Apparently this is one of the fasted growing games in land based casinos across Asia.  It’s called Super Six Baccarat  and now you can play it live online because Bodog88 have just added it to their Grand Bodog Casino.

Bodog88 announced the game’s launch in a release a couple of days ago and MD Robert Gustafsson had this to say about the new addition:

“Carving out something unique in the cluttered world of online casino is very difficult but with our new live dealer studio we can quickly react to the needs and wants of casino players. Any new trend can be immediately introduced which we hope will make Bodog88 the most dynamic online casino out there.”

Keep on carving I say because you can never have too much variety!

How to play

Like regular baccarat this is a very simple game to play.  In fact the bets are pretty much the same…Banker, Player and Tie however the payouts are slightly different, and there’s one extra bet you can take, as explained in the below table.

So the main difference is the changed payout on Banker bets…1:1 for all wins except where Banker wins with a score of 6, in which case your payout drops to 0.5:1.  In addition, you can insure against Banker 6 wins with a Super Six side bet that pays 12:1 in the event that Banker does win with a 6.

Like I said, pretty simple.  If you want to give it a go, visit Bodog88.

Related pages at livedealer.org:

Bodog88 live baccarat

Other live baccarat options

Alright let me say from the top, yes I realize this list is NEVER going to be completely accurate.   Most of history’s biggest wins will forever remain a secret between the happy player and not so happy casino.

Most of history’s biggest punters are very discreet about their gambling exploits. Take Zeljko Ranogajec. Never heard of him?  He’s a professional gambler who bets an estimated $1 billion each year.  His biggest wins will probably only ever be known only by him and his bookmaker(s) and speculated on by the rest of us.

But then you get the odd big win that makes into the public domain for one reason of another: the casino in question is a public company and has to issue a profit warning; a streak occurs in a public gaming area and captures the attention of surrounding players; or the winner simply let’s the cat out of the bag.  The media catches wind and the story breaks.

Here are some of biggest documented table game wins (ie blackjack, baccarat, craps etc…jackpots like MegaBucks don’t count) considering both the size of the dollars and/or the length of the streak involved.

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Blackjack

In May 1995 Kerry Packer won $20 million from the Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.  Reports vary on how quickly he got there and how much he was betting per hand.  News Ltd takes the line from the Paul Barry biography, saying Packer was playing up to 8 hands at once on multiple tables, betting up to $250,000 per hand and at one point won 20 hands in a row. Within 40 minutes of his initial bet he was $25 million up.  He finished $20 million ahead and gave $1 million of it to his dealers as a tip.

…………

From December 2010 to April 2011 Don Johnson, the CEO of Wyoming-based Heritage Development LLC, won $15.1 million from three major Atlantic City casinos.  The streak was confirmed by Johnson and verified by casino insiders to the Press Atlantic City to have comprised:

• $4.23 million at Caesars Atlantic City in December; then
• $998,000 at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa also in December; then
• $1.8 million again at Borgata during March and April; then
• $2.25 million in 2 nights again at Borgata later in April; then
• $5.8 million at Tropicana Casino also in April.

The Tropicana win came in just 12 hours.

…………
In November 1991, Kerry Packer was playing blackjack at a table in the public area of the  Las Vegas Hilton and won $7 million on the night.  The win prompted the Hilton to build him a special private room and invite him back the following year…he gave back $10 million. source: News Ltd
…………

Blackjack Hall of Famer Ken Uston relied more on a masterful understanding of the mathematics of blackjack, team play strategy and a lot of patience than a massive bankroll to produce one of the games’ most impressive streaks.  Time magazine wrote that Uston and his team members accumulated winnings of over $4.5 million during a systematic attack on tables around America between 1975 and 1981.

…………

In Casino Player magazine’s “100 Greatest Events in Casino Gaming” edition, Frank Scoblete tells the true story of a bum who cashed his $400 social security check and turned it into somewhere between $1.3 million and $1.6 million during a week of phenomenal luck.  Scoblete writes:

“The folks who deal to him and the folks who serve him say he is the rudest, crudest, but luckiest bastard they ever saw–with the emphasis on the “b” word. At the height of his winning he alienates just about everyone he comes into contact with at Treasure Island”

Unfortunately he also managed to drop it all before being kicked out of the casino by none other than Steve Wynn.

