In blackjack a natural is an ace with a ten-valued card, dealt in the first two cards. It pays 3:2 on a good table and 6:5 on a bad one, and that single difference is worth more than every other rule variation combined.
In baccarat a natural is a two-card total of 8 or 9. Either side holding one ends the hand immediately with no further cards drawn, which is why the drawing rules only apply when neither hand has one.
The blackjack version is the one to check. A 6:5 payout raises the house edge by about 1.35 percentage points, roughly tripling the cost of an otherwise identical game.
Where the numbers come from
Related terms in casino floor
- Commission — A percentage charged on winning bets that would otherwise favour the player.
- Push — A tie in which the bet neither wins nor loses and the stake is returned.
- Shoe — The box holding several shuffled decks from which cards are dealt.
- Cut card — A coloured plastic card placed in the shoe to mark where dealing stops.
- Penetration — The proportion of a shoe dealt before the reshuffle.
- Comp — Complimentary goods or services given to players based on tracked play.
Where an entry quotes a number, that figure comes from the computed sections of this site rather than from another glossary, so the definition and the derivation cannot drift apart. Each entry links to the page where the number is worked out.