Baccarat: History, Rules, and Variants

Introduction

Baccarat, also sometimes known as Baccara, is a banking game available in casinos worldwide, and also as an online game. The aim of the player is to form a hand whose point value is nearer to 9 than the hand of the banker. Pip cards count as face value, pictures and tens as zero, and only the last digit of the total counts (so that for example seven plus six is worth 3, not 13). In casinos, Baccarat is traditionally played in a luxurious Baccarat pit – a sealed-off area protected by security guards – on a specially designed table. Baccarat has the reputation of being the most exclusive casino game and of attracting a lot of high rollers, including James Bond himself.

Baccarat first appeared in France in the early 19th century. The first known published description is in the book Album des jeux de hasard et de combinaisons by Charles Van-Tenac (1847). This earliest version of the game is now known as Baccarat à Deux Tableaux or Baccarat Banque to distinguish it from later streamlined variants. One famous variant is Baccarat Chemin de Fer (railway Baccarat), later just known as Chemin de Fer or in the America as Chemmy or Shimmy. Its name may refer to the way the dealing shoe travels around the table like a train, or maybe just to the fact that it is faster than the original game and railways were the fastest available form of transport in the mid 19th century when it was invented. The most widely played version of Baccarat nowadays is the further simplified game Punto Banco, which is said to have originated at the Capri Casino in Havana, Cuba in the 1950's. On this page these three main versions of Baccarat will be described in reverse historical order, beginning with Punto Banco since that is now the best known form of the game.

There are many implausible legends about the origin and etymology of Baccarat. It is often claimed that the game originated in 15th century Italy, even though there is absolutely no contemporary evidence for its existence before the 19th century and the earliest references to the game of Baccarat all come from France. There are surviving records of the operations of Italian casinos in the 18th century including details of the number of players and the games they played, and Baccarat is never mentioned. However, legends of the game's antiquity began to circulate quite soon after its appearance in France. For example the second edition of Duckett's Dictionnaire de la conversation et de la lecture (1867) asserts without evidence that Baccara was an Italian game imported into the south of France after Charles VIII's Italian war (1494-1498), and this dictionary entry may perhaps have led to many of the later elaborations of the myth. Another popular belief is that the word 'baccara' means 'zero' in some Italian dialect, but no one has been able to substantiate this. The most plausible explanation of the name that we have seen is the suggestion by Thierry Depaulis that it originates from the Provençal expression 'fa bacarrat' which means 'go bankrupt'.

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Punto Banco

The version of Baccarat that is most often played in casinos nowadays is commonly called Punto Banco. At the time of writing it can legally be played online in the five US states that now allow online gambling: Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Michigan. This is a house backed card game particularly popular with Asian cultures and favoured especially by high rollers. Although many players may bet on the outcome, it is essentially a two-player game between the 'Banker' and the 'Player'. The game process has been streamlined to the point where all decisions are completely automatic. Neither the players nor the house have any option in how to play the cards. The only choice for the player is how much to bet and on which side, and the outcome of the game is pure chance.

Baccarat uses a number of standard 52-card decks shuffled together. For the purposes of the game every card rank is given a numerical value. The 2 through 9 pip cards are valued by their pip denomination. Aces carry a value of 1. Face cards and 10-pip cards carry a value of zero. Offline Baccarat is typically played with 8 decks of 52 cards while online it is more common for the game to be dealt from 6 decks of cards.

Unlike most casino banked card games Baccarat allows the player to wager that either the Player hand or the Banker hand will win. Where the player chooses to bet on the Banker hand the casino charges a 5% commission on the bet and this ensures that there is a House Advantage regardless of the way the player bets.

Mechanics of the game

When playing offline the dealer will shuffle the shoe then draw the first card showing the player. This card is read as its pip value with face cards counting as 10. The dealer will then draw the corresponding number of cards from the top of the shoe and immediately discard, or ‘burn’, these cards. A plastic card, called the ‘cut card’ will be inserted 16 cards from the bottom of the shoe. When this card is drawn it signifies that the next round of play will be the last before the shuffle.

Online the game is automatically shuffled after every hand and the above process of burning cards and placing the cut card are abandoned.

Once all players have placed a wager the dealer will then deal 2 cards to the Player hand and 2 cards to the Banker hand. It should be stressed that only a single Player hand is dealt regardless of how many players there are on the table. Each hand value is determined by adding the value of the two cards together and only considering the units column of the resultant figure. For example, if the player hand was dealt a 9 and a 7 you would add these together giving 16, then only consider the units column, so the hand value would be 6.

In the above image the Player’s hand has a total of 7+4 = 11 and as such is considered to have a value of 1 and the Banker’s hand has a total of 10+7 = 17 and is considered to have a value of 7.

