Introduction
Baccarat or Baccara is a popular casino card game with 2 or 3 cards. It’s a comparing card game played between the banker and the player, and each Baccarat coup has three outcomes, banker, player, and tie with the winning hand is the highest score. It’s strictly a game of chance with no strategy involved and it’s traditionally a game for high rollers, however online casinos have games that cater for lower stakes.
How to Play Baccarat
To play Baccarat you start by placing your wager on one of 2 hands: Player, or Banker. Players also have the option of betting on a tie, however it’s not advisable as it has lousy odds and overall, it’s a sucker bet.
Unlike Blackjack where you have a hand to play against the dealer, there are only 2 hands in Baccarat regardless of the number of players at a table. Each hand gets scored with a total of between 0-9 and should you have a total of 10+ the points get based on what’s after the first number e.g.16 you only use 6.
In Baccarat there are a set of rules on deciding whether a 3rd card gets dealt and if the player or banker has a total of 8 or 9 which is called a natural neither player gets the 3rd card. Going back to the tie bet. If you took a tie bet, you only win if the payer and banker have the same total hands. Tie bets payout at 8:1
Baccarat’s House Edge
The house edge in Baccarat varies from bet to bet and they are as follows:
-
Banker -1.06%house edge
-
Player- 1.24% house edge
-
Tie Bet- 14.365 house edge
The best option when playing at online casinos is to select the game with the lowest house edge and when playing Baccarat that would be the banker’s bet.