Card games have always been favorites among Bandarq players, and blackjack has led the way as the most popular table game for more than 50 years.
Which turn of the cards gives you the best odds to win? Let’s take a look at half a dozen games from two standpoints: the house edge and how much opportunity the games give players to improve their chances of beating the house.
The rules give part of that back to players by paying 3-2 on blackjacks in the best games or 6-5 in games that are worse for you.
Opportunity to improve: Blackjack gives you the biggest chance to improve your shot to win any Bandarqq card game. You can find the optimal plays for hitting, standing, splitting pairs and doubling down on basic strategy charts.
With basic strategy, the house edge can be reduced to less than 1%, the precise edge depending on house rules such as how many decks are in use and whether the dealer hits or stands on soft 17. For example, in a six-deck game in which the dealer hits soft 17 and you are allowed to double down on any first two cards, including after splitting pairs, basic strategy players face a house edge of about 0.6%. With favorable rules, some blackjack games have house edges of less than 0.2%.
Skilled card counters can go a step farther and get an edge over the house, but counting cards usually are not possible online where it is common for every deal to come from a freshly shuffled deck.
BACCARAT ODDS
The house edge: Two hands are dealt, and you have three options: Bet on the banker’s hand, bet on the player hand, or bet the hand will be a tie.
Rules are set so the banker wins more than players, but it’s close. Banker wins 45.9% of hands, the player wins 44.6% and 9.5% ties.
Both of those are among the better bets in the house but don’t bet on ties.
Opportunity to improve: All decisions on whether to draw a third card to the two-card starting hands are automatic under set rules. You make no-hit/stand decisions and can’t change the odds. Your impact on your own chance to win comes from deciding whether to bet banker or player while ignoring the tie bet.
Bandarq HOLD’EM ODDS
The house edge: As in many Bandarq based table games, in Bandarq hold’em you start with an ante and later make an additional bet if you like your cards. But if the dealer doesn’t have a qualifying and of at least a pair of 4s, and the bet is a push.
Players who either fold too often instead of following their ante with a bet face or who are too aggressive and make that bet even with weak cards might face a house edge of 3 to 4%, but you can improve that.
Opportunity to improve: There are so many variables in seven-card Bandarq games that no one has yet devised a strategy chart for Bandarq Hold’em. There is a strategy calculator in which you can choose individual hands around the web.
In general, you should follow your ante with a bet and stay in action on all but the worst 18% of hands. If your first two cards are low and unpaired – meaning the dealer probably has stronger hole cards – then you’d fold. Exception: Even with low hole cards, you’d stay in action if they mesh with the community cards for a strong chance at a straight or flush.
With an optimal strategy for staying in the hand, you can reduce the house edge to about 2.2%.
3 CARD GAME ODDS
The house edge: As in Bandarq Hold’em, there is a dealer qualifying hand. In Three game cards, it’s a Queen or better – if the dealer doesn’t have at least a Queen, you’re paid only on your ante and not on your bet.
If you followed your ante with a bet and stayed in every hand, you could face a house edge over 5% the ante. Both your ante and bet are at risk against the dealer’s best hands, but when the dealer hand is weak and doesn’t qualify, only your ante is paid.
There is another Three game card option, Pair Plus, in which you are paid according to a paytable without having to beat the dealer. At the most common paytable, the Pair Plus house edge is 7.28%.
Opportunity to improve: You can’t improve your odds in Pair Plus, but there is a basic strategy for the three-game card that helps in the ante-bet portion of the game.
If you make the bet only with Queen-6-4 or better, you reduce the house edge to 3.37% of your ante, or 2.01% of total action once ante and bet are both taken into account.
VIDEO GAME CARD ODDS
The house edge: Video game is based on five-card draw games. Your hand just has to fall on a paytable that usually starts with getting your money back on a pair of Jacks or Better and rises to a 4,000-coin bonanza for a five-coin bet when you get a royal flush.
The house edge is dependent on both your strategy for drawing cards and on the paytable of the game you’re playing. Even on a favorable game such as 9-6 Jacks or Better, an average player can face a house edge of 3% or more if they don’t know the proper strategy.
Opportunity to improve: Seek out the games with the best pay tables. Usually, that means checking the payouts on full houses and flushes. There are many video game themes, each with its pay tables and strategies, but let’s use Jacks or Better as an example. If you can find 9-6 Jacks or Better games where full houses pay 9-for-1 and flush 6-for-1, you’re playing a higher-paying game than Jacks or Better with an 8-5 or 7-5 paytable.
With optimal play, 9-6 Jacks or better pays 99.5%, compared to 97.3 for the 7-5 version or 96.2 on 6-5. That’s equivalent to a 0.5% house edge on the 9-6 Jacks version.
MISSISSIPPI STUD ODDS
The house edge: There is no dealer hand to beat in Mississippi Stud, a five-card game in which you ante, see your own two cards, then may bet one-to-three times your ante after your cards, and again after seeing the first and second of the three community cards. If you don’t bet at any of those points, you must fold and lose your bets up to that point.
Payoffs are made according to a paytable that starts at a push for a pair of 6s through 10s and advances up to 500-1 on a royal flush.
The house edge derives from the paytable, and is highly variable according to your bet patterns, but can reach 10% or more of your ante if you make poor decisions.
Opportunity to improve: With multiple opportunities to bet, the basic strategy is more involved than in Three game Cards but not as complex as Bandarq Hold’em.
With that strategy, the house edge is 4.91% of the ante or 1.37% of total action, including both analysis and bets.
SUMMARY
The most popular table game is still the best opportunity for players who put in the time to learn basic strategy. Video bandarq also is a game where those in the know can reduce the house edge to less than 1%, but the pay tables that make that possible are becoming less and less common.
But the other card games here have reasonable house edges and all but baccarat has elements of skill. And for a game requiring no skill and no learning curve, baccarat has about as low a house edge as you’ll find.
