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[alrelax]

Intro

The casino expansion that took place during the Golden Years of U.S. casino expansion, took baccarat seriously but with a very low key approach to it.  It is still present at most casino properties, though over the years since the internet became everyone's source of everything, some boasted about it and other kept it low key.  Some found scams and yet others became notoriously famous for cheating at baccarat and pocketing multi millions, such as Van Tran and John Truong, AKA: The Tran Organization that changed the world of baccarat, dealer scrutiny, player scrutiny, and the casino surveillance systems at countless casinos.  (For your reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tran_Organization). 

The game they were playing was, of course, baccarat. However, if we did not know that in advance, few would guess that this heretofore sophisticated, quiet and staid game of baccarat has been numerically supplanted by new formats of baccarat that have morphed to more effectively cater to moneyed Asians playing in the new gaming capitals of the world, Macau and Singapore.

Going in the other direction, new mass marketing-oriented versions of baccarat have also evolved to cater to the hoi polloi in Las Vegas and other venues around the world where gaming has spread. With the game of baccarat generating some US$35 billion in annual gaming revenue in Macau in 2012 alone, it is easy to speculate that baccarat now ranks as the single largest source of table game revenue in the gaming industry today.

So how did this happen? Let's examine the evolution of baccarat but also focus on new developments in the hope that doing so might provide those not taking full advantage of this phenomenon to do so. And, for those who might not be aware of the potential of baccarat, we'll review some catalytic ideas to probe the depth of this wonderful game in any market area.
The game went from the highest majority of the players having huge camaraderie and social interfacing, no matter it is was White and Asians, or Latino-White and Asian or any combination of those at any time to very few socializing and even conversing in a decent and respectable conversation let alone dining, hanging out or doing anything outside of the baccarat room together.  There were very little to almost no knowledge of systems and internet raining and propaganda such as existing today.  Which, if there is a single source of helping casino line their pockets with cash lost at the baccarat tables, it is most definitely contributed to YouTube, Facebook, Message Boarding, Scams, Training and all the so-called professional for-hire people that continuously post on the internet with countless thousands reading and attempting to get their share of the pie.

Sure players had their superstitions and preferred bets, but nowhere such as today with the statistical brilliance and playing a sure thing system, etc.  Almost all casinos got banged big time when there was a Banker run at the table more so than a Players run.  That was because each and every player physically took the shoe to deal the cards and as long as the player made a winning Banker hand, that player continued to hold the shoe and deal the cards.  Needless to say, the wagers quickly approached table max if not table max all the way around the table.  A run of 9 or 12 Bankers would easily drain the dealers chip rack, hundreds of thousands of dollars.  And no, few players would engage in attempts to create just those streaks and runs by engaging in negative progressions, etc.  Just did not happen.  A player could of course wager Banker or Player, but most believed and lived for those Banker runs where hundreds of thousands of dollars in chips would leave the dealers rack quite frequently.  Even at the normal $100 to $10,000 bac table which was the staple of most high limit rooms prior to 2000, 10-14 people at a big bac table wagering $5,000 to $10,000 a hand would equate to lost revenue for the casino in pretty fast time. 

I am posting a couple of picture of what the big table looked like with its tuxedoed dealers.  This is a picture I found from the Mirage.  The Mirage in Vegas had 6 public off-the-street big table and numerous big table in the rear private rooms of the high limit baccarat room.  All of that has changed these days.  Caesar's Palace had 4 large bac table in the main part of their high limit room there in Vegas and several in their private salon rooms as well.  Even the Caesar's in Atlantic City had 2 big bac table for years as almost all of the Atlantic City casinos did.  The other pictures are what the Midi table no matter if in the high limit room or out on the main floor looks like.  Midi or Mini, Ez Bac or Bad Beat or any other variation of bac with the varying brands side wagers, the table almost all look the same except for the printed layout on the felt. 

