Baccarat Side Bet Counting

In all the above discussions, player bets are placed only on positive edge situations, not even on tie situations. The negative edge of the main game is not considered at all.

Quote: aceside

In all the above discussions, player bets are placed only on positive edge situations, not even on tie situations. The negative edge of the main game is not considered at all.
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But since you are required to make a ‘main bet game’, how do you justify not considering it? It may not override your edge, but you need to ‘consider’ it.

If player bets one unit each on both the main and side bets when side has an edge.

Win unit per 100 hands on main: -1.13,
Win unit per 100 hands on side: 0.493.

Therefore, player loses 0.637 unit per 100 hands of playing both. Overall, it’s a losing game.

Quote: SOOPOO

But since you are required to make a ‘main bet game’, how do you justify not considering it? It may not override your edge, but you need to ‘consider’ it.

There are many casinos where you don’t need to place main bets in Baccarat

Quote: harris

Quote: SOOPOO

But since you are required to make a ‘main bet game’, how do you justify not considering it? It may not override your edge, but you need to ‘consider’ it.

There are many casinos where you don’t need to place main bets in Baccarat
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I was going to mention this too. It is fairly common in baccarat games to only place a "sidebet", not requiring a P/B/T bet to get action. It is also fairly common to be able to sit out for a number of rounds, merely observing, while not forfeiting a spot at the table.

Correction! The negative edge of 0.637 is for player playing every hand of the main game, including extra side bets only on positive edge situations.

Quote: GrahamThorp

Quote: aceside

I just read another online article by Eliot about card counting Easy 6 side bet and found something more countable. Actually, MDawg has posted this earlier.

We consider a game of 8 decks with a cut card behind 338 cards. Let me list Eliot’s numbers here:

For Easy 6,
Average edge: 3.166%,
Bet frequency: 15.57%,
Win unit per 100 hands: 0.493.

The variance is a lot smaller here too.
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I have to throw out analysis by Jacobson.

He simply does not factor risk into the equation. His analysis is not useful for that reason

Here's the problem with a simple illustration:

Profitability — Player A vs Player B

Player has a 1% edge on an even-money payoff.
Player B has a 5% edge on a 10-1 payoff.

On a $10,000 bankroll, with correctly-sized Kelly stakes:

Player A (1% edge, even-money): bets $100/wager → average profit $1 per bet
Player B (5% edge, 100:1 long-shot): bets $5/wager → average profit $0.25 per bet

Put simply: the lower variance means the player with the smaller edge makes more money overall for the same risk of ruin.

In the specific case of the easy six it is actually a good bet but about half of Jacobson's published analysis come to the wrong conclusions: he almost always overstates the value of high-variance wagers to a counter.
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[I have to throw out analysis by Jacobson.
He simply does not factor risk into the equation. His analysis is not useful for that reason]

Not only Jacobson, but most analysts mainly analyze the game rather than the player. Occasionally, they might give an example of how a player can manage their money or the risks involved with their bankroll.

Because the game rules are fixed—such as a 7/8-deck baccarat game with side bet A, we can, on average, get a maximum of n rounds per shoe, with an average EV of +m%.

However, from the player's perspective, different bankrolls, risk tolerances, and table conditions will lead to different betting units and action plans. Using Full Kelly is misleading in the real world. Should it be 1/2? 1/4? 1/6? All players had better check a risk calculator website and make their own plans.

Quote: Dieter

Quote: harris

Quote: SOOPOO

But since you are required to make a ‘main bet game’, how do you justify not considering it? It may not override your edge, but you need to ‘consider’ it.

There are many casinos where you don’t need to place main bets in Baccarat
link to original post

I was going to mention this too. It is fairly common in baccarat games to only place a "sidebet", not requiring a P/B/T bet to get action. It is also fairly common to be able to sit out for a number of rounds, merely observing, while not forfeiting a spot at the table.
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In Macau, if no one makes a bet at a Baccarat table, a player can request the dealer to 'fly' that hand without betting anything. This means you can count that round for free. Normally, flying 5 to 10 rounds is perfectly fine; after that, you can either place a minimum bet, walk away, or just sit there waiting for the next player to come. In the VIP area, you can even fly the whole shoe!

Quote: GrahamThorp

Quote: 7up

Quote: GrahamThorp

Quote: harris

There is no need to argue about Kelly and SCORE endlessly for weeks and I do not think this current conversation is productive. The reality is that some baccarat side bets are countable to the point of being highly profitable, and many people in this thread have first-hand evidence of this.

You haven't provided any substantive evidence to support that at all.

So far we have established that the Dragon 7 and Panda 8 are 400% less profitable than a mediocre blackjack game under the best conditions. That is not "highly profitable".

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Here are some highly profitable, countable baccarat side bets I know:
Super Tie on a cruise ship: The casino got absolutely crushed for HK$8 million.
Natural 8 / Natural 9 in Singapore: Hit by several teams for a combined total of several million HKD.
Baccarat Insurance in Macau: Netted HK$10 million in just one week.
Dragon 7: Taken down by the JC team for several million HKD.
Any Pair: Attacked by multiple teams, yielding over HK$10 million.
Catch a Rank: Easily a million-plus HKD.
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Let's make this clear: I was asking Harris to substantiate HIS argument. I want to know whether HE can justify HIS own words. He was asking for the help of powerful, influential people for assistance. If I or anybody else were to do that then we need a reasonable idea he knows what he is doing.

