- Maths reviewed by Josh Miller
- Tested by Diana Westfield
The Andar Bahar calculator works out the odds behind the simplest game on a live casino lobby. One card goes face up in the middle, then cards are dealt left and right until one matches its rank. Bet on the side you think gets the match. The catch is that the two sides aren’t equal: the side dealt the first card wins 51.5% of games, and the payouts are set to cancel that out and a bit more. Put in the payouts at your table and the CasinoCalcs calculator shows what each bet really costs.
Andar Bahar odds and house edge
With one deck, the middle card leaves 51 cards and three of them match it. Whoever receives the first of those three wins. Because the first-card side gets cards 1, 3, 5 and so on, it has one more shot at every stage, and that adds up to 51.50% against 48.50%. On the standard table, Andar gets the first card and pays 0.9 to 1 while Bahar pays even money.
| Bet | Wins | Pays | House edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| First-card side (usually Andar) | 51.50% | 0.9 to 1 | 2.15% |
| Other side (usually Bahar) | 48.50% | 1 to 1 | 3.00% |
So the side that pays less is the better bet, by close to a percentage point. At £10 a game and 60 games an hour, that’s about £13 an hour on Andar against £18 on Bahar. If your table pays even money on both sides with no other rule, the first-card side would actually favour you, which is why you’ll never find that table.
Side bets on the number of cards
Many tables let you bet on how many cards are dealt before the match, in bands. The game ends early more often than people expect: the average is 13 cards, a quarter of games are done within five and fewer than 1 in 100 go past 40.
| Cards dealt | Chance | Fair payout |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 5 | 27.1% | 2.7 to 1 |
| 6 to 10 | 21.7% | 3.6 to 1 |
| 11 to 15 | 16.9% | 4.9 to 1 |
| 16 to 25 | 21.8% | 3.6 to 1 |
| 26 to 30 | 6.1% | 15.4 to 1 |
| 31 to 35 | 3.7% | 26 to 1 |
| 36 to 40 | 1.9% | 51.7 to 1 |
| 41 or more | 0.8% | 125 to 1 |
Compare the payout on your table with the fair one. A 1 to 5 band paying 2.5 to 1 against a fair 2.7 has an edge of about 5%, double the main bet. The long-shot bands are where tables tend to shave hardest, so put the real number into the calculator before you get excited by a 120 to 1.
Patterns, trends and the history board
Live games show the last results, and it’s tempting to read them like a scoreboard. They don’t predict anything. Each game starts from a full shuffled deck, so Bahar winning six in a row tells you nothing about game seven. The only real asymmetry is who gets the first card, and it’s already priced in. For the same idea with a bigger deck, try the Dragon Tiger calculator, another live favourite where one card decides everything.
Fast games burn through a budget quietly. Set a stop before you start. BeGambleAware.org has free tools and support.