Video Baccarat at Pechanga

I made a trip to Pechanga last month and I spotted something new that I have not seen before.

A video baccarat machine called 88 Baccarat

It is manufactured by Aristocrat, one of the biggest slot machine game companies in the world (Australia). It is using one of the modern slot machine setup, where the screen is curved; the popular Walking Dead 2 and Britney Spears slot game that is also manufactured by Aristocrat also uses the setup. One nice thing I like on these machines is that it has an USB charging port for your mobile device while you play (Not Pictured).

Slot players know the old game Lucky 88, but just the 88 number is recycled for this game.

Although I have extensive experience playing Shufflemaster Table Games, I have not played much Baccarat or Mini Baccarat in my life. I know you either bet on Player, Banker, or the Tie Bet. For this video variant, it is either Player or Banker for this game.

The possible wagers are 600, 1200, 1800, 2400, 3000 pennies, which makes it $6, $12, $18, $24, $30 respectively. (Not Pictured)

https://s5.postimg.org/bxzvjp853/IMG...414_130414.jpg

I took pictures of the Help Page that indicates the rules since I do not play Baccarat

https://s5.postimg.org/7ddp4rofr/IMG...428_123343.jpg

https://s5.postimg.org/of6j6v3av/IMG...428_123350.jpg

https://s5.postimg.org/ydrhtccqf/IMG...428_123402.jpg

https://s5.postimg.org/498353dyv/IMG...428_123416.jpg

https://s5.postimg.org/xpnp7ikc7/IMG...428_123425.jpg

https://s5.postimg.org/6gcbt0j93/IMG...428_123434.jpg

https://s5.postimg.org/d82qvv88n/IMG...428_123445.jpg

Going back to the wagers, you bet at least $3 for the original base game, and another $3 for the bonus feature of the game. As you can see there are progressives and multiplier situations in which I have not seen on the table game.

Although there is no Tie wager available, with my limited experience, you really WANT A TIE. A random value will spin to give you a prize, or even the progressive based on Player or Banker.

I played a few hands at max bet wager of $30, just for the sake to say I've played Video Baccarat in my life. I made all the wagers as Player, I did lose $180 at the end, but here are some of the highlights.

I got a Tie and got 2500 for it, more than what I would win had I won outright (1000). I got a Natural 8 which sets up 3x the next round
https://s5.postimg.org/ikrl9zw53/IMG...428_123635.jpg

For the middle row, since I got the 3rd card situation for both Player and Banker, the cards were all red. In this situation it awards 15x for the next hand. If it was all 6 hearts, it would be 88x
https://s5.postimg.org/kqlw4hzlj/IMG...428_125100.jpg

But I failed to convert, a win would have paid $150 for the round
https://s5.postimg.org/b7c7b1c3b/IMG...428_125120.jpg

As you can see, people can leave multipliers on this game to vulture.

I found this game near the Bamboo restaurant (Vietnamese) where the Baccarat and Pai Gow Poker tables are, Pechanga is known for high rolling play where players bet more than $1000 a round.

I have not seen Video Baccarat elsewhere, but I am aware that Video Blackjack is much worse than Blackjack at the tables house edge wise. I do not know how big of a house edge I was playing against, but I was awarded equivalent CLUB points on my card as if I was playing a slot machine.

Most importantly, the HELP page as well as the idle screensaver says the Grand Prize Progressive running at $20,000+ can be awarded at any paid game.

This is interesting, I am surprised no one has commented on it.

alpax, thanks for that interesting report. Somehow I missed it when you posted it initially.

Questions for you:

If you ignore the bonus bet and just do the original bet, how does this machine pay out?

I ask this because normally baccarat pays even money for the player and 0.95 for the banker. However, despite what appears to be a 5% house edge for banker bets, it is not. In reality, the house edge on player bets is just 1.24%, and the house edge on banker bets is only 1.06%!

Provided that the pay table for regular bets is 1.00/0.95 as described above, then this machine might be a nice opportunity to rack up "slot" points/comps on a low house edge game.

Can you also describe the tie bet a bit better? In regular baccarat, the tie bet is horrible, and has a house edge of up to 14%!

As the bonus bets are a new thing for this machine, and do not exist in regular baccarat to my knowledge, I have no idea what the house edge is on those, but I imagine that the edge is high. Usually you get screwed pretty hard with a high house edge in these "bonus" situations.

Here is an interview from last year with the machine's creator: http://www.wgm8.com/baccarats-new-spin/

In the interview, he says that baccarat is boring, and this machine seeks to spice up the game a bit by making it more like a slot machine.