The Physical And Formality

While its roots in North America are not well documented, baccarat was brought 'as is' some time ago from Europe to North America--specifically the casinos in Cuba, to serve wealthy Latin Americans and the occasional Middle East and European traveler. Later, the game migrated to the U.S., and has been evolving in the high limit/VIP rooms of the Las Vegas Strip and other North American casinos for some time.

The traditional game held 12 to 14 seated players, three tuxedo-clad dealers and two supervisors who watched the games from elevated platforms ('ladders'). This 'big game' of baccarat is operated by the shoe being passed from player to player. The dealer (on the 'stick') calls the game standing up, while the other two dealers take and pay bets. This game was first replicated in small upscale semi-private high-limit rooms often named Salon Prives to instantly manufacture the elite-ness that Europe took centuries to develop.

Over time, several casinos experimented with offering a limited number of baccarat tables on the mass-market casino floor. The core game was compressed and transposed onto seven-spot, blackjack-sized mini-baccarat tables and the slightly larger nine-seat midi-sized version, primarily by letting one dealer exclusively handle the cards, and take and pay bets. Thereby, the mass-market baccarat game became faster and more informal, with no tuxedos worn by the dealing staff.

The greater game speed allowed minimum bet limits to drop to levels affordable to mass-market players and, while the game did not catch on like wildfire, it was certainly becoming more widely appealing.

Asian Introduction

While the above changes were occurring in Las Vegas on the other side of the world, Macau's role as the progenitor of Asian gaming had already begun long ago, in the mid-1800s. It took until 1960, however, when the monopoly gaming license was granted to Dr. Stanley Ho and his gaming company--today known by its acronym SJM, for Macau to offer modern casinos and begin its march to supremacy.

With demand exceeding supply, it was here that Ho quickly recognized that the name of the owner's game was to provide the maximum capacity to the marketplace. Rather cleverly, Ho allowed two players in addition to the one that was seated, and making the betting decisions to bet in two additional bet circles behind the traditional bet area. Hence the term 'back betting'. This changed a 12-seat baccarat table to a 36-position table, and created additional game capacity, player compression and game intensity at times, barely controlled pandemonium.

No doubt the pent-up demand of some 1.3 billion Chinese just across the Macau border in the People's Republic of China (PRC), not to forget the 700 million more in nearby Hong Kong, coupled with the natural Asian cultural proclivity toward gaming to drive the world pace-setting demand, but Ho found a way to harvest it faster.

Steve Karoul, longtime international casino marketing executive and president of Euro-Asia Consulting, has lived and worked extensively in Asia, and comments that, "back betting in Macau was probably one of the greatest examples of creativity in the history of gaming, resulting in millions of dollars in incremental revenue for casinos at no additional expense".

Fast-forwarding to the turn of this century, soon after the handover of the Portuguese enclave back to the PRC came the breakup of Ho's monopoly and the eventual awarding of gaming concessions and sub-concessions to five new casino owner/developers in addition to Ho, who unsurprisingly was also awarded one of the new gaming licenses. With gaming demand still seemingly insatiable, now six CEOs and their executive staffs focused on increasing capacity.

The owners realized early on that they could not build new casinos fast enough or big enough. Consequently, the new casino executives fiddled with game dimensions to try to fit more games into a finite amount of already-constructed casino space. But this optimization effort soon ran its course, and focus shifted to game speed as another way of increasing capacity.

In this regard, automatic shufflers were first employed by Western operators both in the search of the highly valued increase in game speed and for control purposes as well, given the high average bets taking place. But, an unexpected backlash to these automated devices arose from the Asian players whom Asian operators probably saw coming while the Western operators did not.

For most Asians, gambling is not so much a leisure/entertainment activity as it is an event where Asians test their 'luck' or 'fate'. The luck thing and fate are inextricably linked to Asian life, as expressed in the concept of 'joss', the practice of feng shui, use of symbology, and countless other aspects of Asian culture and life. First-time Westerners, at first pooh-poohed the role of luck and fate, but after standing in a Macau baccarat pit for 30 minutes soon realized it was real. For those of you that are not familiar with the term "joss', refer to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joss_(Chinese_Statue). 

