If you’re taking a trip around a casino resort or even if you’re visiting your local casino, the games that rule the roost seem to be blackjack and roulette. They command the most tables on a casino floor and see larger overall revenue streams for casinos. That’s not to say casino connoisseurs don’t enjoy playing baccarat, though.
Baccarat is more popular in certain areas of the world than in others – it’s more prevalent in Asia than in Europe or America. You can learn more about baccarat and how to play it online on this page.
The game is one of the easier card games to learn and doesn’t have the same number of rules as the likes of poker. The relative ease with which you can learn and play the game is both positive and negative.
A negative is that you can play a lot of hands in quick succession, which is not ideal if you’re on a losing streak. However, it is a positive if you want to find a quick and easy game to play in a virtual or land-based casino.
The three baccarat outcomes are either you win, the banker wins, or it finishes as a draw. It is important to distinguish between the croupier and the house, though. You can bet on the player’s or banker’s hand.
It is crucial to point out that any strategy applied to a card-based casino game is not a guaranteed win method. There are no guarantees with any casino game that you can apply a strategy that will work.
The 1-2-4-3 strategy we will discuss today is a popular and fun method that baccarat players implement, but it’s not an ironclad way of printing money.
It is important to make sure you’re gambling with money you can afford to lose and play for enjoyment only, not as a way of earning a living through baccarat.
What Is The 1-2-4-3 Baccarat Strategy?
The strategy is a simple strategy and method-based way to play baccarat. All you need to remember is that it requires an increase in your bets every time you win a hand. Once you have a hand that loses, you revert to the initial bet.
If you’re hitting a hot streak, you can look to make the most of it, and this strategy also helps you mitigate any losses. Reverting to your original bet keeps any loss of profit to a smaller amount, it also allows you to keep playing for longer and under less intensity.
When contemplating what strategy you want to implement, it is important to note that the house has a small edge. It isn’t a considerable advantage, but it is enough to bet with the banker as opposed to the player more often than not if you want to put the odds in your favour.
A slightly different strategy is the 1-3-2-6 strategy. Theoretically, you would win $1, $3 and $2 during the first three winning games you played. You would then place a more sizeable bet of $6 on your fourth bet.
You could also do this with each number having a zero on the end if you bet larger amounts. However, if you were unsuccessful after staking the £6, all your profits would disappear.
When it comes to the 1-3-2-4 strategy, the first obvious difference is the amount of the fourth bet. So in total, you hold on to $2 once you reach the fourth hand. Despite the potential return being smaller, it also gives you more longevity in the game.
If you bet on the banker, which is the best odds, you’re looking at odds of 19/20. The casino keeps its own chunk of change from each hand which is 5%. Irrespective of your strategy, you must factor in the house edge and see baccarat as a game of chance.
In a nutshell, the 1-3-2-4 strategy draws multiple similarities to the 1-3-2-6 strategy, mainly down to the numbers of each strategy is broadly similar. Blackjack players are more familiar with this strategy than baccarat players.
However, to replace the daring six-unit bet on the final hand of the sequence, you keep it to a more conservative four units. As we discussed earlier, this will help manage your losses if you come into a rough patch during your game.
Conclusion
It’s clear why some baccarat players like to use this strategy. Going blindly into a casino game is a risky venture, and if there are ways you can use a strategy to your advantage, then it’s best to try and implement it if you can.
Whilst no strategy guarantees you will end up in profit, having some method to what you’re doing isn’t going to be a disadvantage, and it may help you manage your bets better.