This is a high-class card game with high minimum bets, generally played in a special roped-off part of the casino, with well-dressed players. James Bond played this game in one of the movies. (Some casinos have Mini-Baccarat in the regular gaming areas, with normal minimum bets and no dress code.)
Although Baccarat has a low house edge (1.06-1.24%), there’s absolutely no skill involved. Really, there’s more skill involved in playing slot machines (such as picking where to play, whether to play progressives, how many coins to play, etc.).
Baccarat (pronounced bah-kah-rah) is a little like Blackjack. There are two hands dealt, the Player’s hand and the Banker’s hand, and you can bet on either hand. (Note that there’s only one Player hand dealt no matter how many players.) Betting on Player has a house edge of 1.24%, and betting on Banker has an edge of 1.06%. (You can also bet that there will be a tie, but this carries a whopping 14.4% house edge.) Binion’s Horseshoe in Downtown Vegas offers a 0.6% edge on the Banker bet; more on that later.
Each player has a turn to deal the cards (two to each side). (In Mini-Baccarat, a casino employee deals the cards.) Preset rules prescribe whether a given hand gets third card. (More on that later.) Three is the max no matter what, though. The hand closest to 9 wins. Only the last digit of the two-card total is counted. For example, a hand of 5 and 7 (12) is counted as a 2. Aces count as 1, and face cards have no value. There’s no such thing as a bust in Baccarat.
A 9 is an automatic win unless the other side also has 9, which is a tie. An 8 is also an automatic win, unless the other side has a 9 (loss) or an 8 (tie). For all other totals (0-7), the drawing of additional cards depends on สล็อตเว็บตรง Baccarat rules. That is, you don’t decide whether to draw another card; you have to hit or stand depending on the rules. For Player hands, the player hits on 0-5, and stands on 6-9. (Remember that 8 & 9 are usually automatic wins.) For Banker hands, a whole table is necessary to detail whether the Banker hits or stands, but it doesn’t really matter, because you can’t base any strategy on it anyway.
This is why Baccarat is appealing to many; most games with a low edge require you to learn some strategy; in Baccarat, you get the some low edge no matter what, because the only decisions you make are how much to bet and which of the two low-edge hands you want to bet on, Player or Banker. The only way to screw this up is to make the Tie bet which carries a high edge.
The casino takes a 5% commission on winning hands when you bet on Banker. (The dealers keep track of this and you pay the commission when you cash out at the end of your session.) Even with this commission, betting on Banker still has a lower house edge, because the Banker hand is much more likely to win against the Player hand. (For those interested in the math behind this, check out The Expert’s Guide to Casino Games.) Binion’s Horseshoe in Downtown Vegas takes only a 4% commission, which lowers the edge on Banker bets from 1.06% to 0.60%.
Baccarat is generally played at about 80-120 hands per hour, and Mini-Baccarat is played at about 150-300 hands per hour. Check out our Expected Loss table for a weekend of Baccarat play.
You can practice Baccarat online for free at the Las Vegas Online Casino Guide.