It should have been no surprise that the luck that Asians were trying to determine was now perceived to be ordained by a machine, not fate, when the cards were shuffled by an automatic shuffler. It did not take long for these zippy, efficient, and control-oriented machines to be replaced by the old plastic shoes, and responsibility for the shuffle to be returned to humans once again.

But, to keep the shuffle time of a cycle as close to the automatic shuffler as possible, the return to the plastic shoe was accompanied by cards pre-shuffled before being delivered to the table, first by a crew of dealers whose sole job was to shuffle cards, and later predominantly by cards pre-shuffled at the card factory far out of view.

Additional Bets And The Statistical Advantage

Additional bets add capacity as well.

Besides the traditional 'Banker' and 'Player' bets, there has always been a 'Tie' bet in baccarat. Casino owners some time ago decided that it might be a good idea to psychologically compensate for the possibility of a push when the final numerical value of both the Player's and Banker's hands is equal.

So, they allowed players to make a side bet on each hand that a tie will occur which, if it does, is paid 8-to-1 but if it does not, the bet loses. The Tie bet has a casino statistical advantage of 14.4 percent when eight decks are being played, but offers the player the only way to win when a tie occurs.

But, I believe it was in Asia where a 'Pair' bet was added to the game. In this instance, a Pair bet wins for a player betting on the Player hand if the first two cards dealt to the Player hand are a pair. The same holds true for a player betting on the Banker hand if the first two cards dealt to the Banker hand are a pair. The Pair bet typically pays 11-to-1 and gives the casino a statistical advantage of 10.4 percent with an eight-deck shoe.

The addition of the Pair bet was not an attempt to offset a non-payment situation; rather, it was only a means to offer players another way to test their luck. It worked.

Tinkering with the casino statistical advantage of the core Banker and Player bets to my knowledge first occurred in North America with some brief and sporadic experimentation with lowering the traditional 5 percent commission on Banker bets to 4 percent. This lowered the casino statistical advantage on the Banker bet from 1.058 percent to 0.599 percent. This was a significant drop; luckily for casino owners this option never caught on.

Counting on the Commission

Attention shifted to trying to find a way to remove the awkward, time-consuming and dispute-provoking collection of the 5 percent commission paid on winning Banker hands. Worse, the determination and collection of the commission really, really, really slowed the game down. Casino executives turned to those to whom math is music, and who can make it sing, to find a way to remove the commission but replace the casino's revenue earned from it by increasing the natural statistical advantage via changes in the win-loss and payout rules.

Even though there were multiple win-loss and payout changes that could have accomplished this objective, the two no-commission baccarat games that have survived and proven popular are EZ Baccarat, a proprietary game, and Super Six and recently a third with the introduction of 'Bad Beat Baccarat'. In a no-commission baccarat game, by definition, the casino's statistical advantage for wagers on the Player bet remains at 1.235 percent because the commission does not apply to this wager.

On the Banker bet, however, in the traditional baccarat game the casino's statistical advantage is 1.058 percent. But, with the Super Six baccarat version of no-commission, it increases to 1.458 percent to the player's disadvantage versus EZ Baccarat, where the casino statistical advantage is less than the traditional game at 1.016 percent to the player's advantage.

With EZ Baccarat, the change to the casino statistical advantage is achieved by retaining the 1-to-1 payouts for all winning Banker bets except when the Banker wins with a three-card total of 7. In this single instance in EZ Baccarat, the bet is a push; no amount is paid to the bettor on the Banker hand.

EZ Baccarat attempts to psychologically compensate for the introduction of a second ?push? situation into the traditional baccarat game by offering a 'Dragon 7' proposition bet that pays 40-to-1 when a three-card total of 7 occurs. The Dragon 7 bet has a casino statistical advantage of approximately 7.6 percent.

