Panda-8 Bonus Bet @ EZ Baccarat
Read all my posts on the Panda-8 sidebet.
There’s another bonus bet on the EZ Baccarat table, called Panda-8, that pays 25-1 for a 3-card player 8 win. Using the same methods as the prior posts on countable baccarat side bets, I came up with the following card count values:
| Card | Count Value |
|---|---|
| Ace | 1 |
| Deuce | 1 |
| Trey | -2 |
| Four | -2 |
| Five | -2 |
| Six | -1 |
| Seven | -1 |
| Eight | -2 |
| Nine | 4 |
| Ten/Face | 1 |
The player should bet the Panda-8 when the true count is ≥ 11. (The plot below shows the EV curve crosses the x-axis at a true count of 10.5):
Use the following running count (RC) thresholds when betting the Panda-8 side bet:
| Hand # | RCMin |
|---|---|
| 55 | 31 |
| 56 | 29 |
| 57 | 28 |
| 58 | 27 |
| 59 | 26 |
| 60 | 25 |
| 61 | 24 |
| 62 | 23 |
| 64 | 21 |
| 65 | 20 |
| 66 | 19 |
| 67 | 18 |
| 68 | 17 |
| 69 | 16 |
| 70 | 15 |
| 71 | 14 |
| 72 | 13 |
| 73 | 12 |
| 74 | 11 |
| 75 | 10 |
| 76 | 9 |
| 77 | 8 |
| 78 | 6 |
| 79 | 5 |
| 80 | 4 |
| 81 | 3 |
| 82 | 2 |
| 83 | 1 |
| 84 | 0 |
Using the above RCmin thresholds, simulations showed a profit of 22% of a fixed bet per shoe, at an average 3.8 bets/shoe.
Discount Gambling 
a) From http://wizardofodds.com/baccarat/card-counting-panda-bet.html, the odds swing to the player’s favor at a TC >= 11.
But you stated above that player should bet when TC >= 13.
So which one is correct ?
b) For Dragon 7, without the tracking sheet, player bet when TC >= 4 ?
c) For Dragon Bonus, without the tracking sheet, player bet when TC >= ?
cheers
a) I’ll definitely agree that for the Panda-8, the bet is +EV for TC >= 11. I just generated a plot, and I’ll update the post with it. However, it makes almost no difference if I use a TC of 11 or 13 to with a tracking sheet (threshold RCs).
b) For the Dragon-7, the EV vs. TC curve crosses the x-axis at 5. Eliot uses a TC of 4 with his definitions, and it really doesn’t make much difference.
c) The TC threshold for the Player Dragon Bonus is 7.
Thanks for your clarification.
Betting the Panda 8 is very rare before hand no 55 as stated in your above running count (RC) thresholds ?
cheers
Yes, it’s uncommon that the count is good enough to bet the Panda before hand #55. When I sit around the mini-bac table counting the Dragon-7, I start paying attention around hand #55.
I was finding this Panda-8 count too laborious to maintain throughout the shoe along with the Dragon-7 count, so I went to Griffin’s “Theory of Blackjack” book to get the formula for betting correlation so that I could come up with a simpler count.
Turns out that your Panda-8 count is strong with a betting correlation (measured against the EOR values) of 99.38%. Here is a slightly less powerful, but much simpler count, and has a betting correlation that clocks in at 95.05%. The point values of this “Panda-Lite” count (from ace to 10/face) are as follows: (1, 1, -1, -1, -1, 0, 0, -1, 2, 0). Note that the burden of keeping this count is greatly reduced due to having all of the 10s and faces count as zero.
If you were to plug this simplified Panda-Lite count into your simulator, you should find that the EV of the Panda-8 bet breaks even at about a true count of 6.5.
Regards,
Linus
Could you tell which casino(s) in Asia offer Panda-8 with the payoff of 25 to 1? Thank you!
Has anyone calculated the frequency of +EV using this system?
At the end of the post it says you’ll get 3.8 bets per shoe. Since there’s about 80 hands per shoe, that’s only 4.75% of the time. And it’s a very slow game with other players, so count on less than 4 bets an hour.
Hardly seems worth it, although I do wonder how wide the distribution of the count tends to be. Does the count swing wide? On average it sucks. But if there are those occasional shoes that swing into very high counts, relatively early, it could be fun to play.
Hi Stephen, First, thanks for taking the time and doing this. I am slightly ignorant. To start the count on this particular strategy for Panda, do I use the burn card as the first number (example: 5 so I start with -2) or do I start with something like 36 etc? I didn’t get from the article what you use as the starting point for the count.
Thanks!
Yes, you should initialize the RC with the count value of the burn card.
Thanks. From all the (ahem) “panda-monium” on the different flavors of Panda counting I figured I might try this at San Manuel this weekend if I go.
Does this apply to both EZ Baccarat and Dragon Bonus Mini Baccarat?
Forgive my noobness but could you explain the second table and Running Count Minimum?
So starting at hand 55 i should not bet the panda unless the count is 31 or better? and so what about hands 1-54?
thanks for any help on this