The Basics of Baccarat
Baccarat is a popular casino game played in high-end casinos by wealthy Asian players. Its rules are simpler than those of blackjack, and it has one of the lowest house edges in the casino at only 1.17 percent on Banker Hand bets and 1.36 percent on Player Hand bets. In addition, a Tie bet pays off at 8 to 1, which makes it one of the few casino games that offers a slight edge to the bettor.
While the rules vary from casino to casino, baccarat is generally played by eight players on a circular or oval table. Each player places their bets counterclockwise around the table, starting with a player who announces to “go bank,” then sets an initial betting amount. Then the other players can add more bets as long as they do not exceed the banker’s initial amount.
Once all bets are placed, the dealer deals two cards to the banker and to each of the bettors. If either the player or banker hands total 9 points, the round ends immediately; if not, the dealer follows a set of rules to determine whether a third card will be dealt. If a third card is not drawn, the winner is determined by which hand has a higher value.
The simplest bet is a bet on the Banker, which predicts that the banker will have a hand closer to 9. A bet on the Player predicts that the player’s hand will have a closer value to 9. Then there is the ‘Tie’ bet, which predicts that both the banker and player hands will have close values to 9.
In baccarat, if a player or banker has an initial total of 8 or 9, neither additional cards nor a third card are needed. If the opening total of the player or banker is less than 6, however, they must draw a third card following specific rules that differ from those applied in blackjack and other poker games.
Baccarat is an extremely profitable casino game, generating more revenue for the dealers than almost any other table game. This is partly because a bet on the Banker wins more often than a bet on the Player, but also because there are other bets that pay out if both the banker and player win.
Many casinos have shifted away from the James Bond pageantry of baccarat tables with tuxedoed dealers to simpler versions of the game that look more like a blackjack table. This has helped to lower the table minimums that would otherwise make this a very expensive casino game to play.
Another big change is the use of pre-shuffled decks of playing cards. Normally when a new deck of cards is introduced, it must be inspected for backs and faces by the floor supervisor and the dealer before being inserted into a shuffling machine or manually shuffled. This is a time-consuming process, and the introduction of pre-shuffled cards speeds up the time it takes to get new decks onto the table.