Roulette

Around Christmas 2004 Philip Green, owner of the Arcadia Group of retail businesses, went on a roulette streak at London’s Les Ambassadeurs that included a single night win of £2 million, and other wins of at least £1 million according to the Telegraph. The wins resulted in the casino’s owner, London Clubs International, having to issue a profit warning.

Baccarat

In 1990 the Wall Street Journal reported that in February of that year Akio Kashiwagi took $6 million from the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City and $19 million from the Diamond Beach casino in Darwin.  Kashiwagi was a Japanese real estate mogul known also as The Warrior and was infamous for trying to re-negotiate settlement of losses after unlucky sessions.

…………
In the last 2 months of 1997 Melbourne’s Crown Casino lost $55 million to unnamed Asian high rollers. One player took $12 million according to then Chairman Lloyd Williams. The wins forced Crown Ltd to have to raise additional funds via a rights issue.
…………

In May 2001 The Age newspaper reported the story of a Chinese player named Mo Chan who took $10 million from Sydney’s Star City Casino in just under a month playing in their Endeavour Room.  When the casino cut his limits to try and limit the damage an outraged Chan left the casino vowing never to return.  A Star City insider told the Age, “If he had $10 million of my money and was playing a game of pure luck I would want him to stay so that I could get it back.”

Craps

Tom Breitling, former owner of the The Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas, writes in his autobiography Double or Nothing of the gambling habits of one of the Nugget’s biggest high rollers, identified only as Mr Royalty.  Here’s an excerpt from the book:

“He’d pulled up at The Nugget one night at the end of September in his $350,000 Maybach and six hours and three minutes later walked out with $4,753,200 of our money. A week later he came back in for three and a half hours and took us for another $1.5 million.”

By the way, Mr Royalty wasn’t actually royalty.  He was a young video game developer who Breitling describes in his book as, “a five-alarm asshole”.

…………

On May 23 2009 a New Jersey grandmother named Patricia Demauro playing craps at the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City rolled her point 154 times in a row  – a streak lasting 4 hours and 18 minutes.  The odds of this happening are 1 in 1.56 trillion.

Mrs Demauro has never disclosed how much she won on that incredible night but as you can imagine it’s a number that many have speculated on.  Reasonable bets would put her winnings in the hundreds of thousands.  Expert bets (she was a novice) would have seen winnings in the millions.

…………

A while back Playtech added a great full-screen play option to their live blackjack and roulette  interfaces.  For some reason baccarat remained available for play in small-video-mode only.

Until now that is.

From today you can play live baccarat in full screen mode also.  It won’t increase your chances of winning.  But it does make the game more enjoyable to play (I think anyway), simply because it goes that one step closer to replicating the authentic casino experience.

I could go on and on trying to explain the merits of full screen live play.  Probably better to just provide an example….

You an play this game at bet365, William Hill, BetFred

Cheers

LD

It’s not entirely unreasonable to liken a casino game to a lover.

They are both capable of taking you on an emotional roller coaster ride from the depths of despair to the peak of adrenalin fueled ecstasy.  They are both capable of costing you a lot of money. They can both be very good to you at certain times while at others they can both be downright cruel.

In romantic terms, Macau, or rather its players, are having one hell of a love affair with the game of high stakes baccarat.

According to Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau VIP baccarat accounted for 72% of total Macau casino action during 2010! That’s a staggering US$16.96 billion spent on one game alone…or rather one category of one game since this number doesn’t include what they call ‘mass market’ baccarat.

Putting the number in perspective, it’s more than twice the total revenue generated by all games played on the Las Vegas Strip for the same period.

Empty baccarat tables (pictured above inside the City of Dreams)  must indeed be a rarity in Macau.

I’ve been on somewhat of a roll on the baccarat tables lately, hitting some really nice Banker streaks.  And while I’m in no danger of finding myself carrying around bags filled with $7 million in cash due to my decidedly low-roller betting habits, wins are wins and they’re a hell of a lot better than giving cash to the casino.

Anyway, keen to keep the good times rolling I ventured onto some more baccarat tables yesterday.  This time over at Canbet who run Microgaming’s live dealer games .

Iky was my dealer when I first launched the game.  Good start I thought (before even laying a bet).

After 20 minutes or so I wasn’t exactly killing it, but things weren’t going too bad either and I was up.

