Baccarat vs Craps: House Edge Compared

Ask any casino mathematician which table games offer the lowest house edge without memorizing a 250-cell strategy chart, and the answer comes down to two classics: eight-deck baccarat and craps. Both games feature iconic main wagers holding under 1.50%, and both surround those low-cost main wagers with flashy center-table side bets that charge ten to fifteen times as much.

In a direct, flat-bet baccarat vs craps odds comparison, eight-deck baccarat takes the mathematical lead: the standard Banker wager carries a 1.06% house edge (after the 5% commission) and the Player wager carries a 1.24% house edge, both lower than the Craps Pass Line (1.41%) and Don't Pass (1.36%) line bets. Craps narrows that percentage gap only when a player backs a line bet with multiples of zero-edge “Free Odds”—a mechanic that leaves expected dollar loss unchanged while multiplying the total money at risk on the felt.

Below is the complete mathematical breakdown of baccarat house edge versus Craps line, Place, and proposition wagers—plus a worked 18-hand scoreboard walkthrough (PPBBPPBBBPBPPBBPTB) you can explore live in our free Baccarat Calculator & Road Decoder.

1. Head-to-head house edge table: Baccarat vs Craps wagers

Both games divide their layouts into two neighborhoods: a low-margin perimeter (Banker and Player in baccarat; Pass, Don't Pass, Come, Don't Come, and Place 6/8 in craps) and a high-margin center layout (Tie and Pairs in baccarat; Hardways, Field, Any Craps, and Any 7 in craps). Here is how every major wager stacks up per $100 resolved:

Where Pass Line (1.41%) and Banker (1.06%) come from

In craps, two dice produce 36 combinations. On the come-out roll, Pass Line wins on 7 or 11 (8/36), loses on 2, 3, or 12 (4/36), and sets a point of 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10 on the remaining 24/36 rolls. Because 7 has six combinations—more than any point number—summing all come-out and point paths yields 244 / 495 wins (49.2929%) versus 251 / 495 losses (50.7071%), for an exact house edge of 7 / 495 = 1.4141%.

In eight-deck baccarat, Player acts first on totals of 0–5, while Banker acts second using Player's drawn third card on totals of 3–6. Banker wins 45.8597% of hands, Player wins 44.6247%, and 9.5156% push on a Tie. Even after the 5% commission on Banker wins, Banker holds just 1.06% and Player holds 1.24%—both lower than a flat Pass Line or Don't Pass wager. See our guide to the lowest-edge bet in baccarat for the full breakdown.

2. How Craps “Free Odds” works (and what it costs in variance)

Once a point is set in craps, players can place a Free Odds wager behind their Pass Line bet that pays true mathematical odds (2:1 on 4/10, 3:2 on 5/9, 6:5 on 6/8) at a 0.00% house edge. Here is what that means in practice:

• Expected dollar cost never shrinks: A $25 Pass Line bet carries an expected loss of $25 × 1.4141% = $0.3535 per resolved contract. Adding $50 or $100 in Free Odds behind it adds $0.00 to that expected loss, so your long-run cost remains $0.3535 per contract.
• Combined percentage drops by multiplying risk: Dividing that fixed $0.3535 cost across a larger total stake ($25 line + $50 2× Odds) lowers the combined edge percentage to 0.61%, at the price of putting up to 3× more money at risk on every seven-out.
• Flat-unit simplicity in baccarat: A flat $25 Banker wager risks only $25 and locks in a 1.06% edge ($0.265 expected cost per hand) without scaling up your stake mid-hand.

3. Table pace, multi-roll contracts, and hourly expected cost

A live craps crew processes roughly 90 to 110 dice rolls per hour. Because an average Pass Line contract takes 3.38 rolls to resolve, a single Pass Line bet resolves about 30 contracts per hour. However, most craps players add Place bets and single-roll center propositions that resolve on every throw:

In both games, tossing a single $5 chip onto high-edge side bets on every decision adds three to five times more hourly cost than the $25 main wager. For comparisons with the other two major table games, see Baccarat vs Blackjack: Which Is Easier? and Baccarat vs Roulette: House Edge Compared.

