New baccarat side bet will be going live.

I have just finished my second road trip meeting with casino manager/VP/DTGs. This was a very productive week. I have a new side bet for baccarat. The name of this bet is NATURAL. Bettors may bet on Player side Natural, or the Banker side Natural. If the side they pick is a natural, a two card count of either an 8 or a 9, they win. If both the Player and the Banker are Natural, the bettor has a chance at a larger payout.

Here are the payouts.

Choose side with natural get paid 2 to 1.
If both the Player and the Banker is a natural then
natural-natural loss (8 vs 9) paid 2 to 1.
natural-natural tie (8 vs 8) paid 5 to 1.
natural-natural tie (9 vs 9) paid 15 to 1.
natural-natural win (9 vs 8) paid 25 to 1.

If any forum member wants to give the house edge, I would appreciate it. I would just like to double check my number.

Also there is a second pay table where 8-8 tie pays 7 to 1 with all else being the same.

I have two different casinos who will put this in and few more that I am waiting for their reply. Appreciate any feed backs.

Thanks.

Was not the Baccarat natural 8 and 9 an old side bet that Dr Thorp in the 1960s showed how it was very countable
and that bet was replaced by the Tie bet?
I have to dig out some Thorp papers o review.

How countable is your new bet?

Continued Good Luck

Both side is equally likely to get a natural. There is no advantage on one side versus another. Read the WoO site to see if it is countable. I don't see it how.

Also would like to acknowlege miplet for giving me the house edge for the one of my table that I used.

Quote: AceCrAAckers

Read the WoO site to see if it is countable. I don't see it how.

Thanks. I have read the Wizard's pages on Bac counting.
Also, Dr Thorp's paper "A Favorable Side Bet in Nevada Baccarat" is worth reading.

I was but a young boy in 1966 so I was not in a casino to see the
Banker 8, Banker 9, Player 8 and Player 9 side bets.
They look to have payed 9 to 1 for each bet.

Those bets were so countable the casinos removed them and replaced them with the Tie bet, as the story goes.

Your bets pay differently but should still be countable.
Question is, is it worth the money to be won?

I just might look more into that thanks to Dr Thorp's excellent paper.

Quote: AceCrAAckers

Choose side with natural get paid 2 to 1.
If both the Player and the Banker is a natural then
natural-natural loss (8 vs 9) paid 2 to 1.
natural-natural tie (8 vs 8) paid 5 to 1.
natural-natural tie (9 vs 9) paid 15 to 1.
natural-natural win (9 vs 8) paid 25 to 1.

As others have said, this bet is countable. After it is placed in a land-based casino, I will be glad to do the AP analysis (including the house edge).

Quote: teliot

As others have said, this bet is countable. After it is placed in a land-based casino, I will be glad to do the AP analysis (including the house edge).

Dr.Eliot,

I appreciate the offer. The HE has already been calculated and verified by mulitiple sources. At this payout it is 8.19%

With the 8-8 payout of 7 to 1 it is 6.42%.

I know you were able to do the Dragon 7 bonus and found some interesting results for it. Is it countable? If baccarat is countable, then bettors can bet on the players side and have an edge. According to the analysis the Wizard did, baccarat is not countable. The few time a players can take advantage does not come up enought that it warrants the effort to try. I will let all know when it goes live. It should be soon thought.

It's not baccarat that's countable; it's the side bets.

Quote: AxiomOfChoice

It's not baccarat that's countable; it's the side bets.

It is equally likely that a natural will happen on the player side as it is the banker side. I have not read anywhere about Dragon Bonus being countable. Will there be a situation where knowing what few cards are left gives a player an edge? I doubt it but would like to see if there is AP possibility once it gets installs.

Quote: AceCrAAckers

I appreciate the offer. The HE has already been calculated and verified by mulitiple sources. At this payout it is 8.19% With the 8-8 payout of 7 to 1 it is 6.42%.