And then came the dealer change…

Enter Sakara.

Or as I now like to call her…THE SMILING ASSASSIN

The Banker wins dried up and only seemed to come when I jumped on the Player out of frustration.  When I zigged, the smiling assassin zagged – and the story was the same for most other players on the table who seemed to be betting in unison.

Within 10 minutes I was wiped out, and the assassin had cleared players from the table like a fart in an elevator.

Oh well. We all know streaks don’t last right?

Olivia dealing baccarat

I seem to be having a pretty  good time of things lately on Playtech’s European studio baccarat tables.

Last week Antonia dug me out of a bit of a hole and this week Olivia dealt another Banker winning streak that made me a little, and other players at the table a lot of money.

I was only punting $10 a hand so was never going to win or lose much.  One player at the table was betting $200 a hand – also on Banker and he/she caught the entire streak as well.

Below is a screen shot of my first hand and last hand, which shows the streak on the big road.

Thanks Olivia…you’re our dealer of the week!

The streak starts…

The streak ends…

7 Banker wins later…or around $1400 in winnings for player ’1366′ who was betting $200 a hand on the Banker.

This game was played at bet365

An earlier post on baccarat tracing indicators/roadmaps had a few visitors to the site wanting more information – particularly on how to construct the Big Eye Road (大眼仔), Small Road (小路), Cockroach Road (曱甴路) from the Big Road.

The below manual provides all the details and comes courtesy of the Microgaming live gaming team.  The Microgaming live platform is an absolute cracker following recent upgrades and has a strong baccarat focus.  You can play their games at a growing number of Microgaming licensee casinos including Canbet, Royal Vegas and AllSlots.

The manual is both comprehensive and easy to follow so should cover all the queries we received about baccarat trend plotting…thanks again to Microgaming.

…………………………………………….

Baccarat Roadmap Manual

Introduction

This document describes the concept, the rules, and the behaviour of the baccarat roadmap

The baccarat roadmap is a graphical representation of the results of the previous rounds of a baccarat game. It helps the players quickly and easily analyze the history of the game, look for trends, and possibly predict the results in the future.

All types of roadmaps are represented by using icons arranged in a rectangular grid of empty squares. The height of any roadmap is always 6; the width of any roadmap is not fixed, but is usually at least 12.

The roadmap only records the history for the current shoe. Once a new shoe is to be used, the roadmap is cleared.

Types of roadmaps
There are 5 types of roadmaps. They are:

1.    珠盘/珠盤 (Bead Road)
2.    大路 (Big Road)
3.    大眼仔 (Big Eye Road)
4.    小路 (Small Road)
5.    曱甴路 (Cockroach Road)

The formal English names for the types of roadmaps are unknown.

The size of the icons of the 1st type of roadmap is usually the largest, while the size of the icons of the last 3 types of roadmaps is usually the smallest.

珠盘/珠盤 (Bead Road)
This roadmap simply shows the results (Banker Wins, Player Wins, Tie) of the previous rounds with icons arranged in a rectangular grid in a top-to-bottom, left-to-right fashion. Each icon corresponds to 1 previous round. That is, the icon for the 1st round is put on the top left corner, that for the 2nd round is on the one below it, and so on.

Each icon is a simple circle, usually with the name (or its abbreviation) written in the middle in a specific language. Banker Wins are shown in red, Player Wins are shown in blue, and Ties are shown in green.

Pairs are also shown on the icons. Banker Pairs are shown as a red dot placed on the top left corner of the icon; Player Pairs are shown as a blue dot placed on the lower right corner of the icon. See Figure 1

Figure 1 – All possible icons.
B – Banker Wins, P – Player Wins, T – Tie.
Red dot – Banker Pair, Blue Dot – Player Pair.

Figure 2 shows a typical roadmap.

Figure 2 – A typical 珠盘/珠盤 with 16 rounds. The icons are in Simplified Chinese.

大路 (Big Road)
This roadmap arranges the results in columns, or streaks. This allows easier counting of consecutive Wins and studying of trends.

The icons in this roadmap are shown as hollow circles. Bankers are in red, Players are in blue.

Pairs (Banker Pairs, Player Pairs) are NOT shown in this roadmap at all.

