Baccarat Online Casino Game, Rules and Strategy

The goal of this relatively straight forward game is to draw a two or three card hand with a value closer to 9 than the bankers? hand.

The Value of the Cards

• Numbered cards have their face value.
• 10, Jack, Queen and King count as 0.
• Ace counts as 1.
• If the value of your cards is more than ten, you subtract 10. So a 8-9 hand totals 7 (after subtracting 10 from 17)

How To Play

Two hands are dealt in Baccarat - The Banker's hand and the Player's hand. Prior to each deal, the player wagers on whether the Player's hand or the Banker's hand is closest to a total of 9. The player also has the option to wager on a tie (i.e. both the banker's and player's hands total the same).

Baccarat is a card game that is dealt from a shoe that holds 6 or 8 decks of cards. Two hands are dealt by the house dealer, the "banker" hand and the "player" hand. Before the hands are dealt, bets may be placed on the banker hand, on the player hand, or on a tie. Winning bets on banker or player are paid 1:1, but a commission of 5% is charged on bank bets making the net odds on such bets 0.95 to 1. Some casinos may charge a lower commission (e.g., at time of writing, Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas charges 4%.). Some sources report that tie bets are paid 8:1, while others claim that tie bets are paid 9:1, so this may vary from casino to casino. If there is a tie, bets on the banker or player are returned.

Once a bet has been placed, there are no opportunities for further decisions -- both the banker hand and the player hand are dealt according to fixed rules, resulting in final hands of either two or three cards for each.

The value of a hand is determined by adding the values of its individual cards. Tens and face cards are counted as zero, while all other cards are counted by the number of "pips" on the card face. Only the last digit of the total is used, so all baccarat hands have values in the range 0 to 9 inclusive. The hand with the higher value wins; if the hands have the same value, the result is a tie.

A game is started by dealing two cards for the player hand and two cards for the bank hand. An initial hand with a value of 8 or 9 is called a "natural." If either hand is a natural, its holder must expose it and the game ends. Otherwise play continues, first with the player hand and then with the banker hand, according to the following rules.

Rules for the player hand:

If the player's first two cards total 6 or more, then the player must stand without drawing a card. If the player's first two cards total 5 or less, the player must draw one additional card.

Rules for the banker hand:

If the banker's first two cards total 7 or more, then the banker must stand without drawing a card. If the banker's first two cards total 0, 1, or 2, then the banker must draw one card. If the banker's first two cards total 3, 4, 5, or 6, then whether the banker draws is determined by the whether the player drew, and if so the value of the player's draw card, as shown by the table below.

Appeal

So what does this simple game offer that everyone finds so appealing? That's a tough question actually, because it's hard to determine what baccarat's draw is from one player to the next.

Some like the simplicity, some like the really low house edge, and others play just for the sense of elegance. One odd thing about baccarat is that you will hear it referred to as being a highly profitable game for the casino. Then, from another player, you might hear that it's one of the top profit makers for players. Our guess is this results from a combination of a very low house edge, and the ability the casinos have in attracting high rollers to the baccarat room.

Always seemingly just out of reach, baccarat is kept behind the velvet rope in casinos to make the high rollers feel as though they have their own exclusive game which the common Joe can't play. Although casinos may make it seem to be a game reserved only for the gambling elite, online there is no such snobbery. Baccarat is in fact one of the easiest games to master and is easily accessible on the web.

Although a casino can put a high table minimum on a game by putting it in its own room and providing players with special treatment, how could an online casino justify the same thing? Online baccarat starting as low as $10 is easy to find.

Baccarat Strategy

As for any other casino game there is always room for improvement and if you want to establish an effective baccarat strategy there is a few things to consider:

Playing online Baccarat you have only a choice of three bets, but it does not mean you don't have any options at all:

• Betting on the Player Hand - the house edge is 1.29%.
• Betting on the Bank Hand - the house edge is 1.01%.
• Betting on a Tie Hand - the house edge is 15.75%.

As for betting on Tie hand the casino will pay nine for one odds. Unfortunately, the casino advantage on this bet is over 15%. So, don't bet on "Tie". Well, it may be a very boring when you have only one good bet to make, but still the game of baccarat has one of the best odds in casino if you know this.

Number of Decks and Commission

As shown on the Baccarat Odds, you can improve your chances by choosing the right game to play: you should look for the online casino that offers the lower number of decks played and lower commission.

Baccarat Odds