Lucky Win Baccarat

Posted in +EV, baccarat sidebets by stephenhow on September 30, 2013

If I haven’t been posting a lot lately, it’s either because I’m gambling too much, or the edges are too good to post publicly. While both these reasons would normally apply to Galaxy Gaming‘s new Lucky Win Baccarat Side bet, Eliot Jacobson just found out about it, so it’s a free-for-all while it lasts. Hopefully, you can still find a placement in the UK.

I picked up the literature for the game at Galaxy’s booth @ G2E last week. Lucky Win is a baccarat side bet that pays out for wins on low totals. When you bet on Lucky Player, you’re paid when the player wins with 5 points or less. If you bet on Lucky Banker, you’re paid for a banker win with 4 points or less. The top end of the paytable is very nice.

Lucky Win Baccarat Paytable
With With	Lucky Banker (to-1)	Lucky Player (to-1)
1 in Spades	500	500
1 Suited	200	200
1 Offsuit	30	30
2 points	20	20
3 points	12	12
4 points	8	8
5 points	lose	5

The basic house edge is computed in the following tables (8 deck shoe). The Lucky Player has a nominal 12.04% house edge, and the Lucky Banker has a nominal 10.46% house edge.

Lucky Banker Baccarat Side Bet
Outcome	Combinations	Frequency	Payout	Return
Banker win w/ 1 in Spades	373,248,411,648	0.000075	500	+0.037337
Banker win w/ 1 Suited	1,119,745,234,944	0.000224	200	+0.044804
Banker win w/ 1 Offsuit	22,798,126,252,032	0.004561	30	+0.136833
Banker win w/ 2	44,681,581,871,104	0.008939	20	+0.178784
Banker win w/ 3	72,927,778,568,192	0.014590	12	+0.175083
Banker win w/ 4	163,359,790,133,248	0.032682	8	+0.261459
Others	4,693,138,005,032,192	0.938928	-1	-0.938928
Total	4,998,398,275,503,360	1.000000		-0.104629

Lucky Player Baccarat Side Bet
Outcome	Combinations	Frequency	Payout	Return
Player win w/ 1 in Spades	378,622,455,808	0.000076	500	+0.037874
Player win w/ 1 Suited	1,135,867,367,424	0.000227	200	+0.045449
Player win w/ 1 Offsuit	23,124,703,715,328	0.004626	30	+0.138793
Player win w/ 2	44,328,525,111,296	0.008869	20	+0.177371
Player win w/ 3	62,946,423,310,336	0.012593	12	+0.151120
Player win w/ 4	86,165,771,096,064	0.017239	8	+0.137909
Player win w/ 5	122,838,277,197,824	0.024576	5	+0.122878
Others	4,657,480,085,249,280	0.931795	-1	-0.931795
Total	4,998,398,275,503,360	1.000000		-0.120400

The calculated EORs are pretty high, and lend to a very simple unbalanced count. One count nicely fits both the Lucky Player and Lucky Banker bets, for spade and non-spade cards.

Lucky Banker EORs (8 Deck)
Removed	EOR (spade)	EOR (non-spade)	Unbalanced Count
Deuce	-0.065642%	-0.018710%
Trey	0.046125%	0.091348%
Four	0.098900%	0.136220%	+1
Five	0.292038%	0.334057%	+1
Six	0.288705%	0.333087%	+1
Seven	0.254152%	0.296456%	+1
Eight	0.136562%	0.201645%	+1
Nine	0.113699%	0.180474%	+1
Ten/Face	-0.357683%	-0.277855%	-1
Ace	-0.368121%	-0.231719%	-1

Lucky Player EORs (8 Deck)
Removed	EOR (spade)	EOR (non-spade)	Unbalanced Count
Deuce	-0.078258%	-0.033211%
Trey	0.086812%	0.130836%
Four	0.207816%	0.256991%	+1
Five	0.323979%	0.372323%	+1
Six	0.451908%	0.523600%	+1
Seven	0.260662%	0.331159%	+1
Eight	0.201067%	0.260858%	+1
Nine	0.092613%	0.153953%	+1
Ten/Face	-0.462411%	-0.390156%	-1
Ace	-0.340367%	-0.221416%	-1

Using the simple unbalanced count above (Four thru Nine => +1, Ten thru Ace => -1), and starting at 0 for a new shoe (don’t forget to count the burn card!), you should bet both the Lucky Player and Lucky Banker side bets when the count is +34 or better. For an 8-deck shoe with 15 cards behind the cut card, you’ll be able to bet 6.0% of the hands. The Lucky Player bet has an average edge of +14.0%, and the Lucky Banker bet has an average edge of +10.5%. That’s a whopping combined +1.47% edge per dealt hand. That’s insane. You can see how good the bet gets in the graph below.

Normally, I would never post about something this good. But Eliot is posting today, so the cat’s out of the bag. My apologies to any APs already hitting this game 😦