Baccarat side bets and why most of them are a tax

Side bets in baccarat exist because the main game, at 1.06% on Banker, is one of the lowest house-edge propositions in the casino. A low-edge game generates relatively little per hour for the house. Side bets are the mechanism by which the casino increases its revenue from the same table and the same players without changing the main game's rules.

That's not a criticism of anyone for occasionally playing a side bet. It's the economic context worth understanding before you place one. Every side bet on the layout is there for a reason, and the reason is that its edge is substantially higher than the main game's edge.

The Tie bet: the one to walk past

The Tie bet pays 8-to-1 when both the Player and Banker hands end with the same score. It appears on every standard Punto Banco layout in London, including the tables at the Hippodrome Casino at Leicester Square and at Les Ambassadeurs at Hamilton Place. It is, by a considerable margin, the worst standard bet in the game.

On an 8-deck shoe, Ties occur approximately 9.51% of the time. The fair payout for a 9.51% event would be approximately 9.5-to-1. The table pays 8-to-1. The house edge is 14.36% in our analysis standard 8-deck analysis. Some tables offer a 9-to-1 Tie payout; this reduces the edge to approximately 4.85%, which is an improvement but still more than four times the Banker bet edge. The Tie at 8-to-1 should not appear in your session plan. The Tie at 9-to-1 is marginal. Neither version is attractive alongside a 1.06% alternative sitting one betting circle away on the same layout.

Some players place the occasional Tie as session variance: they accept the edge as a cost for the possibility of an 8-to-1 win on a given round. If you're inclined to do this, define a fixed budget for it per shoe (say, three small Tie bets per shoe) and treat that as an entertainment cost rather than a line bet. Don't let the Tie become your primary bet by drift.

Pair bets: pairs are rarer than they feel

Player Pair and Banker Pair pay 11-to-1 when the first two cards dealt to the respective hand are the same rank (any combination of suits). The probability of a pair in the first two cards of an 8-deck shoe is approximately 7.47%. A fair payout for a 7.47% event would be roughly 12.4-to-1. The table pays 11-to-1. The resulting house edge is approximately 10.36% on both pair bets.

Pair bets feel as though they should hit more frequently than they do. The intuition is inflated by near-misses: seeing a 6 and a 7 dealt feels close to a pair. It isn't; rank-specific pairing is specific. At 10.36% edge, you're paying approximately ten times the cost per unit of a Banker main bet for the entertainment. Over a session with many pair-bet opportunities, this adds up quickly.

Perfect Pair, a variation that pays 25-to-1 only when both cards of a pair share the same suit (for example, both the 7 of hearts), carries an edge of approximately 13.03% in our analysis side bet analysis. The payout sounds impressive; the edge is not.

Dragon Bonus: the side bet with the most legitimate case

Dragon Bonus is a side bet available on many UK Punto Banco tables, offered separately for the Player hand and the Banker hand. It pays on two conditions: a natural win (8 or 9 on the first two cards of the relevant hand), and a non-natural win by a large margin (4 or more points difference in the final scores). The paytable varies by table, but a typical version pays 1-to-1 for a natural win, scaling to higher amounts (up to 30-to-1 on some tables for a 9-point winning margin) for large non-natural wins.

Our Dragon Bonus analysis puts the house edge at approximately 2.65% on the Player Dragon Bonus and approximately 9.37% on the Banker Dragon Bonus under a common paytable structure. The Player Dragon Bonus at 2.65% is meaningfully lower-edge than most baccarat side bets, though it's still 2.5 times the Banker main bet edge. If you're inclined toward side bets and understand the cost, this is the one where the case is least weak. The Banker Dragon Bonus at 9.37% is considerably less attractive despite being on the same side as your main bet.

Lucky 6 and other market additions

Lucky 6 is a side bet that pays when Banker wins with a final total of exactly 6. A two-card Banker-6 win typically pays 12-to-1; a three-card Banker-6 win typically pays 20-to-1 (though paytables vary considerably by operator and region). The house edge on the standard version runs approximately 10.3% to 13%, depending on the specific paytable in use. Lucky 6 is popular because it offers a route to a larger payout from a single round without requiring understanding of the Dragon Bonus margin tables.

Other side bets you may encounter include Big and Small (predicting whether the round will use 4 cards or 5-6 cards total, with edges that vary considerably), Royal Match (specific royal card combinations), and various operator-specific propositions. None of them competes with the Banker main bet on edge terms. The our baccarat analysis side bets catalogue covers most of the variants you're likely to encounter, with full edge calculations for each paytable variant.

The practical approach

The cleanest session plan at any London baccarat table is this: Banker bet on the main circles, pay the commission, all side bet circles empty. If you're playing at the Hippodrome's high-limit room and the side bet circles are there, you're not required to use them. The commission on Banker wins is the entire cost of playing the best-available main game bet; you don't need to supplement it with higher-edge propositions to have a complete session.

If variety is part of the point for you, the Player Dragon Bonus at roughly 2.65% is the most defensible option. Set a defined budget for it per shoe, place it when it appeals, and don't let occasional side bets become the session's financial story. Use the baccarat shoe simulator to model sessions with and without side bets and compare the variance and expected cost over 50 simulated shoes.

Key numbers

Sources: our in-house edge analysis.