The game of baccarat, once a staple of sticky-floor California card rooms and the tuxedo-laden casinos of Monaco, has become one of the world’s most popular casino games. It traces its roots to Europe and has spread from there into Asia and, now, the United States. While many Americans associate the game with the James Bond movies, baccarat’s history actually goes back several hundred years.
The premise of the game is simple: Players wager whether the Banker or Player hand will have a higher total value than 9 (picture cards and 10s count as zero, and aces as one). After betting on either the Player or Banker hand, a deal is made with two cards in front of the Players, which are visible to all. Then, the hand whose total value is closest to nine wins. If the Player hand has a higher total than the Banker hand, the bet pays out 1:1, and if the Banker hand has a higher total than the Player’s, the bet pays out 2:1 minus a five percent commission for the Casino.
A third card is then drawn to the Banker hand if it is closer to 9 than the Player’s. This is known as a “third-card rule.” A third-card draw is also done when the second card is equal to 9, meaning that the Player and Banker hands are both tied.
After all bets are placed, the Dealer deals a card face up in the Player box and then a second card in the Banker box. Then, he announces that the first round is over and calls for no more bets. Then, he places a third card in the Banker box and repeats the process of dealing two cards to the Banker and Player hands, adding the values together to find the sum (again, picture cards and 10s count as zero, and the numbers themselves have their face value, with aces worth one point).
Once the players and banker have their totals, the winning hand is declared. The ties are rare but they do occur. A tie is decided by comparing the totals of the Banker and the Player’s hands, ignoring the number of points in the latter’s hand (a player with a nine should always stand).
Bill Zender, who literally wrote the book on managing casino games, has been involved in gaming management for 40+ years. He has seen baccarat grow considerably and says that the game is especially popular among Asian high rollers because it is suited to their cultural preferences. But, he warns that even these high rollers often get into trouble because they lose track of their budgets. Zender suggests that high-rollers should be careful about making too many side bets, and they should consider using the D’Alembert betting system, in which Players increase their bet size by one unit after every win and decrease it by a similar amount after a loss. This strategy is designed to balance losses and wins over time.