Baccarat - How To Play
Baccarat (BAH-ka-rah) is an old game usually played by old people with old world money. It's about as exciting as watching paint dry, but darn it's one of the best games you can play. Invented by the Romans, refined by the French, and generally ignored by the Americans, it is purely a guessing game like roulette. The odds against you, however, are much lower.
Baccarat is usually played in a private area of the casino. Dealers wear tuxedos and security guards are posted just outside the velvet ropes, the muted light from the chandeliers softly shimmering off the barrels of their automatic submachine guns. Like other casino table games it is intimidating, and consequently less than 1% of the people who frequent casinos play baccarat. That's a shame, because once you get over that initial fear, you'll find that baccarat is a neat little game.
Eight decks of cards are used, but don't let that worry you. You couldn't count cards in this game if you tried, and it wouldn't matter anyway. You're just trying to guess which hand will be closest to 9: the banker or the player. The dealer is not the banker, and strange as it sounds, you are not the player. These are just the names of the hands. You can bet on either hand by placing your wager in one of the appropriate boxes in front of you. The cards have the following values: aces count as 1, face cards and 10s count as zero, the other cards (2 through 9) are counted at face value. All the cards are added together and only the last digit is counted. Ex-ample: A 9 and 4 are dealt to the player. They add up to 13, but only the last digit is counted 3. So as you can see, the total will never be more than 9. Once the total reaches 10, it goes back to zero again. Each player gets a chance to deal the cards. It's just part of the razzmatazz and gives the game its Monte Carlo flavor. You simply slide a card face down out of the shoe for the player, then a card for the banker. Now one more card for the player, and one more for the banker.
The cards for the banker are tucked under the shoe, and the player with the shoe passes the player's hand to the dealer. The dealer will give the player's hand to the person at the table making the largest bet on the player, and he will turn the cards over. If no one is betting on the player, then the dealer will expose the cards. When directed by the dealers, the person with the shoe exposes the banker's cards.
• If the player's first two cards total less than 6, the player will take one additional card.
• If the player's first two cards total 6 or more, the player will not take another card.
• If either the player's first two cards or the banker's two cards total 8 or 9, it's called a "natural" and no more cards are dealt.
• If the hand ends in a tie, it's a push and no money changes hands. As soon as the player wins a hand, the shoe goes to the next participant in the game.
In the event the player takes another card, the dealer will say, "One more card for the player." So the person with the shoe really has no decisions to make. All he is doing is dealing the cards, and that's what makes the game so easy.
The banker may take an additional card, or may not. It all depends upon what the player's cards are. In the long run you have a better chance of winning by betting on the banker. Therefore, when you bet on the banker and win, you must pay a 5% commission. That's how the house makes its money at baccarat.
Taking the commission into account, the banker is still a better bet. The house edge is only 1.06%. The house edge when you bet on the player is 1.24%. In other words, the banker bet is just a little worse than flipping a coin. As far as the commission is concerned, the dealer will keep track of it, and everybody settles up when all the cards are dealt from the shoe. So keep an extra $100 in your shoe, so you have enough to pay. More baccarat information.
