Online Baccarat Rules

Baccarat is a card game that has been around for a very long time. Despite being played initially by very few people, in today’s world this classic card game has a huge following, traditionally amongst high rollers but now also with the average punter. Who can forget James Bond playing high stakes baccarat against the infamous bad guy, Le Chiffre in Casino Royale?

Every online casino has a variety of card games that its patrons can indulge in, however, baccarat will always rank amongst the favorites. The rules are few and, although they can appear a little daunting to the uninitiated, with a bit of practise you can pick them up and enter the major league of casino players.

Before we explain the rules here is a bit of history. The game originated in Italy and was earlier known as ‘baccara.’  In the 15th century the word meant ‘zero’ which is the value of the face cards. The game itself has evolved into different forms, including Punto Banco and Chemin de Fer, and was only introduced into the casinos of Las Vegas in the 1950s.

It is important to understand the rules of the game and probably the easiest way is by actually playing Baccarat.

Premise

The essence of the game is in predicting the hand values of the Player and Banker and the hand with a value closest to 9 wins. Hands of equal value are a tie. For a start the cards that are numbered between 2 to 9 are worth their face value, the aces 1 point and picture cards as well as tens are worth zero points. Bets on Player payout evens and bets on Banker will payout evens with a 5% commission taken off. A tie pays odds of 9/1.

Actions

- While playing Baccarat the player cannot decide on his/her own moves (ie to stay or to call a card).

- Instead a bet is placed on any (or all) of three results; Banker, Player, or Tie. After a bet has been placed, the Player and the Banker will both receive two cards.

- Third cards are dealt based on certain “third card rules”, but more of this below.

Third Card Rules

- If the Player or the Banker has 8 or 9, it is known as "natural", and both hands stand. This rule overrides all other rules. If neither the Player nor the Banker has 8 or 9 play will proceed thus:

- Player Rules: If the Player has 0-5, a third card is dealt. Should the Player have 6 or 7 the hand stands.

- Banker rules: If the Player stands, the Banker draws a third card if the hand has 0-5.

If the Player draws a third card, the value of the card drawn by the Player and the value of the Banker's hand determines if the Banker gets a third card.

Because there are no decisions that players can use during the course of the game the best strategy is to try to reduce the house edge. The casino has around 14% edge on bets on a tie so one solid piece of advice would be to never bet on a Tie. Bets on the Banker do result in a commission but in common with betting on the Player the house edge is greatly reduced to just over 1%.

We hope that our brief explanation will help you to enjoy this unique and sophisticated game of chance!