4. Scoreboard literacy: worked 18-hand shoe (PPBBPPBBBPBPPBBPTB) and the Small Road Dragon Tail

Where craps puts its complexity on the betting felt, baccarat puts its visual structure on the five Macau baccarat scoreboards: Bead Plate, Big Road, Big Eye Boy, Small Road, and Cockroach Pig. Always separate the two color systems:

• Big Road & Bead Plate: Red = Banker win, Blue = Player win, and Green = Tie.
• Derived roads (Big Eye Boy, Small Road, Cockroach Pig): Red = column-depth pattern repeating (symmetry) and Blue = column-depth pattern breaking. On derived roads, red never means Banker and blue never means Player.

Trace this engine-verified 18-hand sequence (PPBBPPBBBPBPPBBPTB—9 Banker wins, 8 Player wins, 1 Tie):

PPBBPPBBBPBPPBBPTB

Mark-by-mark highlights from PPBBPPBBBPBPPBBPTB

Derived roads follow two plain-English rules: Rule 1 (New Column at Row 1) compares the finished depth of the column that just ended with the column L steps further back (same depth = red, different depth = blue). Rule 2 (Continuing Down to Row 2+) looks L columns left and checks three cases:

• Case 2A (Has a bead at this row too → Red): The reference column reaches this row → red (=).
• Case 2B (Stopped one row above → Blue): The reference column stopped one row above this bead → blue (≠).
• Case 2C (Stopped more than one row above → Red): The reference column already finished at least two rows above this bead → red (=).

1. Hands 4–8 (Columns 2, 3, and 4 up to Row 2) — 5 straight RED marks on Big Eye Boy: Columns 1, 2, and 3 all finish with 2 beads (PP, BB, PP), and Hand 8 brings Column 4 to Row 2. Every new column matches depth 2 (Rule 1 → red) and every Row 2 bead matches a Row 2 bead in the reference column (Rule 2, Case 2A → red), opening Big Eye Boy with R R R R R and Small Road with R R R.
2. Hand 9 (Column 4, Row 3) — Why both Big Eye Boy and Small Road flip to BLUE (Case 2B): Banker extends Column 4 to Row 3 (BBB). Big Eye Boy looks at Column 3 (stopped at Row 2, one row above → blue) and Small Road looks at Column 2 (stopped at Row 2, one row above → blue). Had Banker continued to Row 4, both reference columns would have stopped more than one row above Row 4, turning Row 4 red under Case 2C!
3. Hands 9–18 on Small Road — 9 consecutive BLUE marks and a Row 6 Dragon Tail: From Hand 9 through Hand 18 (skipping the Hand 17 Tie), Small Road (lookback 2) records 9 consecutive blue marks (R R R B B B B B B B B B). Because the grid is 6 rows tall, once the 6th blue mark reaches Row 6 of Column 2, the 7th, 8th, and 9th blue marks bend right along Row 6 as a Dragon Tail.
4. Hands 17–18 (Tie on Col 9, Row 1 + Banker at Col 10, Row 1) & Hand 19 Preview: Hand 17 (T) places a green slash at Col 9, Row 1. Hand 18 (B starting Col 10 at Row 1, Rule 1) compares Col 9 (1 bead) against Col 8 (2 beads → Big Eye Boy blue), Col 7 (2 beads → Small Road blue), and Col 6 (1 bead → Cockroach Pig red). On Hand 19, a Banker win (Col 10, Row 2) yields Big Eye Boy blue, Small Road red, and Cockroach Pig red; a Player win (Col 11, Row 1) yields Big Eye Boy red, Small Road blue, and Cockroach Pig blue.

5. Practice scoreboard reading for $0 & keep play responsible

Master the rules and scoreboards before sitting down at the felt: see how Baccarat Smart works, step through our free course preview, or browse the Baccarat Smart course curriculum to train on Big Road columns and derived roads for $0.

Tap + Banker, + Player, or + Tie in the interactive sandbox below to extend PPBBPPBBBPBPPBBPTB live, or open the full sequence in our free Baccarat Road Calculator.