GGRAsia – Macau ops eye new side bet ‘Lucky 7′ for Golden Week

Macau ops eye new side bet ‘Lucky 7′ for Golden Week

Sep 27, 2024 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

A fresh live-table baccarat side bet is due soon in the Macau market, possibly in time for peak demand during the Chinese mainland’s October Golden Week break in the next few days, according to multiple industry sources approached by GGRAsia that have knowledge of the matter.

One version of the side bet is ‘Lucky 7’. Another version, with a variation on rules and payouts, is ‘Super Lucky 7’, said the sources.

The special-bet formats have already been cleared to go live on Macau gaming floors by the city’s casino regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, stated three of the sources. GGRAsia approached the gaming bureau for comment on the topic, but had not received a reply by the time this story went online.

According to industry sources, ‘Lucky 7’ has two tracks in terms of play rules and payouts. The game pays 6 to 1 when play hits precisely a winning ‘player’ hand with a face value of seven points, composed of two cards. It pays 15 to 1 if a winning ‘player’ hand has a face value of seven points, composed of three cards.

The more complicated ‘Super Lucky 7’ has three tracks of play rules and payouts, with the highest payout at 100 to 1. This applies in the precise scenario of a winning ‘player’ hand having seven points, over a ‘banker’ hand of six points, and where each hand involves three cards being drawn.

‘Super Lucky 7’ pays 40 to 1 when a winning ‘player’ hand has seven points and a ‘banker’ hand has six points, in a scenario where one hand has three cards and the other has two cards. The game pays 30 to 1, when a winning ‘player’ hand has exactly seven points versus a ‘banker’ hand of exactly six points, and each side’s hand consists of two cards.

The ‘Lucky 7’ and ‘Super Lucky 7’ are ready for rollout in traditional live-table table game format and the “smart” live-dealer table format, said the sources.

The ‘Lucky 7’ and ‘Super Lucky 7’ game rules for Macau – as described to GGRAsia – are similar to the baccarat variant ‘Dragon Tiger’ at Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands resort. That is according to GGRAsia’s review of the the game rules for Dragon Tiger, published online by the city-state’s Gambling Regulatory Authority.

Prior to the news about the Lucky 7 variants, the Macau gaming market had seen widespread adoption by the six operators this year of a baccarat side bet known mostly as “Small 6/Big 6”, with the main rollout coinciding with another mainland China holiday, May Golden Week.

‘Small 6/Big 6′ – a variant of the ‘Lucky Six’ side bet that had been seen for some time in the Macau market – pays 22 to 1, where a winning ‘banker’ hand with a face value of six, is composed of two cards. The side bet pays 50 to 1 for a winning ‘banker’ hand with a face value of six, composed of three cards.

The game rules of Small 6/Big 6 resemble those of the ‘Tiger Baccarat’ game, approved by the Singapore regulator for Marina Bay Sands.

(Updated 8:38am, Sept 30)