Speed baccarat hands per hour, 138 at 26 seconds a round and 97 at 37 seconds: the expected loss per hour when betting $10 a hand

2026-10-24

Which table should a baccarat player sit at, the fast one or the slow one? Before answering, it helps to turn the pace into time and money.

This article only does the arithmetic. There is no table guide and no site recommendation, just the round times and Banker shares measured from hand records we collected, plus what the game provider's page and rules say.

1.Where the 26 and 37 seconds come from

From 25,133 shoes and 1,683,943 hands collected between 9 and 24 September 2026, we measured the time from one result to the next inside the same shoe. Tables with Speed in the name had a median of 26 seconds (1,117,771 gaps); tables without it had 37 seconds (393,214 gaps).

Evolution's own page gives 48 seconds for a standard baccarat round and 27 seconds for Speed Baccarat (Evolution Speed Baccarat page). The 26 seconds on speed tables is one second off that figure. The 37 seconds pools every table without Speed in its name, including Lightning, Squeeze and No Commission, which is why it comes in under 48.

The rules do not state the betting time in seconds. They say only that a green light means you can bet, yellow means betting time is nearly over and red means it has expired (Evolution baccarat rules). For another provider's figure, Pragmatic Play announced its Speed Baccarat at 27 seconds a round with betting time limited to 12 seconds (CasinoBeats, 2020).

Round time: here, the time from one result to the next. It includes betting, dealing and the result display.

2.Hands per hour and the expected loss per hour

Divide 3,600 seconds by 26 and you get 138 hands; by 37, 97 hands (calculated). That is 41 more hands an hour. Evolution's 48-second figure gives 75.

Now add money. Assume $10 on Banker every hand. With the clean-shoe Banker share of 50.68%, the Banker bet returns -1.15% per bet, so the expected loss per hand is $0.115 (calculated).

The expected loss per hour is $15.87 on the 26-second table and $11.16 on the 37-second table (calculated). Same bet size, $4.72 more gone each hour. That is the 41 extra hands times $0.115.

The Player side works the same way. Flip the 50.68% Banker share and Player wins 49.32%, which is -1.36% per bet (calculated); at $10 a hand the expected loss per hour is $18.77 and $13.19 (calculated).

The same money can also be measured in time. Reaching $100 of expected loss takes 6.3 hours on the 26-second table and 9.0 hours on the 37-second table (calculated). At the same $10 a hand, the slower table lasts 2.7 hours longer.

Assume three hours a day. The daily expected loss is $47.61 against $33.47, and over 30 days $1,428 against $1,004 (calculated). An 11-second difference per round grows into about $424 a month.

!Expected loss is an average over many hands. Single days end up plus or minus, and that swing is far larger.

The arithmetic also runs backwards. Fix the total you will bet in an hour first and divide by the hands.

With $1,000 an hour assumed, that is $7.25 a hand on the 26-second table and $10.31 on the 37-second table (calculated). Matched this way, both tables carry the same $11.50 expected loss per hour.

3.A faster table does not move the Banker share

We also checked whether fast tables tilt the results. From 9 September to 22 October 2026 we took 104,381 clean shoes, those recorded for 40 or more hands with no missing hand, split them by table type and counted the Banker share with ties removed.

Speed tables, 75,759 shoes, came to 50.68%; Super Speed 50.63%, Lightning 50.55%, No Commission 50.69%, Squeeze and Peek 50.62%. Plain Baccarat A was 50.57% and Baccarat B 50.72%.

Every table type fell between 50.4% and 50.7%. There was no probability gap between the 26-second and 37-second tables.

Only Always 9 Baccarat sat apart at 61.65%, and as its name says it is a game with different rules, so it was left out of this comparison.

4.How to size a session by the clock

Using the hour as the unit keeps the arithmetic simple.

First decide how long you will sit today. Then set the total you will bet in that time, work out the hands from the table's round time and divide the total by them. Finally multiply the total by 1.15% to get the expected loss for that session.

To include a betting ladder that raises the stake step by step, the martingale calculator takes a hand size and a number of steps.

Hiddenpick is a Windows program that keeps on its server the betting rules that pick owners do not make public, and runs them as they are on the PC of the person who received them through a referral code. It currently runs on Evolution live baccarat at Stake (stake.com). The program stops on its own when the profit or loss limit set against the bankroll is reached, which fits the habit above of fixing the session time and total first.

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