No-Commission Baccarat Explained

At a traditional Punto Banco table, every winning Banker wager is taxed by a 5% house commission (paying 0.95:1 instead of even money). While that 5% fee is what keeps the standard Banker house edge down at 1.06%, it creates a major operational bottleneck on the casino floor: dealers must either count out small-denomination change on every Banker win or log owed commissions in numbered felt boxes and settle up at the end of the eight-deck shoe.

No-Commission Baccarat—historically known as Nepal Baccarat and frequently marketed alongside Super 6 Baccarat—eliminates that 5% fee on winning Banker hands. Instead, winning Banker bets pay full even money (1:1) on every point total except when Banker wins with a point total of 6, which pays 1:2 (0.5:1, or half your wager). Removing the 5% commission sounds like a discount for the player, but the eight-deck math tells the opposite story: trading a 5% fee on all Banker wins for a 50% haircut on winning Banker 6s raises the Banker house edge from 1.06% to 1.46%.

Here is how No-Commission Baccarat works, why casinos across Macau, Singapore, Australia, and Las Vegas adopted it, how it compares with EZ Baccarat, and how an 18-hand No-Commission shoe maps onto all five scoreboards.

1. Why casinos invented No-Commission (Nepal) Baccarat

To understand why No-Commission tables dominate modern mass-market casino floors, consider the physics of dealing an eight-deck shoe. On a classic commission table, a $25 or $35 Banker wager requires $1.25 or $1.75 in commission change, or forces the dealer to place lammers into a numbered commission grid in front of each seat. Collecting those owed commissions at the end of a shoe slows a live table down to roughly 45 to 55 hands per hour.

First popularized in Nepal (hence the pit name Nepal Baccarat) before spreading across Macau's Cotai Strip and Western live-dealer studios, No-Commission Baccarat solved that bottleneck by embedding the house's deduction directly into a single point total:

• Every card draw stays 100% identical: No-Commission Baccarat uses the exact same eight-deck shoe and Punto Banco third-card drawing rules as standard baccarat. Naturals (8 or 9) stand immediately, Player draws on 0–5 and stands on 6–7, and Banker uses the standard conditional tableau you can review in How Baccarat Smart Works.
• Banker wins on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 pay 1:1: On eight out of the nine possible winning totals, the dealer pays chip-for-chip even money with zero commission tracking.
• Banker wins on a point total of 6 pay 1:2 (50%): Whenever Banker wins the hand with a two-card 6 (standing against a Player three-card total of 0–5) or a three-card 6, the dealer pays half of the original Banker stake ($50 on a $100 bet, or $10 on a $20 bet).
• Player (1:1) and Tie (8:1) rules never change: Winning Player wagers still pay 1:1, and a 6–6 tie is still a standard Tie that pushes both Player and Banker main bets.

2. Exact 8-deck math: 5% commission (1.06%) vs Banker 6 rule (1.46%)

Why does paying 1:2 on a single total cost the player more than paying 5% on every winning Banker hand? Because of how frequently the Banker hand lands on a winning total of 6 under the third-card tableau.

In a standard eight-deck shoe, Banker acts after Player and specifically draws or stands on two-card totals of 3, 4, 5, and 6 based on Player's third card. One consequence of that positional rule is that Banker finishes with a winning total of 6 on 5.3862% (5.39%) of all hands dealt:

• Total Banker win probability (all totals 1–9): 45.8597% (45.86% of all coups).
• Banker win on totals 1–5 and 7–9 (paid 1:1): 40.4735% (40.47% of all coups).
• Banker win on total of 6 (paid 0.5:1): 5.3862% (5.39% of all coups—or 11.75% of all Banker wins).
• Player win probability (all totals 1–9): 44.6247% (44.62% of all coups).
• Tie probability (push on Player and Banker): 9.5156% (9.52% of all coups).

Let's compare the exact mathematical deduction taken from a Banker wager under the three main commission models used in casinos worldwide:

Model A — Hypothetical 0% Commission (1:1 on all Banker wins):
  EV = (+1.00 × 0.458597) − (1.00 × 0.446247) = +0.012350 (+1.24% player edge)

Model B — Standard 5% Commission (0.95:1 on all Banker wins):
  Fee deducted = 0.05 × 0.458597 = 0.022930 (2.29% of stake)
  EV = (+0.95 × 0.458597) − (1.00 × 0.446247) = −0.010580 (−1.06% house edge)

Model C — No-Commission / Nepal Baccarat (1:2 on winning Banker 6):
  Fee deducted = 0.50 × 0.053862 = 0.026931 (2.69% of stake)
  EV = (+1.00 × 0.404735) + (+0.50 × 0.053862) − (1.00 × 0.446247)
     = 0.431666 − 0.446247 = −0.014581 (−1.46% house edge)

Notice the arithmetic behind that trade. If a winning Banker 6 occurred on exactly 4.586% of hands (one-tenth of all Banker wins), taking 50% of those wins would equal a 5% commission across all Banker wins (0.50 × 4.586% = 2.293%). Because Banker actually wins with a 6 on 5.386% of hands, the 50% deduction takes 2.693% instead of 2.293%—adding 0.40 percentage points to the casino's edge and raising the expected cost of a Banker wager from $1.06 to $1.46 per $100 wagered.

