Chemin de fer, where a player holds the bank

Chemin de fer is baccarat in which the bank belongs to a player, not to the casino. One seat holds the shoe and puts up a stake; the rest of the table bets against it. The house takes a commission on the banker's wins and risks nothing. The hand values and naturals are the ones you know from the baccarat rules; what changes is who you play against and the fact that a person, not a fixed table, decides one or two of the draws.

How a coup of chemin de fer runs

The sequence below follows a written casino rulebook for the game (Massachusetts, 2018) and the description on Wikipedia.

1. The bank is taken. The player offering the largest first stake becomes banker and deals from the shoe. In that rulebook, each later bank stake must be at least the previous one and at most double it.
2. Bets against the bank. A player who lost the last coup while covering the whole bank may call "banco suivi" and cover it again. Otherwise, anyone may call "banco" (or "banco seul") and take the entire bank alone. If nobody does, players take parts of it in turn until it is covered or betting closes. Any part of the bank left uncovered goes back to the banker.
3. Who holds the player hand. The player who called banco, or else the largest bettor, looks at the two player cards and makes the decision for everyone on that side.
4. The decision on 5. On 0 to 4 the player hand must take a card. On 6 or 7 it must stand. On exactly 5 it may say "card" or "stay". On 8 or 9 it is a natural and the coup ends.
5. Banker's draw. In the classic game the banker could draw or stand at will. In later casino versions the banker follows a drawing table that leaves at most two open cases (below).
6. Settlement. Winning bets on either side are paid 1 to 1 from the other side's money. Ties are void. The house takes its commission from the banker's win.
7. The bank moves. If the banker hand loses, the shoe passes counterclockwise to the next seat. A winning banker may keep the bank or pass it.

That last rule is where the name comes from: the bank travels round the table like a train, "chemin de fer" being French for railway.

Chemin de fer vs punto banco vs baccarat banque

Punto banco took the chemin de fer layout and removed every human decision. You can still bet "banker" at an online table, but that is a bet on a hand, not a seat that holds money for the table. For how those two bets compare, see banker or player.

The choice on 5: what it is worth

S. N. Ethier and Jiyeon Lee worked through the game theory in "The evolution of the game of baccarat" (arXiv:1308.1481). Their model deals cards from an infinite shoe, so the player figure comes out at 1.23% rather than the 1.24% of an 8-deck shoe. Three results matter to a player.

Against a banker with no rules at all (the old parlour game, no commission), the player's best play is a mixed strategy: draw on 5 with probability 9/11, about 82% of the time, so the banker cannot read you. Even then the player hand loses about 1.28% per unit. The banker acts second and sees your third card; that is where the banker's advantage comes from.

Against the modern casino banker, whose only open cases are banker 3 against a player's third card 9 and banker 5 against a 4, the equilibrium is simple: the player draws on 5, and the banker draws in both open cases. That is exactly the fixed punto banco rule. Ethier and Lee argue punto banco simply froze these choices.

Standing on 5 has a price. From the payoff table in the same paper, we calculated what happens if the player hand always stands on 5 against that banker:

So the option on 5 cannot be turned into an edge. Used correctly it gives you punto banco odds; used badly it costs about 0.28 points more. If you hold the player hand for the table, standing on 5 also costs the people who bet with you.

Why the casino takes a commission from the bank

At this table the house is not a party to any bet. Bankers and punters pay each other, and the casino's only income is a cut of each winning banker coup. The Massachusetts rulebook lets the house set it at 4 or 5 percent of the amount won; five percent became the standard.

Ethier and Lee explain why the figure sits there. Holding the bank is an advantage, so the house can tax it. Tax it too heavily and nobody wants the shoe. In their model of the classic game, the banker's expectation stays ahead of the player's only while the commission is below about 5.57%. Five percent is close to that ceiling and easy to work out in your head.

In the modern game at 5%, the player hand expects about -1.23% and the bank about -1.06%. Both sides lose on average, and the casino collects about 2.29% of the amount matched between them.

The pace is an assumption: a table where the shoe changes hands and bets are bid for runs slower than a live studio table.

Why chemin de fer is rare at online casinos

We found no official studio page for an online chemin de fer table, so we name none. The version dealt at online tables, including the ones on our live baccarat page, has the house as bank and fixed drawing rules. The paper gives the casino's side of the story:

• Raking earns less than banking. A chemin de fer table cannot lose, but the house only earns its commission, and the paper argues banking the game makes far more money.
• The bank limits the action. Total bets against the bank cannot exceed what the banker puts up. Everything above that stays unplayed.
• It needs a full table. A coup cannot start until someone takes the bank. Punto banco can start with one player.
• One person's choice moves everyone's money. Fixed rules end disputes and speed the game up.

How it looks on your phone, and the mistakes to avoid

On a phone you will meet the banker bet, not the bank. If a table claims to be the player-banked game, the info screen should say who holds the bank, how it passes, and who decides on 5. If it lists a fixed drawing table for both hands and the house pays every bet, it is punto banco under another name. Our baccarat games hub lists the variants we cover.

Common mistakes:

1. Standing on 5 out of habit. Draw; the table above shows the cost.
2. Calling banco without the money to follow. You take the whole bank alone. If you lose and call suivi, you put up the full amount again.
3. Treating the banker bet online as holding the bank. Online you are betting on a hand against the casino, with the edge you pay on any high-stakes baccarat table too.
4. Expecting skill to beat the game. The best play only matches punto banco odds.

Where to play baccarat with crypto

None of the casinos below is listed as running the player-banked game. They are ranked on our own score, with Vave first.

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

Questions and answers