Ok, no problem. I thought you asked for a double-check of the house edge when you said:

Quote:

If any forum member wants to give the house edge, I would appreciate it. I would just like to double check my number.

As for counting, just count the 8's and 9's vs. all other cards. If the remainder of the shoe is rich in 8's and 9's then naturals are more likely. Because your bet pays out when naturals occur, payout of your bet is more likely. That's really all there is to it. Any time a side bet pays based on key cards, it is vulnerable to a card counting methodology.

Quote: teliot

Ok, no problem. I thought you asked for a double-check of the house edge when you said:
As for counting, just count the 8's and 9's vs. all other cards. If the remainder of the shoe is rich in 8's and 9's then naturals are more likely. Because your bet pays out when naturals occur, payout of your bet is more likely. That's really all there is to it. Any time a side bet pays based on key cards, it is vulnerable to a card counting methodology.

Interesting point. The anlaysis was based on 4,998,398,275,503,360 possible baccarat hands with an eight deck shoe. So the question becomes, at what point does knowing that the shoe is rich in 8's and 9's tip the edge to the player, if ever? There is still the house edge an AP must overcome with this knowledge.

Thank you. This is something I will look into.

Quote: AceCrAAckers

It is equally likely that a natural will happen on the player side as it is the banker side.

That has nothing to do with it, though. When naturals are likely enough, both sides will be profitable. Bet them both simultaneously.

Quote: AceCrAAckers

I have not read anywhere about Dragon Bonus being countable.

Then you should read what Stephen How wrote at discountgambling.net. Both the Dragon and the Dragon-7 are countable.

Quote: AceCrAAckers

Will there be a situation where knowing what few cards are left gives a player an edge? I doubt it but would like to see if there is AP possibility once it gets installs.

Clearly, there are some deck compositions where the player will have an edge. The question is, how often will they come up in practice? For an extreme example, in a deck with all 10's and 9's (split 50-50), half the hands will be naturals, and you will have a 9-9 tie about 1/4 of the time. Of course, this will not come up in practice, but other deck compositions with a smaller edge might. The question is, how often?

I'd guess that, 8's, 9's, and 10's are good and all other cards are bad (because 10-9 and 10-8 are 4x more likely than other naturals.

Now, I have not bothered to do any simulations or anything, so I don't know if it's actually countable in practice, but that's the first thing that I'd look at.

I have read discountgambling.net about the Dragon bonus. How talks about the Player side Dragon Bonus which has a HE of 2.65% He does not even touch on the Banker side Dragon Bonus with a HE of 9.37% How also mentions that it is not worth counting the Dragon Bonus on the Player side. The moment that How shows that Dragon Bonus as being countable on the Banker side, let me know. The house edge is too great for counting to overcome for the Natural side bet that I have.

As for the Dragon 7 being countable, it has been reported by Dr.Eliot Jacobson also.

Thorpe talked about the baccarat side bet for natural that paid 9 to 1. The chance of a natural is 1 in 5.27. So this previous payout was clearly wrong. Any baccarat bonus that has payouts for naturals above 5.27 has a player's edge.

I don't think he says that the Player Dragon is not worth counting. I think he says that the Dragon-7 is not worth counting. Not because the edge isn't big (it is) but because the variance is just too high. You need a monstrous bankroll, relative to your bet size. Even though you have a decent edge, you can wait a long time between those 40-1 payouts.

Player Dragon, on the other hand, is a goldmine. You don't have to wait for those 30-1 payouts; the smaller payoffs are fairly common and keep you afloat for a long time. Remember that, when applying the Kelly Criterion, you need to divide the edge by the variance, and I think that the variance in Player Dragon is around 1/3 that of Dragon-7 (I don't remember exactly; I did the math on that a long time ago)

The reason that the Banker Dragon is not worth counting is just that the banker stands on 2 cards way too often. This has nothing to do with your bet, since yours is symmetrical. For yours, if one side is countable, both sides are (you would never bet one but not the other. It lowers the variance, too, which is nice)

You state that the house edge on your bet it too great for counting to overcome, but you make this statement with no proof. Is there any particular reason that you believe this? Have you run some simulations, or done some math? A high house edge alone doesn't imply that the bet is not countable; you also have to look at how sensitive it is to removal of certain cards.

