Banca Francesa – A Popular Portuguese Dice Game

Banca Francesa (or “French Bank”) is a very fast dice game played in Portuguese casinos. It is one of the most popular games in Portuguese casinos.

The game is played with three dice. There are three possible bets: “Big” – the sum of all three dice is 14, 15 of 16; “Small” – the sum of the dice is 5, 6 or 7; “Aces” – the sum of the dice is 3, that is, one dot per dice. The dealer will continue to roll the dice rapidly until one of these results comes up.

There are two possible winnings in Banca Francesa: Players that bet on Big or small win even money (as bets on even or small while playing roulette). If Aces comes up, all players lose, except those betting on Aces. They win 60 to 1. The house edge (casino advantage) is approximately 1.6%.

Is Banca Francesa similar to Baccarat?

Some websites, also the casinowiki write that this casino game is very similar to Baccarat with the difference that the dealer throws the dice in Banca Francesa but the Player in Baccarat. This is of course not correct since Baccarat is a card game.

These websites possibly meant that Banca Francesa is similar to craps. Craps is played with two dices that are thrown by the player, while Banca Francesa is a game with three dice thrown by the dealer. However, while in Banca Francesa there are just three possible bets, players can make a huge variety of bets in Craps.