Ties are NOT shown as a separate icon. Instead, they are shown as a green stripe, embedded inside the circle of the last round. If there are more than 1 consecutive Ties, the number of Ties will be written on the stripe in green as well.

In case the 1st round of the shoe is a tie, its icon will be a simple green stripe with no circles surrounding it. Again, if there are more than 1 consecutive Ties at the beginning of the shoe, the number of Ties will be written as well.

Table 1 shows some examples of the icons in this roadmap.

Table 1 – Example icons in大路

If the 1st round of the shoe is a tie and the 2nd round is a Banker, the red circle for Banker will be drawn in the same square as that of the green stripe for Tie. In other words, a Tie-Banker combination and a Banker-Tie combination at the beginning of a shoe is undistinguishable in this roadmap.

The icons are arranged such that the Banker and Player icons are arranged on separate columns, or streaks. Each time the result flips between Banker and Player, a new column is used.

Figure 3 shows a typical roadmap.

Figure 3 – The 大路 (left) and its corresponding珠盘/珠盤 (right)

Big Eye Road (大眼仔), Small Road (小路), Cockroach Road (曱甴路)
These 3 types of roadmaps are similar. The only differences among the 3 types are the Cycle (as explained below) and the icons used.

A summary of the 3 types of roadmaps is shown in Table 2.

Table 2 – Summary of the 3 types of roadmaps.

The 3 types of roadmaps are not a direct representation of the history of the game. Instead, they are all derived from the大路 (Big Road). Every time a Banker or Player icon is added to the 大路 (Big Road), a derived icon is added to these 3 roadmaps based on the rules described below.

Attention: Even though the icons in these 3 derived roadmaps are in red and blue, there is no relationship between their colors and the colors of Banker and Player.

Here are the rules for adding a new icon to any of the 3 derived roadmaps after a round:
1.    Let k be the Cycle of the roadmap.
2.    Assume that the last icon added to the 大路 (Big Road) is on row m of column n.
2.a.    If m >= 2, we compare with column (n-k).
2.a.1.    If there is no such column (i.e. before the 1st column) …  No need to add any icon.
2.a.2.    If there is such a column, and the column has p icons.
2.a.2.1.    If m <= p  …  The answer is red.
2.a.2.2.    If m = p + 1  …  The answer is blue.
2.a.2.3.    If m > p + 1  … The answer is red.
2.b.    If m = 1, reverse the result (Banker to Player, and vice versa), determine the result as in rule 2.a above, and reverse the answer (Red to blue, and vice versa) to get the real answer.

Note that it does not matter whether the icons in the 大路(Big Road) are Banker or Player. Only the number of icons on each column is important.

Figure 4 illustrates the rule for the case when m >= 2. Figure 5 illustrates the rule for the case when m = 1.

Figure 4 – Illustration of the rule when m >= 2. The black dots represent the icons in the 大路 (Big Road).

Figure 5 – Illustration of the rule when m = 1. The black dots represent the icons in the 大路 (Big Road).

The idea behind these 3 roadmaps is that, when there are many consecutive Bankers or Players, all 3 of them will appear red. When there is a repeating pattern of Cycle k, the corresponding roadmap will also appear red. In short, the appearance of red icons in these roadmaps mean that the 大路 (Big Road)is somewhat regular.

See Figure 6 for a graphical illustration of the idea.

Figure 6 – Illustration of the idea behind the 3 roadmaps.
The black dots represent the icons in the 大路 (Big Road).

Figure 7 shows a typical example of the 3 roadmaps.

Figure 7 – A typical example of the 3 roadmaps.
They are 大眼仔 (Big Eye Road, top), 小路 (Small Road, middle), 曱甴路 (Cockroach Road, bottom).

Roadmap Layout
Although there is no restriction as for where to put the roadmaps on the screen, 4 roadmaps, 大路, 大眼仔, 小路, and 曱甴路, are usually aligned in a specific way, as shown in Table 3.

Table 3 – Typical layout of the roadmaps

Figure 8 shows a real-life example of the layout of the 4 roadmaps.

Figure 8 – Example layout of the roadmaps.
They are 大路 (top), 大眼仔 (middle), 小路 (bottom left), 曱甴路 (bottom right).

There is no restriction on where the珠盘/珠盤 (Bead Road) should be put.