Note that I'm NOT saying that you're wrong (I haven't done the math myself, so I don't know). All that I'm saying is that if you haven't done the math, you don't know either. To me, it "feels" countable, but of course my gut feeling could be way off.

When it goes live, are you going to tell us which casino it's at?

Quote: AceCrAAckers

Thorpe talked about the baccarat side bet for natural that paid 9 to 1.

It seems you do not understand that there were four different side bets way back in the 1960s.
Dr Thorp:
"A winning strategy is developed for the nine to one side bet on a Banker natural nine.
...
Similar strategies are developed for the side bets on
Banker natural eight,
Player natural nine, and
Player natural eight."

There were 4 different side bets that could be wagered on individually or any combination of the 4 or all 4.

Quote: AceCrAAckers

The chance of a natural is 1 in 5.27.

Correct.
Any natural

Quote: AceCrAAckers

So this previous payout (9 to 1 or 10 for 1) was clearly wrong.

The house advantage for the 4 side bets is stated in section 4.
5.10 per cent for a Banker natural 9
5.10 per cent for a Player natural 9
5.47 per cent for a Banker natural 8
5.47 per cent for a Player natural 8


So, that makes your conclusion erroneous.

Your side bet is countable, again,
is it worth the effort?

You have one expert offering his service to you to show the numbers when the bet goes live.
Super!
IMO,
I suggest for you to either accept his very nice offer or see how countable it really is on your own.
Time will tell.

I do not think any one here is against your new bet and wants to see it fail,
just to bring up the point that it could fail because the bet could be highly countable.
Are you willing to gamble on it??

Quote: 7craps

I do not think any one here is against your new bet and wants to see it fail,
just to bring up the point that it could fail because the bet could be highly countable.
Are you willing to gamble on it??

Just because it's countable doesn't mean that it will fail. The Dragon bets are still alive and well. So is the game of blackjack. And all the countable blackjack side bets.

Personally, I'm hoping that it's countable and it succeeds. But then, I'm a greedy bastard :D

Quote: AceCrAAckers

The anlaysis was based on 4,998,398,275,503,360 possible baccarat hands with an eight deck shoe.

I have to ask... what???? That is a very big number (5,000 trillion. Is there a word for a thousand trillion?) You only need to look at the first 4 cards.

Even if you don't take any shortcuts, ie, you differentiate between all the different cards of the same rank, and you don't ignore order of cards within a hand, there are STILL only 416 x 415 x 414 x 413 = less than 30 billion possibilities. Are you looking at possible draws too?

Ok, I was curious, so I just did a back of the envelope calculation. I didn't run any simulations, and I made some intentional "rounding errors" to simplify the math, but I don't believe that they introduce any large errors.

My results show that this bet is almost certainly countable. I was totally wrong about the 10s; there are so many of them that removing one actually helps you get a natural.

It looks like 8s and 9s are very good for the player, 4s are somewhat good for the player, and everything else is bad. You would probably capture most of the value with the following index numbers:

A, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10: +1
4: 0
8, 9: -5

The 4 is actually closer to -0.75 and the 8s and 9s are closer to -4.625. I suspect that the easier numbers above are close enough.

Each +1 to TC should be worth about 0.9% or so the the player, so the bet should be close to break-even at around TC = +9. Again, this was totally back-of-the-envelope, so it could be somewhat off, but I think it's in the ballpark. To get exact numbers I'd have to correct my intentional rounding errors and run some simulations, which I probably will never bother to do unless (a) the game comes to a casino that I frequent, and (b) no one else does it first. These numbers are probably, at the very least, a good starting point to run a simulation on before you tweak it.

