Baccarat Basic Rules and Game Play

Baccarat is a simple card game with only 3 results: "Player", "Banker" or "Tie" but be careful, these terms do not refer to the "Player" as in customer, or Banker as in the casino/house but rather are just the betting options available as shown in the table graphics below.

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Baccarat is a great game that has spread around the world, as such you will find a number of Baccarat game variations, many of which are available as standard online casino offerings. More recently however online casinos have seen the addition of Live Dealer Baccarat varations which allow you to interact with a real person dealing the cards, as well as the players around you, adding even more excitement to the game!

Before the game commences, bets may be placed on the banker hand, player hand, or tie. Once a bet has been placed, there is no chance to make additional bets or changes and both the banker and player hands are dealt according to a fixed set of rules, resulting in final hands of either two or three cards for each.

The game is dealt from a shoe that holds 6 or 8 decks and two hands namely the "banker" and "player" hands are dealt by the house dealer, with cards facing downwards. Cards in each hand are then turned over and tallied. To determine the value of a hand, the croupier adds the values of its composite cards: Faces (Jacks, Queens and Kings) and tens count as zero while all other cards count as their numeric value. Only the last digit in the total is used,for example if the total value is 18, then only 8 will be used, giving baccarat a 0-9 range. The dealer will then call the total of each and hand and it will then be decided if further cards need to be drawn.

There are however rules for both player and banker hands. On the Player hand, if the first two cards total 6 or more, then the player must stand without drawing a card but if the first two cards total 5 or less, the player must then draw one additional card. On the banker hand, if the initial two cards have a total value of 7 or more, then the banker must stand without drawing a card. If the banker's first two cards total 0, 1, or 2, then the banker must draw one card. If the banker's first two cards total 3, 4, 5, or 6, then whether or not the banker draws is determined by the whether or not the player drew, and if so, what the value of the player's draw card was. Once the results have been determined, the hand with the highest value wins, or if there hands of the same value a tie is declared.

Losing bets are then collected, winning bets paid according to the house rules and in the event of the Tie, bets on both the banker and player hands will be returned. Winning bets usually pay 1:1, and a commission of 5% is charged on bank bets, making internet odds on these bets 0,95 to 1. Odds on "tie" bets vary between 8:1 and 9:1 depending on where you play. For more information on Understanding and Calculating Baccarat Odds, click here.

Once you are completely familiar with the game of Baccarat you may want to put your skills to the test in Baccarat Tournaments, click here for more information on online baccarat tournaments and strategies. And if you're looking for a site that covers more than just baccarat rules and gameplay strategy, then visit www.casinoratgeber.com which is a comprehensive guide to the world of online casinos and features a plethora of advice and information on the casinos themselves as well as the various casino games, online player security and more.