Live dealer Baccarat games give you all of the social interaction of land-based tables with the convenience and value of online play.
In the world of casino gambling, card games make up some of the most popular titles ever to operate. Baccarat, however, has a very special place among all of them. It is the single most popular casino card game in the vast majority of Asian countries, and it’s only beaten by blackjack in the rest of the world. The popularity of the game cannot be denied, and that’s one of the major reasons why online live dealer Baccarat tables are so overwhelmingly popular.
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Game Selection Options
When you play in a regular online casino, you typically only get one Baccarat game to choose from. If you’re given more than one option, they’re usually just different visually and play with the exact same rules as each other. With live dealer games, however, the selection of available games is typically larger.
The most popular non-standard variation is called EZ Baccarat, and it plays exactly like regular Baccarat with one important difference. Instead of having a 5 percent commission on winning banker bets, they pay 1:1. In exchange for this improved payout, wins with a total of seven (or 17, 27, etc.) with three cards on the banker bet will count as a push instead of a win. The end result of this rule change is that you end up with a slightly better payout rate on the banker wager than you’d normally get in an eight-deck or six-deck game.
Many Baccarat variations found in live dealer games, EZ Baccarat included, also have special side bets that you won’t find in the normal games. These tables have options like the Dragon 8, which can pay you 40 times the size of your wager. It’s clear to see that the selection of games of this particular type is much stronger than in the usual online casino.
Payouts on Bets
As we saw above with the improved payout rate for the banker bet in EZ Baccarat, there are many options to get better payouts than you normally would in live dealer games. You can find better payouts on some of the other wagers as well, particularly with the tie bet.
The following is a chart that will show some of the most popular improved pay options for the tie bet in Baccarat games under different sets of rules.
| Rule Set | House Advantage |
| 9-to-1, Single Deck | 6.39% |
| 9-to-1, Six Decks | 4.93% |
| 9-to-1, Eight Decks | 4.84% |
| 9.4-to-1, Eight Decks* | 0.79% |
* This is an ultra-rare exception to the rule that players should never play the tie bet in Baccarat. In fact, the tie bet with these rules sets up the lowest house advantage of any wager in Baccarat games that you’ll find online.
Special Bonuses and Promotions
In land-based casino games, the promotions and comps that you get don’t really amount to much in the grand scheme of things, unless you’re a particularly high roller. Online, however, there is so much competition between sites that they have to really bring it in the promotional department to remain relevant. At any given time, there are easily several hundred, perhaps over 1,000, different online casinos to choose from, and at least 10 to 20 percent of those have live dealer options.
That means there are anywhere from 100 to 200 live dealer casinos running at any given time, and all of them are competing against each other to get the attention of players. That competition creates an upward pressure for giving players more value in the form of the following goodies:
- No deposit bonuses and free chips.
- Match-based deposit bonus offers.
- Cashback reward offers.
- Leaderboard competitions and giveaways.
- Rebate options on your losses in certain scenarios.
- Rewards points that can be redeemed for cash.
Baccarat in particular doesn’t always get the most attention for promotions because it’s always pretty easy to get a very low house edge by simply playing the banker bet over and over. However, in an effort to pull people into the live dealer games, they tend to offer better bonuses and special deals than what you’d typically get in a regular online casino.
All of this means more value for you in playing these games, and bottom line, that means more money in your bankroll at the end of the day.
Mobile Play
If we could go back to the mid-1990s when online gambling first got its start, people would never have believed that you could be enjoying real money rounds at a live Baccarat while you wait in a doctor’s office lobby or while you’re standing in line at the grocery store. However, thanks to our current levels of mobile technology, you can do just that.
Players who have smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices can all access these games thanks to smooth, intuitive and flexible interfaces. Many of these interfaces don’t even require you to have any particular type of phone because they’re web-based. If you have an updated browser and a connection, then it doesn’t matter if you’re using Windows Mobile, iOS, Android or Blackberry because you’ll be able to connect and play just the same.
The Differences Between Online and Live Dealer Baccarat
- Live Baccarat tables will almost always use the “EZ Baccarat” system, which eliminates the need for the 5 percent commission that you see in traditional games.
- The social element of live Baccarat and sharing which types of hands you think will come next while analyzing past trends adds a completely different level of excitement and interaction to the game.
- The betting limits for regular online games are lower, but the online live dealer Baccarat tables still have lower minimum bets than those found in land-based casinos.
- Players will typically find it easier to locate casino bonuses that can be used at the live tables than through regular online Baccarat play.
Overview
The overwhelming popularity of Baccarat has helped to make it one of the most popular live dealer games online in the industry today. Players from all across the world are constantly looking for the best ways to play this game, and that includes the social atmosphere that comes along with it. With better deals on promotions and payouts, along with a lower total cost for the player in getting to the actual games, it’s hard to find a disadvantage in playing online in these live dealer games.
Overall, the immersive experience that you get from playing live dealer Baccarat puts you as close as you can get to actually sitting at a table in an exclusive casino location, but you can get started in just a few minutes in your pajamas sitting on your couch if you so desire. That’s the advantage in playing live online.