How to play Baccarat - UK Online Casino

How to play Baccarat

If you want to play Baccarat, you can easily find it in the casino – it is most often played in a separate (roped-off) area. Baccarat is a very easy game to learn how to play. Just take a seat and pay attention; each seat corresponds to a number on the table layout. The Baccarat table is managed by three dealers. The dealer running the game is known as the “caller”.

Each player acts as card dealer when his turn comes. This means that he must bet on the banker. A player continues to deal the cards as long as the banker’s hand continues to win. A player may always choose not to deal the cards as his turn comes, he may simply pass the choice to the next player.

When it is your turn to deal the cards, take the shoe and follow the caller’s instructions. You will usually have to draw four cards, first and third going to the player, second and fourth going to the banker. If more cards need to be drawn, the caller will announce “card for the player”, which may be followed by “card for the banker”.

The caller receives the cards from the player handling the shoe, places them in the appropriate boxes, and then calls for another card or declares the winner, everything according to the strict rules of the game.

To make a bet, place your chips in the box corresponding to your seat. You can bet either on the player or the banker, both bets pay off 1 to 1. In some casinos it is also possible to bet on a tie. This is the standoff bet, which pays off 8 or 9 to 1 depending on the casino. After the caller announces the winner, the two other dealers gather the losing bets and pay the winners. If the banker’s hand won, the players who bet on it must pay the casino a 5% commission on their winnings. This takes place usually after the shoe ends. Every time when this happens, all six or eight decks are shuffled before they are put back into it.

You win at Baccarat if your bet hits a hand with the higher total, if you bet on a tie and then the banker’s and player’s hands have the same value. You lose at Baccarat if the hand you bet on is not the highest hand, if you bet on a tie and the banker’s and player’s hands are not equal in value; if you bet on the banker or player and it is a tie, then you get your bet back.

Baccarat is a game of pure luck, there are however a couple of things to take into that could improve your play:

• Do not make standoff bets.
• The banker wins more often than the player, which is why there is the 5% commission on the banker’s bets.
• Do not bet against a streak of successive banker’s or player’s hands winning. After three such, either stops betting until the streak chops or bet with the streak.
• If a shoe chops four times in a row, consider betting with the chop on the fifth bet and treat the chop as the trend until it breaks with either a banker’s or player’s second win in a row.

In many casinos there is also Mini Baccarat available, it is managed by one casino dealer only and has the same rules and table layout as standard Baccarat. Mini Baccarat is not played separately from other casino games and it can be played by as many as six people at the same time.