Baccarat Spread Bets

I noticed a set of six side bets on the winning side and total on Novomatic electronic baccarat games at G2E. For all the rules and analysis, please see my new page on Baccarat Spread Bets.

I suspect these bets would be vulnerable to card counting. I think the biggest vulnerability would probably be on both 8 and 9 bets with a deck rich in 8's and 9's. If one of these units makes it to Las Vegas, I'll seriously look into it.

The question for the poll is would you play the Spread bets if playing baccarat anyway? Multiple votes allowed.

I went to Croatia while it was still Yugoslavia. I recommend doing that.

I suppose it is easy to calculate what fraction of winning 8's and 9's contains an 8 or 9. It must be a high percentage, especially for player. Even with modest penetration, it seems like you can have big swings in probability.

I would not play the side bets.

The bets may be vulnerable to card counting, but the machine can randomly switch shoes every few or more hands. There is no way to tell.

The Dynasty baccarat machines have featured dozens of side bets for the past few years.

Our local racino recently shut them all down because they weren't getting any action.

I recall the ShuffleMaster BJ games would state in the rules what the shuffling regime was. Some SM machines said they shuffled after every hand. Other machines promised four of six deck would be dealt before shuffling.

It is easy to verify that they were dealing out four decks in the latter case just by looking at the sequence of cards that came out.

The OP does not mention penetration or continuous shuffling.

Quote: Mental

The OP does not mention penetration or continuous shuffling.
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That's because I don't know. I would think baccarat players would reject a game that used a continuous shuffler, since most are in a futile attempt to find the hidden patterns in the shoe.

Quote: Mental

I went to Croatia while it was still Yugoslavia. I recommend doing that.
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How? Do you have a time machine available for our use? 🤔 🙂

Quote: Wizard

Quote: Mental

The OP does not mention penetration or continuous shuffling.
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That's because I don't know. I would think baccarat players would reject a game that used a continuous shuffler, since most are in a futile attempt to find the hidden patterns in the shoe.
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I checked the rules pages of several online baccarat games:
NETENT uses eight decks and the rules say they are shuffled before each round.
Evolution has a first-person game dealt from a simulated shoe.
Roxor says nothing about the shuffle in their rules page.
IGT uses eight decks and the rules say they are shuffled before each round.
There are also live online baccarat games dealt from a shoe.