Baccarat

About Baccarat

Baccarat is the simplest of the major table games to play, because almost nothing is left to the player. Two hands are dealt — Player and Banker — and you choose which one you are backing, or whether they will tie. Whether a third card is drawn is not a decision; it follows a fixed table of rules that both hands obey automatically.

The three main bets do not carry the same cost. Banker wins slightly more often than Player, which is why a commission is normally deducted from a winning Banker bet — with that commission applied, the two are close, and Banker retains a small advantage. The Tie bet pays far more and lands far less often, and once the payout is weighed against the frequency it carries a substantially higher house edge than either main bet. Side bets follow the same pattern: the larger the advertised return, the rarer the event.

Because the drawing rules are automatic, there is no strategy to apply beyond choosing which bet to place, and the scoreboards displayed at many tables track history rather than predict anything. Each table publishes its commission, its payouts and its side bet odds before you sit down.

Common questions