EZ Baccarat also offers a Panda 8 bet, a proposition bet on the Player bet side: when the Player wins with a three-card score of 8, the Panda 8 bet pays 25-to-1 with a casino statistical advantage of approximately 10.2 percent.

In Super Six Baccarat, the rules are the same as traditional baccarat, except that a winning Banker bet pays half, or one unit for two units on a winning total of 6.

In both EZ Baccarat and Super Six Baccarat, the presumption is that the real or perceived negatives as felt by the player will be offset by other positives. Besides those already mentioned, the driving advantage to the player is that the greater game speed allows the casino to offer lower minimum bets that heretofore were not available. This opens the game up to an entire new range of players.

Balancing Act

But, to some Asian players, changes to the win-loss and payout rules can be meaningful regardless of the impact on the casino statistical advantage. With EZ Baccarat, whereas before the players wagering on the Banker won in a three-card total of 7, now there is a push. In Super Six, instead of a winning Banker bet with a winning total of 6 paying one-to-one, it pays half. In both instances, if you are Asian you might question whether the modified game is the same test of 'fate' as the traditional game, or has casino management become an interloper forcing itself into the laws of fate?

As a result of this concern, in the Asian VIP rooms the traditional commission-based baccarat game that allows the players to handle the cards is still dominant. The huge average bets made at these tables make up for the slow game speed. No casino operator wants to cram down a no-commission baccarat game on this level of player and risk losing them to another casino that would simply continue to offer the traditional game to acquire their play.

Some no-commission baccarat games may be found in the high-limit area of the main casino floor, a step down from the level of play in the VIP rooms. Some of the higher-limit players appreciate the faster game pace, and have adapted/accepted the changes necessary in order to get the liberalized (read 'lower') minimum table limits.  Although some of the larger casino properties have been recently raising those table limits to as high as $100,000.00 USD in the United States market. 

Thus, no-commission baccarat is most typically found in the mass-market gaming area with lower table minimums as the additional motivation to get players to play. With back betting allowed in Macau and with mass-market demand still exceeding supply, the potential revenue gains from a mass-market-oriented baccarat game are significant.

By way of illustration of the popularity, acceptance and usage of no-commission baccarat in Macau, only 1 percent of one major casino's VIP/junket-driven games are no-commission, whereas in their high-limit area off the casino floor, almost half of the games are non-commission. On the mass-market casino floor, almost all are non-commission.

Into The Tech Age

Borrowing a term from Silicon Valley, the gaming industry in Asia introduced 'disruptive technology' to the game of baccarat in order to take the game to its next stage of evolution.

LT Game, a gaming vendor, essentially found a way to terminalize baccarat, i.e., convert the game into a hybrid dealer/machine-operated game.

LT Game retained the dealer and the 'human element' to keep the luck thing and fate intact, but allowing players to sit in front of terminals to buy in, make their bets, receive payoffs when they win, and cash out quickly without human intervention. Essentially, a single dealer deals the cards following the same face-up procedures as used in mini- or midi-baccarat. Since the players do not touch the cards, they need not sit at the table; they can sit at a bet terminal.

However, LT Game films the dealing taking place and projects the image via a live video stream that is displayed on each player terminal. The beauty of this approach is that the number of betting terminals can presumably be infinite. In practice, the terminals typically surround the dealer in half or full circles or some other such promotional configuration.

Players can make bets on their terminals quickly. To make sure this happens, there is a count-down clock built into the system so the players must bet within a certain time frame or be frozen out, thus achieving the target game speed set by the casino. Large terminal seating areas, a faster game and lowered labor costs allowed the casinos to drop their minimum bets well below those required in their traditional live mass-market baccarat tables of approximately $35 to $60 (HKD$300 to HKD$500).

Soon, some casinos were building replicas of stadiums affording greater visual appeal, socialization and group excitement. Multiple dealer/games were offered 'in the center' to those seated in the betting stadium so that a player at one terminal could be betting on more than one game at a time.