[edit: Fixed the signs on the index numbers, since, of course, we count removals, not cards left in the deck]

Quote: 7craps

It seems you do not understand that there were four different side bets way back in the 1960s.
Dr Thorp:
"A winning strategy is developed for the nine to one side bet on a Banker natural nine.
...


Your side bet is countable, again,
is it worth the effort?

I highly doubt that the count can overcome the HE and if such edge ever present itself, it would be so infrequent that it is not worth waiting for.

Quote: 7craps

You have one expert offering his service to you to show the numbers when the bet goes live.
Super!
IMO,
I suggest for you to either accept his very nice offer or see how countable it really is on your own.
Time will tell.

No one is turning down his generous offer. I welcome this analysis. It will not be done till this goes live in a brick and motar casino so we need to wait til then. It should be real soon though. Remember, the natural pays out at only 2 to 1. Not the 9 to 1 that was being offered when Thorp made his report.

Read more about how bacc side bets based on naturals are beatable:

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2282821?uid=3739856&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101296931781
(includes the abstract from Thorp's paper which 7craps quoted)

http://greenbaizevamp.hubpages.com/hub/Edward-Thorps-baccarat-adventure

I'll work this out as soon as it has a confirmed casino placement. Can someone please let me know if and when this happens.

Quote: AceCrAAckers

I highly doubt that the count can overcome the HE and if such edge ever present itself, it would be so infrequent that it is not worth waiting for.

The Lucky Ladies blackjack side bet has an edge over 24% and that bet is highly vulnerable to card counting. You have some pretty smart and experienced people here trying to warn you. Take the warning or not, but guessing will not get you very far.

Quote: teliot

The Lucky Ladies blackjack side bet has an edge over 24% and that bet is highly vulnerable to card counting. You have some pretty smart and experienced people here trying to warn you. Take the warning or not, but guessing will not get you very far.

+1. I would highly advise getting the AP vulnerability math done BEFORE you place the game in a casino...or the APs will do the math for you, figure out it's beatable, your table will dump, and no more placements...

On my Baccarat game/side bet ("Lucky WIn Baccarat" shown at G2E), I had an AP "count-ability" report done by Charles Mousseau; he did a thorough and very fine job.
As a matter of course, on ANY shoe game where there multiple rounds or deals, I always do a card counters/AP report on the game, and don't release a product that is fraudable or is AP vulnerable. And Baccarat is dealt WAY DEEP into the shoe. (From this board alone, not to mention my dealing experience, I KNOW that a weakness on a game may "throw it to the WOLVES.")

I would contact CRM, as he has a lot of experience and ability on analyzing Baccarat side bets for advantage play vulnerabilities. He'll give you a full report and possible solutions to make the game robust, and card-counter resistant!

Trust me, if ANYONE would design in anti-AP play aspects into a new game, it would be PGD!

I appreciate the kind words, Dan.

As Dan pointed out, I have done this analysis a number of times, and not just on baccarat-related bets. I've tested both discrete counting methods as well as returns given "perfect information"; virtually any game or bet dealt from a depleting shoe is vulnerable to at least a trivial extent. You can never say a bet is "100% safe", nor should you try to, as each casino has their own definitions of what acceptable AP risk is. What *can* be done, however, is to compare the vulnerability to the vulnerability of blackjack (a known and verifiable commodity) as played under similar conditions, to give executives a way to frame this information and make their own conclusions.

If you are looking for an analysis to be done BEFORE there are placements made, I'm sure any of the gaming mathematicians out there (including the ones weighing in on this thread) will be more than willing to do it for a fee. It's up to you to compare "whether you want it before or after" it goes live versus potentially paying to have that information for you.

Do not, however, underestimate the countability of a game or bet with a glib dismissal -- one way or another, the facts ARE going to get out.

The Natural will be going live at four casinos. Look for it in Delaware and Atlantic City casinos. Once it does go live, I will name the casinos. I am working on PA casinos also. Haven't broken through but I am trying.