Baccarat is a popular casino game that is played all over the world both in brick and mortar casinos as well as in online and mobile casinos. Baccarat traces its lineage all the back to the middle ages. The name is the French spelling of the word baccara, which means zero. The game was very popular among nobles in Europe during the reign of King Charles the 8th. It made its way across the ocean to the New World and was offered in casinos in America by the late 1950’s. During this time the game was very popular in illegal Eastern casinos.

Today Baccarat is found in many casinos all over the world and many of these even offer versions of baccarat, although it still remains somewhat of a mystery to the average casino goer. It is not nearly as popular as games such as Poker. Baccarat is a card game where the average player is at no greater disadvantage than an experienced one. The game has no playing strategies to master which makes it a game of pure chance. This has historically made the game a favourite of high rollers, although it popularity is growing throughout the general populace.

Equipment Needed to play Baccarat

To learn how to play baccarat, you will need to know what equipment is necessary. Baccarat is a card game that is played with four, six, or eight decks of playing cards. The number of decks depends on the variant of the game and the region that you are playing it in. The cards are played on a green felt table with particular markings. The cards themselves are dealt out of a piece of equipment called a Shoe.

How to Play Baccarat

How to Play Baccarat

It is important to remember that Baccarat is a game of pure chance. There is no way of working out which hand will win, or influencing that win at all. To begin, players must make the choice between two hands. The Bankers hand or the Players hand. The player makes a guess right at the beginning of the game as to which of these two hands will win, or if they will tie. The Tie is a very unpopular bet as the chances of it happening are low.

The game has to have at least two players as well as the dealer, one representing the Players hand and one representing the Bankers hand. The hand that the player has is not what dictates whether they win money or not, their initial bet does that. Like making wagers in soccer betting, once the bets are made, two cards are dealt to the Player and the Banker. One card is placed face up in the two boxes on the game table. This is done by either another player or a casino operator that holds out the Shoe that contains the decks of cards. Another card is dealt in the same way to the Banker, then the Player again and finally the Banker gets a second card.

At this point the hands values are calculated. Tens and face cards are all worth zero points, hence the name of the game. All other cards are worth their face value with Ace being worth one. If a hands total exceeds ten, then the hands value becomes the second digit, for example a hand worth 15 in total becomes a hand worth five. The winning hand is the one that is closets to nine. If, when the first two cards are dealt, either the Banker or the Player get an eight or a nine, it counts as a natural win and that hand wins automatically.