Punto banco

Each hand starts with two cards. Aces count as one, cards two to nine count at face value, and tens and face cards count as zero; only the last digit of the total matters, so a seven and an eight make five rather than fifteen.

A two-card total of eight or nine is a natural, and the hand ends there for both sides.

Otherwise the Player hand draws a third card on a total of zero to five and stands on six or seven. The Banker hand follows a printed chart called the tableau: it always draws on zero to two, always stands on seven, and on three to six its decision depends on the value of the Player’s third card. A Banker total of three, for instance, draws unless the Player’s third card was an eight, while a total of six draws only against a six or seven. The tableau is the same across the game’s standard rules, which is why the dealer, or the software in an online version, can run the whole hand without asking anyone anything.

What the customer decides

Only the stake and the bet. Squeezing cards, tracking patterns or keeping scorecards changes nothing about which hand wins.

On the standard eight-deck game, published rules sheets and game guides give the Banker bet a house edge of 1.06%, the Player bet 1.24%, and a Tie paid at 8 to 1 roughly 14.36%. These are long-run averages, worked out from the probability of each outcome rather than from any single session.

The calculation is short enough to keep in a sentence. On eight decks Banker wins about 45.86% of hands, Player about 44.62%, and the rest are ties, which return Banker and Player stakes as a push. Banker therefore wins more often, so casinos take a 5% commission on Banker winnings; 95% of 45.86% minus 44.62% leaves the house its 1.06%. Player pays even money with no commission, and its edge is simply the gap between the two win rates.

Tie payouts vary between operators, and that variation matters far more than the commission does. At 8 to 1 the Tie costs over 14% of each stake, while a table paying 9 to 1, which some land casinos in the UK and Europe use, brings it down to around 4.85%. A worked example shows the scale: across €1,000 staked on Banker, the expected cost is about €10.60, against roughly €143 on an 8 to 1 Tie. Neither figure predicts a session; they describe where a very large number of hands settles.

Check the paytable on the table itself before trusting any number quoted here.

Punto banco is often used interchangeably with baccarat, and in most online casinos and live casino lobbies the two names describe the same game. Older European variants are different: in chemin de fer and baccarat banque, players hold the cards and can choose whether to draw in certain positions, whereas punto banco removes every one of those choices.

No-commission tables are the other common source of confusion. They drop the 5% charge on Banker wins and instead cut the payout on one specific winning Banker hand, usually a six; the exact rule and the resulting edge differ by studio, so the game’s own help screen is the place to read it.

Side bets such as pairs or dragon bonus sit on top of the core game and carry their own, usually higher, house edges.

One myth deserves a correction. A run of Banker wins does not make Player due, because each hand is dealt from the shoe without memory of the scoreboard, and the roads displayed at live tables record history rather than forecast it.