Table outcomes, statistics and trends are prominently displayed overhead and around the stadium seating to promote the games to those playing as well as those watching. At one casino, players can wager on up to 14 different games taking place at one time via one terminal, picking or choosing the ones they feel are most lucky.

Stadium betting on multiple games also allows Asian players to chase a perceived run, known as 'chasing the dragon', something that is physically impossible to find in large casinos with any certainty except through the coincidence of being in the area where a run is occurring. And, even if the player knew where a run is occurring, they may not be able to reach it in time and, when they can, they still may not find an open betting position at the table when they get there. None of these restrictions occur with a terminalized, stadium baccarat game setup.

All of these efforts and more turned a quiet, staid game into a more democratic, participatory, fun, interesting, social, and sometimes epic game.

Optimization Via Reverse Engineering

I cannot say for certain how the latest derivation of baccarat occurred, but it smells, tastes and looks like reverse engineering to overcome obstacles to greater profitability. Sands China Limited (SCL) introduced a game recently in Macau they call Fast Action Baccarat. It has 28 betting positions and can accommodate up to 60 standing players. In Macau, SCL offers four of these tables close together, and this is witnessed in various forms of the exact same type of table layouts, slightly modified, in the USA casino market.

As with the stadium LT Game baccarat games, SCL kept the one-live-dealer concept with the action displayed on multiple overhead screens to promote the game to players and onlookers alike. But, with Fast Action Baccarat, the player is still betting real chips at a table close to where the dealer is turning the cards and determining the outcome of the game, albeit a much larger one.

At each player position, the player can make a bet on Player, Banker, Tie or Pair. To increase the game speed to get to the target minimum bet SCL wanted to offer, they put the dealer float on rails so the dealer could be quickly moved from position to position down the long row of players. Further, notices automatically appear at each betting position to avoid late betting but also to 'train' the players to bet at the pace set by SCL.

Winning positions are lit from underneath, and oversize cards are utilized so everyone can see the cards more clearly, both steps to avoid player disputes that otherwise slow the game down. But, perhaps the most clever aspect of this game is that the space under the betting areas falls open if they lose, and the chips drop to a conveyor that whisks them to an automatic chip sorter and stacker such as used in roulette.

In combination, this allows minimum bets in the $12 range (or $100 in Hong Kong or Macau currency), a target that makes a live baccarat game affordable and fun to a much broader range of players, just like the LT Game stadium approach was able to do via terminals.

An added benefit for SCL is that one Fast Action Baccarat table counts as one table, a critical factor because the government of Macau has announced policies that limit the maximum number of tables it will allow to be operated in the SAR at any one time. The more betting positions per table, the more capacity a concessionaire can create within a given table limit.

Lessons Learned. Lessons Applied

Clearly, the rest of the world is not Macau, but it is just as clear that you do not have to be Asian to play baccarat. The morphing of baccarat has made it more available and appealing to a wider range of target market segments as well as more profitable for the casinos in almost every venue.

Creative minds coupled with the technology will continue to provide the next solution to the last challenge to broaden game appeal and improve efficiency. It is, indeed, a great time for thinkers and doers in the gaming industry as the industry recycles and evolves itself every so often.

With additional versions of baccarat being presented the past several years, such as Bad Beat Baccarat for example, there becomes additional casino floor space allocated to the game and new players coming on board to various properties.  As in all casino games, there are advantages to the house that are always going to be there.  Players believe what they desire for various reasons and beliefs.  And that is why the game of baccarat will never be removed from the casino no matter what famous or infamous person beats the house on occasion or perhaps just the opposite, lost large sums of money and a casino is accused of cheating a player. 

