Playtech’s Lucky Multiplier across all baccarat tables

Open any Playtech live baccarat table and you’ll likely be greeted by a message reminding you that the Lucky Multiplier is in play and that you’ll enjoy enhanced payouts when the Lucky Tree appears on your side bets.

The Lucky Multiplier

After bets have closed, on certain rounds on any of these tables, the Lucky Tree can appear on one or more (up to 5) of select side bet positions or the Tie bet and apply a payout multiplier to that bet.

In the below example, the Tie bet payout has been increased to 15:1 (from the standard 8:1), and the Perfect Pairs payout has become 35:1.

Which bets can be multiplied?

Only certain bets can have a Lucky Multiplier applied, namely the Tie bet and all pairs side bets, as follows:

Bet	Regular payout	Possible Lucky Multiplier Payout
Tie	8:1	x15, x20, x25, x50, x88, or x100
Player/Banker Pair	11:1	x15, x20, x25, x50, x88, or x100
Either Pair	5:1	x10, x15, x25, x50, x88, or x100
Perfect Pairs	25:1	x35, x50, x88, or x100

Big/Small and Egalite side bets are excluded.

Banker and Player bets on the main game are also excluded.

Which baccarat tables?

The Lucky Tree Multipliers are in play across pretty much all of Playtech’s live baccarat tables (there are some exclusions…eg tables to which other multipliers apply).

Here is the 6 Scanner Speed Baccarat table with multiplied payouts.

Below is the VIP Baccarat table, with a 100:1 Lucky Multiplier applied to the Banker Pair side bet.

And a 20:1 multiplier applied to the Player Pair bet on Ru Yin Speed Baccarat.

How often do Lucky Multipliers appear?

Pretty regularly. Although the timing is not specified, in a recent 2 hour session played across a number of different tables, I’d estimate Lucky Multipliers made an appearance approximately every 3 or so rounds.

Usually it’s just the single bet that is multiplied. On the occasional round 2 Lucky Multipliers made an appearance. Three or more is a rarity.

Lucky Multipliers and Theoretical Returns

From a return to player standpoint, the baccarat Tie bet has always been a terrible bet to take. In the long term it will return just over 85% of your staked amounts. Side bets aren’t much better.

Below are the return to player rates applying to all baccarat side bets, as set out in Playtech’s old house rules before the addition of the Lucky Multipliers. The Pairs side bets all return in the range 86-90%. Not great when you consider betting Banker or Player has your returns close to 99%.

But the question is, has the introduction of Lucky Multipliers made the Tie and Pairs bets palatable now?

Usually when a provider adds random payout multipliers to a game(s), the base payouts are reduced to compensate and preserve the house edge on those bets.

This is not the case here. The base payouts applying for Tie bet and all Pairs side bets remain as they were.

The overall effect then is a substantial increase in the RTP rate applying to these bets across all Playtech’s live baccarat tables. Below is the new side bet RTP table.

The Tie bet RTP is increased (from regular 85.64%) up to 95.30%.

This is all great news – if you were silly enough to be taking any of these bets in the first place. Hopefully the introduction of Lucky Multipliers will not suck you into taking them now.

The fact remains, even at an elevated 95% return, these bets are far inferior to the main game’s (almost 99%) Banker and Player bets.