Baccarat side bet odds: how often each one hits, and what it costs
The studio rules tell you each side bet’s payout and RTP. They don’t tell you how often the bet actually lands, which is what most people judge a bet by. This sheet adds that missing column (exact hit rates from all 416 cards of an eight-deck shoe) and shows why the bets that hit most often are not the ones that cost least.
- 7.47%
- Pair hit rate
- 1 in 3,512
- Perfect Pair at 200:1
- 2.65%
- Player Bonus edge
- 9.37%
- Banker Bonus edge
Side bet win conditions and hit rates
Payouts and house edges are taken from the rules; the hit rates are computed by summing every possible first four cards and third-card draw. A pair means the same rank, not the same point value: a King and a Queen are both worth zero but are not a pair.
| Bet | Wins when | Pays | Hit rate | Hits once every | House edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player Pair | Player’s first two cards share a rank | 11:1 | 7.47% | 13.4 rounds | 10.36% |
| Banker Pair | Banker’s first two cards share a rank | 11:1 | 7.47% | 13.4 rounds | 10.36% |
| Either Pair | Either hand starts with a pair | 5:1 | 14.38% | 7.0 rounds | 13.71% |
| Perfect Pair | Either hand starts with a same-suit pair; 200:1 if both do | 25:1 / 200:1 | 3.35% | 29.9 rounds | 8.05% |
| Player Bonus | Player wins with a natural, or by 4 points or more | 1:1 to 30:1 | 28.99% | 3.4 rounds | 2.65% |
| Banker Bonus | Banker wins with a natural, or by 4 points or more | 1:1 to 30:1 | 28.28% | 3.5 rounds | 9.37% |
| Tie (for comparison) | Both hands finish on the same total | 8:1 | 9.52% | 10.5 rounds | 14.36% |
Either Pair hits almost twice as often as Player Pair, yet its edge is higher, not lower: 13.71% against 10.36%. The 5:1 payout gives back less than the extra hits are worth.
Bonus bet outcomes, line by line
The bonus bet pays on the margin of victory for the side you back. A natural win pays even money and a natural tie is a push. A non-natural win needs at least four points of daylight to pay; winning by one to three points still loses the bonus.
| Outcome | Pays | Player Bonus | Banker Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Natural win | 1:1 | 16.26% | 16.26% |
| Natural tie | Push | 1.79% | 1.79% |
| Win by 9 | 30:1 | 0.37% | 0.31% |
| Win by 8 | 10:1 | 0.68% | 0.57% |
| Win by 7 | 6:1 | 1.79% | 1.59% |
| Win by 6 | 4:1 | 2.83% | 2.38% |
| Win by 5 | 2:1 | 3.32% | 3.15% |
| Win by 4 | 1:1 | 3.74% | 4.02% |
| Win by 1 to 3 | Loses | 15.64% | 17.58% |
| Loss, or non-natural tie | Loses | 53.59% | 52.35% |
Naturals are decided by the first two cards, so both sides share the same natural-win figure. Every difference between the two columns comes from hands where a third card was drawn.
Banker wins more often, so why is Banker Bonus the worse bet?
Banker decides whether to draw after seeing Player’s third card. That is why Banker wins more rounds (45.86% against 44.62%), but it also means many of those wins are narrow: Banker squeaks home by one to three points 17.58% of the time, against 15.64% for Player. Those narrow wins pay nothing on the bonus. Wins by four or more, the ones that do pay, come to 12.02% for Banker and 12.73% for Player.
Measured as a share of each unit staked, natural wins return 32.52% on both sides. Margin wins return 63.04% on Player Bonus and 56.32% on Banker Bonus. That gap of 6.72 percentage points is exactly the difference between the two house edges (9.37% − 2.65%).
How rare is the 200:1 Perfect Pair?
One hand forming a suited pair (25:1) happens 3.32% of the time. Both hands doing it in the same round (200:1) happens 0.0285% of the time: once every 3,512 rounds on average, or roughly 26 hours of non-stop play at 27 seconds a round.
The chance of seeing no 200:1 result at all in an hour of 133 rounds is 96.3%. The payout is in the edge calculation, but it is not something one player should expect to meet in an evening.
What a small side bet does to a main bet
A side bet one-tenth the size of the main bet sounds harmless. With an edge up to thirteen times larger, it isn’t. Here is KRW 10,000 on Banker each round with KRW 1,000 on a side bet alongside it.
| Combination | Expected loss per round | Per hour (133 rounds) | Blended edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Banker only | KRW 106 | KRW 14,098 | 1.06% |
| + Player Bonus | KRW 132.5 | KRW 17,623 | 1.20% |
| + Perfect Pair | KRW 186.5 | KRW 24,805 | 1.70% |
| + Banker Bonus | KRW 199.7 | KRW 26,560 | 1.82% |
| + Player Pair | KRW 209.6 | KRW 27,877 | 1.91% |
| + Either Pair | KRW 243.1 | KRW 32,332 | 2.21% |
| + Tie | KRW 249.6 | KRW 33,197 | 2.27% |
A KRW 1,000 Player Pair bet adds 10% to what you stake and almost doubles what you lose: KRW 14,098 an hour becomes KRW 27,877.
An hour of side bets at 133 rounds
Frequent hits feel like a bet is “working”. Hit count and money lost move independently, though. This is KRW 1,000 a round on one side bet for 133 rounds.
| Bet | Average hits per hour | Chance of no hit at all | Expected loss per hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Player Bonus | 38.6 | effectively 0 | KRW 3,525 |
| Banker Bonus | 37.6 | effectively 0 | KRW 12,462 |
| Either Pair | 19.1 | effectively 0 | KRW 18,234 |
| Tie | 12.7 | 0.0002% | KRW 19,099 |
| Player or Banker Pair | 9.9 | 0.003% | KRW 13,779 |
| Perfect Pair | 4.4 | 1.08% | KRW 10,707 |
The two bonus bets hit almost equally often, but Banker Bonus loses three and a half times as much. Perfect Pair hits least often of all and still costs less than an ordinary pair.
Method and limits
- Every combination of Player’s and Banker’s first four cards and any third card was weighted by its probability, removing each dealt card from an eight-deck shoe (416 cards: 128 zero-value cards and 32 of each value from one to nine).
- The RTPs this produces match the rules to two decimal places: Banker 98.94%, Player 98.76%, Tie 85.64%, Pair 89.64%, Either Pair 86.29%, Perfect Pair 91.95%, Bonus 97.35% and 90.63%.
- Figures are for a fresh shoe. Part-way through a shoe the odds shift slightly from round to round, but they average out to these values over the whole shoe.
- 133 rounds an hour assumes 27-second rounds with no breaks, so it is an upper bound.
- Payouts and RTPs come from Evolution’s Speed Baccarat rules (PDF), and expected losses use the house edges printed there. Other studios’ tables with similar names need their own rules screen checked.
Speed Baccarat is played only for real money, and online casino betting is illegal for residents of Korea under Article 246 of the Criminal Act. If you keep going past the number of rounds you set, Gambling Therapy offers free, confidential chat at gamblingtherapy.org.