Thanks for reading, Alrelax

[alrelax]

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fs-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F2d%2F12%2F7c%2F2d127c910ceca94a799f030a0f02428d.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fmoai47853%2Fcasino-table-games%2F&docid=zyc2FxaC2gw0vM&tbnid=3A9B9HtGWhW9qM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjmx4mttO3SAhUs6YMKHW5sA7UQMwgeKAIwAg..i&w=634&h=632&bih=484&biw=1093&q=big%20table%20baccarat%20picture&ved=0ahUKEwjmx4mttO3SAhUs6YMKHW5sA7UQMwgeKAIwAg&iact=mrc&uact=8


Best I can do with Vic's new programming, hard to post pics!

[alrelax]

I will tell you, in general there was not as many losers at the big baccarat table in comparison as the average player coming and going today.  Not the quantity of players at all, not taking that into consideration or comparison.  Just 100 players out of a comparison of 100 today.  Big table Versus Midi style.  The aura, the protocol, the wagering belief's, etc.  The players a while back (pre-2002/2003) or so, won more and walked away on an average with more than they do today. 

As I also mentioned worth noting, there was less practice and belief in systems and definitive wagering based on one method, etc.  I rarely see what they used to label as 'emergency fills' being rushed to the tables to replace a completely drawn down dealer's chip rack.  For some reason, I have noticed more security officers coming with empty chip tote carriers to remove an over abundance of chips overflowing in the dealer's rack, sad but true. 

[alrelax]

Areas on the Baccarat Table

We have numbered the main areas on the table.
1 - Dealer
2 - Discard Trays
3 - Dealer
4 - Drop Box
5 - Caller
6 - Tips box

Learning about Baccarat requires that you understand what you're looking at as you place your bet. The baccarat table layout is fairly basic, and very easy to get used to. As baccarat is a game with only three bets, banker, player and tie, the board must reflect this simplicity. There are seven numbered positions on each side of the table that you can see as large yellow numbers on our full baccarat table graphic. Notice the numbers run from one to fifteen, excluding thirteen. As in many gambling style games the unlucky number 13 is excluded from boards, and baccarat is a lot about luck. Each position has three betting areas associated with it, corresponding to the possible choices at the beginning of each game. Banker is spelled out across a row of betting areas, below which Player is spelled out. Above both of these bets, and occasionally above another row of indication numbers, there is a central area for tie bets.

On a full table, three dealers work the game at all times, performing in a manner functionally similar to craps dealers. Two dealers (position 1 & position 3) either sit or stand beside the chips on one side of the table. Each of these dealers takes care of the player's bets on their end of the table. The caller (position 5 - functional equivalent of a croupier) stands in the middle of the table on the opposite side from the dealers, and makes calls on the hands. They also direct the game-play around the baccarat table. As the players are the ones dealing cards in baccarat, you can imagine the casino pays mighty close attention

[alrelax]

Here is a great picture of a 'big table', few are left these days but they are the 'real deal' for the higher limit games where the shoe is placed with the players and the players actually deal the cards. 

7 players each end of the table with 3 dealers and 2 floor managers per game.

[attachimg=1]

[alrelax]

I was asked to re-post what I have put back here.  I deleted it when I was pushed and continuously chastised a couple of years ago by the drama queens and system marketers, etc., etc.  I deleted hundreds of my posts and while I have no desire to repost them all, I will repost this one (I put it back in the OP, first position) as it is certainly relevant for many aspects of baccarat and understanding what is today versus what was and why the casinos got rid of what used to cost them huge on their bottom lines quite frequently. 

Wake up and realize people! 

[AsymBacGuy]

It's funny many people posting elsewhere keep stating their win rate is 53% or that they can't lose. Of course without going into details but telling us they are capable to read or control randomness.
A total fkng perfect bighronshi.t by any standard. Especially knowing they are betting $10 or $20 on their best days.
LOL

as.   

[alrelax]

Found this clear picture of the original 'big bac' table.  This is the table where there was two banker dealers seated, one for each side of the table.  There was also the one that was standing that would receive the cards from the players as they dealt them from the shoe.  That person stood up directly in the middle, opposite the seated banker dealers.