From the Las Vegas Strip to Macau, the game of baccarat is the preferred choice for the most lucrative and sought-after gamblers and high-rollers. The simple player-vs.-banker table game attracts the highest average bet sizes, and the game’s volatility often makes or breaks revenue results the world over.
In Macau, the world’s largest casino market, baccarat reigns supreme. According to Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, the market posted US$26 billion in combined VIP and mass baccarat revenue in 2025. Slot machine revenue, by contrast, was $1.7 billion last year.
The Strip is more balanced between the two offerings but still sees massive swings based largely on baccarat performance. In 2025, the Strip won $1.4 billion from baccarat, per the Nevada Gaming Control Board. That was nearly the same total as blackjack, craps and roulette combined. Only 24 Strip casinos offered baccarat last year, compared to at least 33 for the other games — 408 combined baccarat tables kept pace with more than 1,500 combined tables from the other three games.
That said, casino companies have to this point operated with limited data on baccarat, at least compared to slots, which are easier to track and codify. But that technology deficit is shortening, especially with the advent of RFID-enabled baccarat tables now being deployed in Macau.
Last February, all six casino concessionaires announced plans to install the RFID technology for casino gaming tables for monitoring monetary integrity concerns. Casino equipment supplier Angel Group has installed more than 1,100 smart-table systems on baccarat tables at Sands properties throughout the Special Administrative Region.
This new data allows for more comprehensive and perhaps critical analysis by experts like Dr. Mana Azizsoltani, head of data science for Differential Labs. Azizsoltani presented new research on baccarat outcomes and probabilities Tuesday at UNLV’s International Conference on Gambling and Risk Taking, which could be of vital interest to global operators.
“In my opinion, [baccarat] is the most valuable game in the world…It’s all about quantifying risk — that’s what it all boils down to,”Azizsoltani told iGB on the sidelines of the conference.
Analysing good and bad luck
The research, entitled “Quantifying luck: Determining the probability of baccarat wins given player bet mix”, is a deep-dive into bet patterns and their expected outcomes. As operators track play, they can utilise the table data to make more informed decisions and get clearer answers to several questions, such as how to react when a player rips off an unusually lucky or unlucky streak of bets.
“One of the things that [operators] are interested in is this idea of, ‘How do we quantify how unlucky someone’s gotten?’, and this is kind of the motive of this project,” Azizsoltani said during his presentation. “The flipside of the coin is, how unusual is the player’s win? So the use case for player development or marketing could be this idea of losses, what is an unusual, improbable loss? But the other side is, what is an unusual, improbable win?”
Moving forward, numerous facets of a casino operation can benefit from clearer player-level table data, he explained. Marketing teams can provide better comps, surveillance personnel can more easily detect cheating based on anomalous outcomes, and regulators can ensure proper tax collection and monitor anti-money laundering concerns.
Generally speaking, the research illustrated how effective the data can be in making quick evaluations. Azizsoltani said during the presentation that the model can “detect unusual players” with 90% confidence or above within about 25-50 hands played.
Side bets critical to baccarat performance
Another critical aspect of the research equation is side bets, which are hugely popular in baccarat. Bets for the “player” pay 1:1, while “banker” bets pay 1:1 with a slight house vig. “Tie” bets vary by location they typically contain higher odds around 8:1 or 9:1.
There are dozens, if not hundreds of side bets that are based on specific outcomes, similar to craps and blackjack. These bets are attractive to operators given their house edge but can be susceptible to big losses with their steep odds. This is especially true of baccarat, which has a quick pace of gameplay and a high average bet. Table games consultant Bill Zender told iGB last October that the highest-tier players can approach or exceed $100,000 per hand.
During his presentation, Azizsoltani said that side bets account for 6% of baccarat handle but make up about 40% of casinos’ theoretical win on average. Yet up until now, the strategy for implementing or removing side bets has been an imperfect science. Clearer data can help illustrate what bets perform best and the probabilities of certain side bet patterns.
“I think there are a lot of different facets of side bets that can be studied, but I think the main ones are the risk associated with them to the casino, the vulnerability, the volatility,” Azizsoltani told iGB afterward. “And then there’s side bet placement: how many should we put, if we crowd them together, are we going to have less people playing them, what are the ones that are most optimal?”
Jess Marquez
Jess has covered the global gaming industry since 2022. A native of Reno, Nevada, he’d like to note that it’s Ne-va-da, not Ne-VAH-da.
Original article: https://igamingbusiness.com/casino/baccarat-data-the-next-breakthrough-for-casino-operators/
