Baccarat is a popular card game played at land based and online casinos. As far as history records go, baccarat seems to be introduced in France from Italy in time of the reign of King Charles VIII. Baccarat is somewhat similar to Faro and Basset.
There are a few different types of baccarat, most popular and known are Punto Banco, Baccarat Banque and Baccarat Chemin De Fer. While Punto Banco is a pure game of luck, with neither skill or strategy involved. Baccarat Banque and Baccarat Chemin De Fer has skill playing a part. Despite the skill needed, house has a statistical edge of at least 1%, usually more. This depends on the type of the game and specific rules.
Baccarat is a card comparing game between two sides or ”hands” – the ”banker” and the player. Each baccarat round, also called a coup, has three outcomes possible: Player wins (”player”) , Banker wins (”banker”) and a tie.
In the game of baccarat, there are two common bets to make: banker or player (banco or punto in spanish) + there is also rarely used standoff bet. Standoff bet is predicting, that the following hand will end in a tie.
Baccarat is dealt by shuffling 8 decks of cards, then taking top 2 of them off and putting them in a special ” shoe”.
Baccarat Rules
On any baccarat table,whatever the amount of players is, only two hands are dealt. All players can only bet on the outcome of this hand – either banker to win or player to win. A winning hand is the one, which is closer to the total value of 9. (9 is the highest total value possible.
Cards have the following value in baccarat:
2-9s are worth their face value (2 is worth 2 points and 5 is worth 5 and so on)
10s, Js, Qs, Ks – these are worth 0 points, suits does not matter.
Aces – All aces are worth 1 point.
When calculating total points any amount over 9 drops the left digit. For example, a hand consisting of 8 and 7 would have a total value of (8+7=15) drop the left number and we get a point value of 5. Got it?
Let’s do it once more – An ace and a nine would get a total value of 0. Why? Because it exceeds the point value of 9, therefore we have to drop the left digit, as the sum of 9+1=10, we get 0 after dropping the left digit.
There are usually only 2 cards dealt to both, the player and the banker. There are some specific circumstances, when the third card is dealt, but never more than that. Player has the right to draw the third card first.
When the player or the banker has a total of 8 or 9 points, cards are not drawn.
Third card is drawn for the player when:
The players hand has a value of 5 or under.
If the player does not draw a third card, the banker stands when his total point value is 6 or more and the banker draws, when his hand has a total point value of 5 or less.
If the player does draw a third card, the banker follows ” bankers three-card-rules”, you can find them below.
For the banker:
If the banker has a total point value of 2 or less, banker draws a third card. It does not matter what the players third card was.
If the banker has a total point value of 3, banker draws a third card. Only exception to this is when the players third card was an 8.
If the banker has a total point value of 4, banker draws a third card. Except if the players third card was with value of 8, 9 , 0 or 1. (8s/9s/Ts-Ks/Aces)
If the banker has a total point value of 5, banker draws a third card if the players third card was a 4,5,6 or a 7.
If the banker has a total point value of 6, banker draws a third card if the players third card was a 6 or a 7.
If the bankers has a total point value of 7, he stands.
House Edge In Baccarat
After using complex calculators and formulas, it is known that in the game of baccarat the banker will win 50.67% of the time and the player will win 49.33% of the time. So betting on the banker will gain us an edge? No.. Casinos are obviously aware of these percentages, that’s why they charge a 5% commission on all winning bets made on the banker.
How does this affect the house edge? Well, lets say you wager 100$, after taking the 5% commission into account, you will win 95 cents for each 1$ wagered.
As the odds of banker winning are 50.67%, we have to multiply 0.95×50.67=48.13
You still have expectation for loosing of 49.33%, the difference between the two is 1.20 – house has an advantage of 1.20%.
Baccarat House Edges
Banker – 1.20%
Player – 1.37%
Tie – 14.4%
As you can see, betting on a tie is a huge waste of money! Don’t do it!