Baccarat is a fantastic game which has spread across the world at an alarming rate. Often compared to blackjack but only similar on the surface, baccarat is a great game for anybody to enjoy. Below we will go over the most popular strategies in baccarat to help you better your baccarat game.
The Paroli System
The Paroli system is in essence the exact opposite of the martingale system, often even referred to as the reverse martingale. The Paroli system is a positive progression system in which you double your bet on every win and refer back to base on a loss. This is a great change from the martingale as it avoids the huge potential losses when hitting a losing streak, but falls short on the loss recovery. The main idea is that the losses and wins will even out resulting in walking away with a profit.
The system is basic, You choose a player or banker bet, start with an amount, usually the lowest available table bet. When you win, double the amount. If you keep winning, keep doubling the amount. The main goal here is to maximize profits during a winning streak. As soon as you lose one, revert to your base amount. If you lose again, stick to your base amount. Only double on winning plays.
The Martingale System
The Martingale is the most popular yet the most controversial betting strategy available for almost any game of chance. While the initial theory behind the martingale is very promising, there are a few drawbacks in this otherwise perfect seeming strategy. The martingale is a negative progression strategy which focuses only on loss recovery. The idea being that you keep your winnings while recovering your losses.
The Martingale system is very easy to implement. Start with a base value, usually the tables lowest allowed for outside bets. From there we double on every loss and revert to base value for every win. For an example let’s say the base value is $10. From this initial bet, if lost you should bet $20 to cater for the previous loss and provide some potential profit if won. If this bet is won you would revert back to 10 and start the system again.
The Martingale order for $10 would look like this: $10, $20, $40, $80, $160, $320, $640, $1,280, $2,560, $5,120 and so on. This reveals the main drawback of the martingale system. If on a losing streak, the numbers can escalate very quickly. While a long losing streak is unlikely, it is important that you don’t fall prey to gamblers fallacy and realise that losing streaks do happen.
There are a few precautions you could take to try and minimize this potential loss, the most important of which is to realise that you don’t have to play every hand. If you have lost three in a row and are worried about the potential fourth, sit out a few rounds and wait for the game to stabilize a bit. This is a great way to keep focused on the game and not make irrational decisions.