I don't need proof personally. I know which side-bets can be beaten and under what conditions. A minority have impressive SCORE's under ideal, if rare, conditions. I have run the numbers.

Now what concerns me in this thread with your comments is the methodology you are using.

First, anecdotal evidence is NOT permissible as substantive evidence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence. At best it is useful for hypothesis forming eg deciding what bets to spend time investigating. It is very unscientific.

When you say something like "Johnny Chang beat this game", then there are several possibilities. You may be making it up. You may have got the details wrong. You may have the details right but the wrong information may have been relayed to you. Chang might not have been counting and lied about it to misdirect the casino. He might have been counting, but may have got lucky and later considered the game poor value on further analysis (he made similar statements about blackjack ace location and shuffle-tracking). There are about a hundred plausible explanations The probability of any these being true is small individually but large in aggregate (0.97 x0.95....) Note that I don't have to find you untrustworthy or lacking in competence to believe the thing you stated never happened (in fact I don't, you seem honest and competent) I just have to crunch the numbers on the possible explanations. The same goes for the Wizard with this casino manager story. The compound error is just way too high to take that on trust.

And... we have THREE different studies showing the game isn't worth anything. Your own objection that you have no other games to play is a valid reason to accept a low SCORE for you but not for Chang who is known for his US play.
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[First, anecdotal evidence is NOT permissible as substantive evidence.]
OMG, this is a forum, not a court.
In a forum, a member's credibility is earned through their track record: the logic within their content, the number of corrections from peers, and the level of support they receive from the community.

I lent John Chang a million HKD in Macau when he needed it for a rebate game. If I were foolish enough to make up a lie like this, it would be incredibly easy to expose.

[And... we have THREE different studies showing the game isn't worth anything. ]
Disagree. Whether it’s worth it depends on the person, not the game. Dragon 7 is countable and profitable. The figures tell the truth.

[Your own objection that you have no other games to play is a valid reason to accept a low SCORE for you but not for Chang who is known for his US play.]
Please do not misrepresent my statement. You are comparing a game with what I called a 'not-so-great income' to a blackjack shoe game that is unavailable in my market. While JC's Dragon 7 analysis dates back a decade, the core rules remain identical to those used today.

I believe you 100%. Regarding Kelly, many authors used this definition,

Kelly fraction = edge / variance,

But, is this correct? Which variance value to use?

Quote: aceside

I believe you 100%. Regarding Kelly, many authors used this definition,

Kelly fraction = edge / variance,

But, is this correct? Which variance value to use?
link to original post

Kelly fraction = Betsize * variance / Bankroll / edge.

If you bet more than one hand in a round, you must find the total edge/round and total variance/round.

When you bet more than one hand in a round, and each hand with different bet size, then it is a bit difficult to find total variance/round(the only way I know is through simulation).

For example :-

TC =+1, 1 hand, bet1= $10
TC =+2, 1 hand, bet1= $20
TC =+3, 2 hand, bet1= $20, bet2 = $40
TC =+4, 2 hand, bet1= $50, bet2 = $100
TC >=+5, 3 hand, bet1= $50, bet2 = $100, bet3 = $150
.
.
.

Total variance/ round = ???

Quote: ssho88

Quote: aceside

I believe you 100%. Regarding Kelly, many authors used this definition,

Kelly fraction = edge / variance,

But, is this correct? Which variance value to use?
link to original post

Kelly fraction = Betsize * variance / Bankroll / edge.

If you bet more than one hand in a round, you must find the total edge/round and total variance/round.

When you bet more than one hand in a round, and each hand with different bet size, then it is a bit difficult to find total variance/round(the only way I know is through simulation).

For example :-

TC =+1, 1 hand, bet1= $10
TC =+2, 1 hand, bet1= $20
TC =+3, 2 hand, bet1= $20, bet2 = $40
TC =+4, 2 hand, bet1= $50, bet2 = $100
TC >=+5, 3 hand, bet1= $50, bet2 = $100, bet3 = $150
.
.
.

Total variance/ round = ???
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[bet more than one hand]

For years, this problem has appeared many times across various forums, but I have never seen anyone provide the answer.

I have posted a workaround to solve this issue before—it doesn't give you the answer with a single formula, but rather involves several steps.

Some websites feature calculators called things like "Multi Bet Calculator," but I don't know how those calculators actually operate.

***I just asked an AI, and it showed me how to calculate it.

Here is my understanding of Kelly. This formula

Kelly fraction = edge / variance,

is plainly wrong, based on dimensional analysis. Here edge is unitless, but variance has a unit of $*$. You just cannot divide these two.

However, when edge is small and the wager is $1, we can approximate variance to be winning payout. For example, in this Dragon 7 side bet, the variance varies wildly from 40 at TC=3.05 to 64.6482 at TC=32, but we treat it as a constant of 40. Therefore,

Kelly fraction = edge / 40.

That edge/variance formula is wrong. Just google "Is edge over odds a useful approximation of the kelly bankroll formula?"