Roadmap Probing
Roadmap probing is a way to further help the players analyze the roadmaps. It shows what the next icon will be added to the 3 derived roadmaps if the next round is Banker or Player. See Figure 9 for an example.

Figure 9 – Roadmap probing. It shows what the next icon will be added to the 3 derived roadmaps.

If no icon will be added to a derived roadmap, its corresponding icon will also be missing from the probe results.

Note that the probe results for Banker and Player are always in different colors.

Size Limitations
Since the dimension of a roadmap is fixed (e.g. 12 x 6), sometimes, it is possible that the roadmap runs out of room.

For珠盘/珠盤 (Bead Road), when it runs out of room, the icon for the oldest round is removed. See Figure 10 for an example.

Figure 10 – When the roadmap is full, the oldest icon is removed to make room for the new one.

Old roadmap (above); new roadmap (below).

For the other 4 types of roadmaps (i.e. 大路, 大眼仔, 小路, 曱甴路), when a column has more than 6 icons (remember that the height of all roadmaps is always 6, see Introduction), it always turn right. See Figure 11 for an example.

Figure 11 – When there are more than 6 icons for 1 column, it always turn right.
Old roadmap (left); new roadmap (right).

It is also possible that the space is occupied when a column goes down. In that case, it always turns right, until there is room to go down again. See Figure 12 for an example.

Figure 12 – The column turns right whenever it cannot go down

In the extremely rare case that there is no space for a column to go down at the very first square, the column turns right immediately, occupying the starting square of the next column. When the next column starts, it will use the next empty column. See Figure 13 for an example.

Figure 13 – The column turns right immediately if it is occupied below.
The next column is placed at the next empty column

After many rounds are dealt in a shoe, it might also be possible that there is no more space on the right. In that case, all icons in the roadmap shift left by 1 column, abandoning those on the original left most column, and making room for a new column on the right. See Figure 14 for an example.

Figure 14 – When there is no more room on the right, the whole roadmap shifts left by a column.
Old roadmap (left): new roadmap (right).

Note that all these behaviours described in this section do not affect how the 3 derived roadmaps are formed. The derivation rules are used as if there are no size limitations to all the roadmaps.

No more bland blue screen background for the live baccarat dealers at Microgaming casinos.

A recent platform upgrade (yes there was an upgrade just a few months ago – this is another one!) has seen some major improvements. The first noticeable one is a great new backdrop of a casino floor that looks infinitely better than that old blue screen.

But there’s another great feature to this upgrade that applies to all the games including baccarat.  With a single  click of the view changer you go from the below ‘game view’…

…to ‘casino view’.

And you can now also adjust video quality settings (6 options) to the one that best suits your connectivity.  Pretty slick.

This upgraded live baccarat game is now available at Canbet casino.

Ever wondered whether the life of an online casino dealer can get a bit boring at times?  Gazing into a web cam, dealing to nameless, faceless players on the other side of the world, hour after hour, shift after shift, week after week.

You can forgive even the most diligent dealer from getting a bit bored right.

Funnily enough, until now I had never caught a dealer yawning on camera.  Then I played a game of baccarat over at Betphoenix .

wait, wait, here it comes

Ahhhh that feels better. Hope no one's capturing this on video...

Microgaming's live baccarat - complete deal history at the click of a button

If you’re an experienced baccarat player then this may not excite you too much, since you’re already able to get a good sense of game history by looking the Big Road, Bead road or other available tracing indicators.

For those less familiar with the game and its ins and outs, this will be nice feature for you to use…a clear presentation of the complete hands dealt going back 30 rounds.

It’s both simple and intuitive to access as well as being an unambiguous and attractive presentation of game history.  You simply click a green ‘history’ button located right of the video screen and up  pops the game history scroller showing all cards dealt and the outcome. And it also serves as a great learning reference to understand what the Bead and Big roads are actually showing you.

Baccarat game history is one of a number of really nice features that have been added to Microgaming’s new live platform.  Another one is the ability to play multiple games at once – but more on that in another post.

On the surface it’s fair to say that we weren’t massive fans of their new look games, particularly since a bunch of baccarat variations seemed to have been dropped.  But closer inspection reveals that there is method to M’gaming’s madness and the upgrade does come with plenty of smart features that do enhance the gaming experience rather than simply being added for the sake of change.

Microgaming’s live baccarat can be played at Royal Vegas or Canbet.