Baccarat Commission Drill

This simple drill, developed for Worldwide Casino Consulting by Dale S. Yeazel, Casino Games Teacher will allow your staff to practice Baccarat Commissions. The Commission amount is 5%. To BEGIN:

Clip 1

KEY: Most dealers calculating 5% Commission, first calculate 10%...and then cut it in half. Example: Bet = 180 - 10% is 18 - Half of 18 is 9

The game of Baccarat is Strategically Static. Meaning the cards play themselves. Customers never have the option to Draw or not. Fixed Rules for play are in force. Mathematically, the fixed Third Card rules favor the Bank Side. In order to extract profit from the Bank Side winning wagers, the House charges a 5% Commission…AKA…”Vig”, “Vigorish”,” Juice”, “Rake”, “Drag”.

“Back in the Day”, Big Baccarat Games used $20.00 (Yellow) Cheques as a minimum bet. This made calculating Commission very easy…$1.00 for each Yellow Cheque. Similarly on Mini-Bacc games, dealers calculate Commission, 25 cents for each Nickel ($5.00) Cheque or $1.25 for each Quarter ($25.00) Cheque or $5.00 for each Black ($100.00) Cheque and so on. Commission can be “Marked” with Lammers or Chips in boxes printed on the layout in front of the table bankroll tray corresponding to the customers seat position. For high limit games, the policy may be to “Mark One…Pay One”. A winning Bank Side wager of $100.00 would be paid $100.00 and a 5 dollar Lammer would be placed in the Vig Box for that player. The customer was paid the full amount of the winning Bank Side wager, but owes the House the 5% Commission amount in the Vig Box. For each subsequent winning Bank Side wager the appropriate Vig amount is added to the Vig Box and converted up as necessary. “Vig” can be settled at a customers’ discretion or must be settled when the customer leaves the game or the shoe ends.

Commission may also be extracted from the Bank Side winning payoff. For a $100.00 wager the dealer would cut out $95.00. The dealer may pay $100.00 and then take $5.00 from the customer. Some casinos print a chip size circle with a letter C in the center, on the layout in front of each position. Customers place Commission for each Bank wager in the Circle from which the dealer will take the appropriate commission amount. In either case, floor personnel and surveillance personnel need to be able to calculate the correct commission amount.