypto casinos by our overall score. Lobbies change, so open the live section and check that the table you want, baccarat or blackjack, is there, and read its rules panel before your first deposit.

The score counts what each casino publishes about its licence, ID checks and withdrawal limits, not how its baccarat lobby looks.

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