3. Comparing No-Commission (Nepal) vs Standard vs EZ Baccarat

Not every commission-free baccarat table uses the Nepal Banker 6 rule. In North American card rooms, EZ Baccarat removes the 5% commission by turning a winning three-card Banker total of 7 into a push (the Dragon 7 rule) rather than paying half on winning 6s. Because a winning three-card Banker 7 happens on 2.253% of eight-deck hands, pushing that hand deducts 2.253% of stake—leaving the Banker house edge at 1.02%, slightly lower than even a traditional 5% commission table.

Here is the complete comparison across all three table formats (see also Banker vs Player House Edge and Baccarat House Edge Explained):

4. How No-Commission shoes map onto the five baccarat roads

When you look up at the electronic display above a No-Commission table, does the 1:2 Banker 6 rule change how the five baccarat scoreboards are drawn?

Never. Even when an electronic display prints a small 6 inside a Banker bead on the Bead Plate or Big Road to log that the hand paid half, the Big Road geometry—and every mark on Big Eye Boy, Small Road, and Cockroach Pig—treats that coup as an ordinary Banker win. Furthermore, on the three derived roads, red never means Banker and blue never means Player: derived-road red indicates pattern repetition (symmetry) and blue indicates a pattern break, whereas only the Bead Plate and Big Road use red for Banker and blue for Player.

Let's walk through this pre-verified 18-hand shoe (PBBPPBBPBBPPPBBPTB—9 Banker wins, 8 Player wins, and 1 Tie), which you can load directly into our free Baccarat Calculator & Road Decoder:

PBBPPBBPBBPPPBBPTB

Mark-by-mark verification of PBBPPBBPBBPPPBBPTB

Here is how the 10 Big Road columns (depths 1, 2, 2, 2, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 1) generate the derived-road entries under Rule 1 (new column at Row 1) and Rule 2 (continuing down at Row 2+):

• Hand 3 (Column 2, Row 2 — Big Eye Boy Starts with Blue): Player opened Column 1 with 1 bead, and Banker reaches Column 2, Row 2 on Hand 3. Because Column 2 goes down to Row 2, Rule 2 looks 1 column back at Column 1. Column 1 stopped at Row 1, one row above Row 2 (Case 2B: first drop below the match) → Blue.
• Hands 5–8 (Two-Bead Symmetry Across Columns 2, 3, and 4): Columns 2, 3, and 4 each finish with 2 beads. On Hand 5 (Column 3, Row 2, Rule 2), Big Eye Boy looks 1 column back at Column 2 (which has a bead at Row 2 too — Case 2A: both drop deeper) → Red, while Small Road starts by looking 2 columns back at Column 1 (which stopped at Row 1, one row above — Case 2B) → Blue. By Hand 7 (Column 4, Row 2), Cockroach Pig starts by looking 3 columns back at Column 1 (stopped at Row 1, one row above — Case 2B) → Blue, while Big Eye Boy and Small Road both see beads at Row 2 in Columns 3 and 2 (Case 2A) → Red.
• Hand 13 (Column 7, Row 3 — All Three Rule 2 Cases in Action): Hand 13 is the signature teaching moment of this shoe. Player extends Column 7 down to Row 3 (after Hand 12 at Row 2 produced Big Eye Boy Red, Small Road Blue, and Cockroach Pig Red). On Hand 13 at Row 3:
  • Big Eye Boy (lookback 1 → Column 6, 2 beads): Column 6 stopped at Row 2, one row above Row 3 (Case 2B: first drop below the match) → Blue.
  • Small Road (lookback 2 → Column 5, 1 bead): Column 5 stopped at Row 1, more than one row above Row 3 (Case 2C: both already finished above) → Red!
  • Cockroach Pig (lookback 3 → Column 4, 2 beads): Column 4 stopped at Row 2, one row above Row 3 (Case 2B) → Blue.
• Hands 16, 17, and 18 (Columns 9 and 10 + Tie Slash): Player starts Column 9 at Row 1 on Hand 16. Hand 17 is a Tie, which adds a green slash on Column 9, Row 1 and adds zero derived-road marks. On Hand 18, Banker starts Column 10 at Row 1 (Rule 1), comparing Column 9 (1 bead) against Column 8 (2 beads for Big Eye Boy), Column 7 (3 beads for Small Road), and Column 6 (2 beads for Cockroach Pig)—all different depths → Blue, Blue, Blue.
• Hand 19 (Next-Hand Preview): If Hand 19 is Banker (continuing down Column 10 to Row 2, Rule 2), Big Eye Boy looks 1 column back at Column 9 (stopped at Row 1, one row above — Case 2B) → Blue, while Small Road looks 2 columns back at Column 8 (has a bead at Row 2 too — Case 2A) → Red and Cockroach Pig looks 3 columns back at Column 7 (has a bead at Row 2 too — Case 2A) → Red. If Hand 19 is Player (starting Column 11 at Row 1, Rule 1), Column 10 finishes with 1 bead, matching Column 9 (1 bead) for Big Eye Boy → Red, but differing from Column 8 (2 beads) for Small Road → Blue and Column 7 (3 beads) for Cockroach Pig → Blue.

5. How to practice No-Commission & standard shoes for free

Whether you sit at a classic 5% commission table or a No-Commission layout, the scoreboard mechanics are identical—and you can train on all of them for $0:

• Open our free Baccarat Calculator & Road Decoder to deal additional hands onto PBBPPBBPBBPPPBBPTB and watch the live If B and If P projections update.
• Walk through the structured lessons in our free Module 1 course preview or review the full Baccarat Smart course syllabus to master Rule 1 and all three cases of Rule 2.