The procedure for play after the initial deal is fixed. Neither the player nor the house makes any decisions. The following rules are followed:

• If the Player or the Banker receive an 8 or a 9 then both hands stand.
• If the Player hand has a value of 6 or 7 then the Player hand stands.
• If the Player hand has a value of 5 of less another card is dealt to it.
• If the Player hand stands the Banker hand will draw another card if it has a value of 5 or less.
• If the Player hand draws an additional card the Banker hand will act according to the following table, which shows whether the Banker must draw a third card ('Hit') or play with just the original two cards ('Stand') according to the value of the Banker's 2-card hand and the value of the third card drawn by the Player:

The result is decided by comparing the final hand values: the higher hand wins. If both hands have the same numerical value the round is considered a Push and all Player and Banker wagers are returned.

The conclusion of the above example hand could be like this:

As the Player hand had a value lower than 5 it drew an additional card. The extra card was a 4 giving the hand a total of 7+4+4 = 15 and a value of 5. As the Player’s 3rd card was a 4 and the Banker’s hand had a value of 7, the Banker stood. As such the Banker hand won with a value of 7 compare to the Player hand value of 5. You can also see that the winning Banker bet has been paid out at 1 to 1 minus the 5% commission on winning Banker bets.

Note.Some players may be puzzled by the rules on when to draw a card. For example if the dealer has 7 and the Player has 6, why should the Player not draw a card, since otherwise the Banker is certain to win? And why do the banker's decisions take account only of the player's third card and not the first two? The answer is that Baccarat was formerly played with the Player's and the Banker's two-card hands concealed: only the third card if called for was dealt face up. The original hands were only exposed after all draw decisions had been made. The decision tables represent the best basic strategy for the Play and Banker with this limited information. Once the entire decision process was formalised into rules and the players no longer had any freedom of choice, it no longer mattered if all the cards could be seen from the start, and many people found the game more exciting with all cards face up. The older games Chemin de Fer and Baccarat à Deux Tableaux, where players still have some freedom of choice in whether to take a third card or stand, are played with the first two cards of each hand concealed from the opponent, and the above decision tables are still a good guide to basic strategy in those games.

Tie Bet

Alongside the Player and Banker bets, the majority of casino Baccarat games also offer the Tie bet. This is a wager that both the Player and Banker hands will result in the same value and typically offers odds of 8 to 1 against a tie. In some places slightly better odds of 9 to 1 may be found.

Payouts and House Edge

The payouts for each of the bets alongside the House Edge are shown in the table below. Note that there is a small difference in House Edge depending on the number of decks that are in play:

As can be seen from the table above, the best bet for the player is the Banker bet and the Tie bet is not only significantly more costly but also a more expensive bet than the vast majority of wagers you can place in a casino. Even the majority of slots games, which are known to be high cost, charge the player less than the Tie bet. In short, playing the Tie bet at 8 to 1 is not a good idea. Even at 9 to 1 the house edge is almost 5%, making it more expensive than betting on the player or banker hands.

It can also be seen that a lower number of decks in play slightly reduces the House Edge of the Banker bet, and makes the Player and Tie bets more expensive for the Player.

Side Bets

Offline casinos around the world offer a wide variety of side bets which vary from place to place. There are far too many of these to provide a comprehensive list in this article.

Surprisingly, online casinos provide only a very limited range of side bet options in Baccarat. In fact only a couple of software providers, Playtech and Dragonfish (part of the 888 group) offer any side bets at all. These two providers offer the following side bets. Payouts and House Edge figures can be found in parentheses at the end of each option:

• Player Pair – A bet that the first two cards that the Player hand will receive will be of matching rank. (11 to 1, 11.254%)
• Banker Pair – A bet that the first two cards that the Banker hand will receive will be of matching rank. (11 to 1, 11.254%)
• Either Pair – A bet that the first two cards that either the Player or Banker hand receives will be of matching rank. (5 to 1, 14.54%)
• Perfect Pair – A bet that the first two cards that either the Player or Banker hand receives will be of matching rank and suit. (25 to 1, 17.07%)
• Big – A bet that a total of 5 or 6 cards will be dealt over the full round of play (0.54 to 1, 4.35%)
• Small – A bet that only 4 cards will be dealt over the full round of play (1.5 to 1, 5.27%)

As can be seen from the above list, the side bets available on online Baccarat games cost significantly more than the main bets and are best avoided. This is fairly typical of side bets offered on casino games in general.

Chemin de Fer

According to Jean Quinola in his Nouvelle Academie des Jeux (1883) Chemin de Fer was originally a kind of dealer's choice game where the players took turns to be banker at the game of their choice, for example Lansquenet or Baccarat, continuing to deal so long as they won, and passing on the banker role when they lost. Since Baccarat was the most popular choice of game, it evolved into Baccarat Chemin de Fer where the game was always Baccarat. This variation of Baccarat was featured in early James Bond movies, notably the early Casino Royale but the game also appeared in Dr. No and Thunderball.

In contrast to Punto Banco described above, both the banker and the player have some limited choice of whether to draw a third card to their hand. Chemin de Fer also features a more complex betting process, where the bank can pass from one player to another, and the other players take turns to place bets up to the total staked by the bank. Chemin de Fer proceeds much more slowly than Punto Banco, as players may take time deciding on their bets and whether to draw or stand. This is probably why the simpler game has superseded it in many places. Nevertheless Chemin de Fer can still be played in some Italian casinos such as the Casino di Venezia