How to Play Casino Baccarat: Player, Banker and Tie Bets

Baccarat is a bet on which of two hands, Player or Banker, will finish closer to 9, or on a Tie between them. You make no decisions once the bet is placed: the cards are dealt and drawn by fixed rules. At Loto-Québec’s Speed Baccarat, Player pays 1:1, Banker pays 0.95:1 because a 5% commission is taken from Banker wins, and Tie pays 8:1, with eight decks in the shoe. Banker is the bet with the lowest house edge, about 1.06%, which matches the 98.94% RTP that Loto-Québec and PlayNow publish for baccarat. A Tie at 8:1 returns only about 85.6%. In our check on October 19 and 20, 2026, the live baccarat minimums we could see in Canada ran from $1 at Loto-Québec to $2 at 888casino in Ontario.

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How are baccarat hands counted?

Ace: 1.
2 to 9: face value.
10, jack, queen and king: 0.

Only the last digit of the total counts. A 7 and an 8 make 15, which counts as 5. The best possible hand is 9. A two-card total of 8 or 9 is a “natural” and ends the hand at once.

The names “Player” and “Banker” are only labels for the two hands. You do not play either hand yourself and you do not act as the bank; you simply bet on which hand will win.

How does a round run?

Players bet on Player, Banker or Tie before betting closes.
Two cards go to the Player hand and two to the Banker hand.
If either hand has 8 or 9, no more cards are drawn.
Otherwise a third card may be drawn for one or both hands. Loto-Québec’s rules state that a third-card rule applies when the first two cards total 0 to 7.
The higher total wins. Equal totals are a tie.

When does a third card get drawn?

The standard drawing rules work like this. The Player hand draws a third card on 0 to 5 and stands on 6 or 7. If the Player hand stood, the Banker hand draws on 0 to 5 and stands on 6 or 7. If the Player hand drew, the Banker’s decision depends on its own total and on the Player’s third card:

Banker 0, 1 or 2: draws.
Banker 3: draws unless the Player’s third card is an 8.
Banker 4: draws if the Player’s third card is 2 to 7.
Banker 5: draws if the Player’s third card is 4 to 7.
Banker 6: draws if the Player’s third card is 6 or 7.
Banker 7: stands.

The Banker hand acts second and its rule takes the Player’s third card into account. That is why it wins slightly more often. The table’s rules panel shows the exact drawing table it uses.

What do Player, Banker and Tie pay?

At Loto-Québec’s Speed Baccarat, on a $20 bet:

Player wins pay 1:1: you receive $20 in winnings.
Banker wins pay 0.95:1: you receive $19, because 5% of the win is kept as commission.
Tie pays 8:1: you receive $160.

When the hand is a tie, Player and Banker bets are not lost; they are returned.

Which bet has the lowest house edge?

The answer comes from how often each result happens. With eight decks, the standard calculation gives Banker about 45.86% of hands, Player about 44.62% and Tie about 9.52%. Apply the payouts to a $1 bet, counting a tie as a push for Player and Banker:

Banker: 0.4586 × 0.95 minus 0.4462 equals minus 0.0106. House edge about 1.06%, return 98.94%: the figure Loto-Québec and PlayNow publish.
Player: 0.4462 minus 0.4586 equals minus 0.0124. House edge about 1.24%.
Tie: 0.0952 × 8 minus 0.9048 equals minus 0.1436. House edge about 14.4%.

The commission does not make Banker the worse bet. Banker wins often enough that, even after the 5%, it costs less than Player.

Why is there a commission on Banker?

Without it, Banker would favour the player. Paid at 1:1, the Banker bet would return 0.4586 minus 0.4462, a gain of about 1.24% per bet. The 5% commission turns that into the 1.06% house edge above. A table that advertises no commission has to pay some Banker wins at less than even money instead, so look in its rules for which Banker wins pay less.

What does a session cost?

Take 100 hands at $10, $1,000 in total. On Banker, the expected cost is about $10.60. On Player, about $12.40. On Tie at 8:1, about $143.60. The difference between Banker and Player is small; the gap to Tie is large. If a table paid 9:1 on a Tie, the edge would fall to 0.0952 × 9 minus 0.9048, about 4.8%, still far above Banker or Player.

What are the limits at live baccarat tables in Canada?

Loto-Québec (lotoquebec.com). Speed Baccarat A shows limits of $1 to $10,000 on its public table page. The rules use eight decks.

PlayNow.com (BCLC). The Live Baccarat rules use eight decks and give an RTP of 98.94%. Limits are not shown publicly.

888casino (Ontario). The logged-out live casino page shows a $2 minimum at Speed Baccarat 1, with 8 seats, and at Super Speed Baccarat. Maximum bets and table rules are not shown without login.

PlayOJO and BetRivers (Ontario). Both list live baccarat in their public lobbies, but limits are not shown without login. PlayOJO adds a note that games on its logged-out page are illustrative and some may not be available after login.

Our baccarat rules and variants page keeps this list with the date each table was checked.

What we could not confirm

Limits at PlayNow, PlayOJO and BetRivers live baccarat tables: shown only after login.
Maximum bets at 888casino’s Speed Baccarat tables.
Side bets offered at the tables we checked: we did not record them.

Check a baccarat table yourself

Open the table’s rules panel and find three lines: the Banker payout (0.95:1, or another rule on no-commission tables), the Tie payout, and the number of decks. With those, the calculation above gives you the house edge on each bet. Then look at the limits on the table tile or bet panel. Our page on how live dealer games work explains the betting window and what happens when a round is voided, and our guide to how to play casino blackjack covers the table game where your decisions do change the result.