There may be a nice opportunity to be seen as a high-theo slot player by simply running regular bets through this machine, as I doubt it differentiates between regular bets and bonus bets when reporting theo. For whatever reason, it seems that machines tend to report one theo value back to the player's club, and it does not attempt to analyze what your real theo should be through your actual play.

One other nice thing about this machine is that, provided the edges are what I described above, those will be your true odds. Video poker's expected return numbers are somewhat overstated because they require perfect play, which is difficult due to human error. Also, this game has less variance than video poker, due to the lack of high payouts (again, ignoring the bonus situation).

It's worth monitoring if this game appears in other casinos, but please give me more info.

a question for Dan: why would you want to rack up points at Pechanga? This is a "stand alone" casino and any points earned would be usable only at Pechanga.

If you are a Pechanga fan and that's where you want to stay and play then fine. Otherwise, what's the point?

Because you can start getting nice offers based upon the profile of being a new player who runs a good deal of credits at highly -EV games.

So if this machine really plays like normal baccarat and generates theo like a slot, you would get a new card (or start playing on a long-dormant one), run a bunch of credits through betting on "banker" repeatedly, take what will likely be a moderate loss, and then wait a few months.

Then wait for big freeplay offers to come in, and stop by Pechanga while on your next trip to Rincon. Run the freeplay, leave. Keep doing this until the offers stop.

I wouldn't travel way out of the way for this, but if I'm going to the Rincon anyway, it's worth a shot.

Dan, there is now one of these at Rincon. On Wednesday I watched what appeared to be some final technician work, and then they set out the chairs for each spot. Lights were on. Nothing roped off. Looked like it was all set up and ready to be played.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chimp

Dan, there is now one of these at Rincon. On Wednesday I watched what appeared to be some final technician work, and then they set out the chairs for each spot. Lights were on. Nothing roped off. Looked like it was all set up and ready to be played.

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Very interesting. I wonder if someone can verify the payouts for the "original" bet for me.

Will you be there any time soon?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

alpax, thanks for that interesting report. Somehow I missed it when you posted it initially.

Questions for you:

If you ignore the bonus bet and just do the original bet, how does this machine pay out?

I ask this because normally baccarat pays even money for the player and 0.95 for the banker. However, despite what appears to be a 5% house edge for banker bets, it is not. In reality, the house edge on player bets is just 1.24%, and the house edge on banker bets is only 1.06%!

Provided that the pay table for regular bets is 1.00/0.95 as described above, then this machine might be a nice opportunity to rack up "slot" points/comps on a low house edge game.

Can you also describe the tie bet a bit better? In regular baccarat, the tie bet is horrible, and has a house edge of up to 14%!

As the bonus bets are a new thing for this machine, and do not exist in regular baccarat to my knowledge, I have no idea what the house edge is on those, but I imagine that the edge is high. Usually you get screwed pretty hard with a high house edge in these "bonus" situations.

Here is an interview from last year with the machine's creator: http://www.wgm8.com/baccarats-new-spin/

In the interview, he says that baccarat is boring, and this machine seeks to spice up the game a bit by making it more like a slot machine.

There may be a nice opportunity to be seen as a high-theo slot player by simply running regular bets through this machine, as I doubt it differentiates between regular bets and bonus bets when reporting theo. For whatever reason, it seems that machines tend to report one theo value back to the player's club, and it does not attempt to analyze what your real theo should be through your actual play.

One other nice thing about this machine is that, provided the edges are what I described above, those will be your true odds. Video poker's expected return numbers are somewhat overstated because they require perfect play, which is difficult due to human error. Also, this game has less variance than video poker, due to the lack of high payouts (again, ignoring the bonus situation).

It's worth monitoring if this game appears in other casinos, but please give me more info.

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Sorry for the late response Dan.

There is no way you can make just an original bet, you are forced to bet $6 increments. The $3 bet goes to the original game, but the other $3 bet seems to contribute to the progressives, the multipliers, and the tie situation. I think forcing the Player to make the bonus bet increases the house edge, I do not have extended Bacarrat knowledge to determine this. I think knowledgeable players will know when to strike. I am not sure if Banker bet takes 5% commission either since I picked the side with the higher progressive on both visits which happened to be the Player.

This game you only bet on Player or Banker, if there is a tie, there is a fast spinning wheel that determines if you get 100x to 1000x per line bet ($6 bet is 1 per line) or the progressive jackpot. I bet $30 so 500 to 5000 credits along with the chance at the progressive. The original bet is a loss unfortunately. The wheel is probably weighted as I got either 500 or 1000 most of the time from 2 visits, the 2500 is the best I got.

So this doesn't sound like an opportunity at all.

I also read somewhere that this is a slot machine which is simply using baccarat as a theme. But even if this is legit baccarat, the bonus stuff would kill any potential value this machine could have.