Bankroll and unit size for baccarat

Baccarat is often described as a game for high rollers, and the high-limit rooms reinforce that reputation. But the bankroll maths applies at any bet size, and the arithmetic is worth doing before you choose your unit.

The Banker bet carries a house edge of 1.06%. For comparison, basic strategy blackjack on a typical UK 6-deck shoe runs approximately 0.50%, and a standard European roulette wheel is 2.70%. Baccarat sits between them. The lower edge than roulette is welcome. What partially offsets it, in practice, is the pace of the game.

Pace and expected hourly loss

A standard Punto Banco table in a London casino deals approximately 50 to 60 hands per hour at a moderately busy table. A dedicated baccarat player betting every hand on Banker at £50 per hand can expect to wager roughly £3,000 per hour. At 1.06% edge, that's an expected loss of about £31.80 per hour. Over a 3-hour session, the expected loss is approximately £95 on a total of £9,000 wagered.

Compare that to basic strategy blackjack: same £50/hand, roughly 50 hands/hour (blackjack typically runs slightly slower due to more complex decisions), £2,500/hour wagered, 0.50% edge, expected loss £12.50/hour. Over 3 hours: £37.50 on £7,500 wagered. The gap in expected loss per session is about £57 per 3-hour session at that stake level. Baccarat's lower edge than roulette is real; its higher edge than blackjack is also real. Know which comparison you're making.

At a Mini Baccarat table running 80 hands/hour at £50/hand: £4,000/hour wagered, expected loss £42.40/hour, and £127.20 per 3-hour session. Pace is a meaningful variable. Knowing the approximate hands-per-hour at your chosen table is part of the bankroll calculation before you sit down, not something you discover mid-session.

Session bankroll sizing

The standard guidance for bankroll sizing in any negative-expectation game is built around variance management: you want enough capital that normal session variance doesn't force you off the table before you've completed the session you planned. For baccarat with even-money main bets, the variance per hand is close to 1 (slightly below, since Ties push rather than resolve). The standard deviation per hand is approximately 0.95 bet units.

A practical starting rule: bring 40 bet units for a session you intend to play for 1 to 2 hours, and set a stop-loss at 20 units. A £25/hand player should bring £1,000 to the table and walk away at a £500 loss. A £100/hand player should bring £4,000 and walk away at £2,000 down. These figures are sized to survive normal negative variance without forcing an early exit on a bad run, while pre-defining the maximum session loss before a single card is dealt.

At the high-limit tables at Les Ambassadeurs at Hamilton Place, where minimum bets for baccarat can be considerably higher than the casino floor standard, the same ratio applies: 40 units in, 20 units stop-loss. The arithmetic doesn't change because the absolute numbers are larger. The proportion is what matters for variance management.

One practical complication specific to baccarat: the 5% Banker commission accumulates in your commission box (on tables where it's settled at the end of the shoe rather than per hand). Don't leave the table short; reserve enough in your chip stack to settle the commission box before you cash out. This is separate from your bankroll calculation but should be part of your chip management during the session.

Progression systems: what they do and don't do

The two most common progression systems you'll encounter at baccarat tables are the Martingale (double your bet after every loss until you win) and the 1-3-2-6 system (increase bets in a defined sequence after consecutive wins). Neither changes the house edge by a single basis point. They don't change the expected value of any individual bet. What they change is the distribution of session outcomes: more frequent small wins, and less frequent but larger losses.

A Martingale player doubling from a £50 base needs approximately £6,400 available to cover a run of seven consecutive losses. Seven consecutive Banker losses is approximately a 1-in-200 event per Martingale sequence. In a session of 60 hands, you'll start several Martingale sequences, and the cumulative probability of encountering a 7-loss run climbs with each new sequence. The risk of a sequence failure is not a theoretical concern; it's a session-specific probability that materialises with meaningful frequency over a reasonable number of sessions.

The baccarat shoe simulator makes this concrete: set it to Martingale mode at a starting bet of £50, run 50 simulated sessions, and observe both the frequency of successful sequences and the size of the losses when a 7-loss or 8-loss run arrives.

Ties and their effect on per-hand calculations

A point often missed in baccarat bankroll discussions: ties push on the Banker and Player bets. They don't win or lose, but they consume both time and round count. In an 8-deck shoe, roughly 9.51% of rounds end in Tie. At 60 hands/hour, approximately 6 of those rounds will be Ties that leave your bankroll unchanged. The effective hands per hour that actually resolve your bet is roughly 54, not 60. The hourly expected loss calculation should use resolved hands as its denominator, not total hands. The practical effect on the numbers above is small, but it's worth knowing when comparing baccarat's true per-hour cost to other games.

Key numbers

Sources: our baccarat analysis basics, UKGC player protection guidance, Hippodrome Casino table games.