Baccarat or baccara (; ) is a card game. It is now played mainly at casinos, but in the past it was also popular at house parties and private gaming rooms. The game's origins are a mixture of precursors from China, Japan, and Korea. It then gained popularity in Europe, and a faster French variant emerged. The most common version today is of Cuban origin.
Baccarat is a comparing card game played between two hands, the "player" and the "banker". Each baccarat coup (round of play) has three possible outcomes: "player" (player has the higher score), "banker", and "tie".
There are three popular variants of the game: punto banco, baccarat chemin de fer,"Baccarat" in Chambers's Encyclopædia. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 2, pp. 32–33. and baccarat banque (or à deux tableaux). In punto banco, each player's moves are forced by the cards the player is dealt. In baccarat chemin de fer and baccarat banque, by contrast, both players can make choices. The winning odds are in favour of the bank, with a house edge of at least one percent.
History
The origins of the game are disputed. Some sources claim that it dates to the 19th century, others that the game was introduced into France from Italy at the end of the 15th century by soldiers returning from the Italian Wars during the reign of King of France Charles VIII.
David Parlett considers Macao the immediate precursor to baccarat. Its name and rules suggest it may have been brought over by sailors returning from Asia where similar card games have been played since the early 17th century such as San zhang, Oicho-Kabu, and Gabo japgi. Macao appeared in Europe at the end of the 18th century and was popular for all classes. Its notoriety led to King Victor-Amadeus III banning it in all his realms in 1788. It was the most popular game in Watier's, an exclusive gentlemen's club in London, where it led to the ruin of Beau Brummell. It was declared illegal late in the 19th century, as a gambling game of almost pure chance; however it remained wildly popular in high society, aficionados including the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII), who was compelled to testify in court following the Royal baccarat scandal of 1890, in which a player was accused of cheating during games held at Tranby Croft in Yorkshire, England. The match in Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella Night Games (Spiel im Morgengrauen) contains instructions for Macao under the name of baccarat. Its popularity in the United States waned after the early 20th century. The game still has a following in Continental Europe, especially in Russia. Like Macao and Victoria, baccarat was banned in Russia during the 19th century though the rules continued to be printed in game books.
Baccarat has been popular among the French nobility since the 19th century. Before the legalization of casino gambling in 1907, people in France commonly played baccarat in private gaming rooms. Dating to this time period, Baccarat Banque is the earliest form of baccarat; it is a three-person game and mentioned in Album des jeux by Charles Van-Tenac. Later, Chemin de Fer emerged as a two-player zero-sum game from Baccarat Banque. Chemin de Fer is a version which first appeared in the late 19th century. Its name, which is the French term for "railway", comes from the version being quicker than the original game, the railway being at that time the fastest means of transport. This version of baccarat remains the most popular in France.
Baccarat Punto Banco, in which the bettor bets on whether the Player or the Banker hand wins, was a significant change in the development of modern baccarat. It developed into a house-banked game in Havana in the 1940s, and is now the most popular modern form in most parts of the world.Hart, G. D. (Director). (7 December 2017). High rollers : A history of gambling in America [Video file]. Retrieved 1 March 2019, from
Valuation of hands In baccarat, the 2 through 9 cards (of any suit) are worth face value (in points); the 10, jack, queen, and king are worth zero; aces are worth one point; jokers are not used. The value of the hand is the units digit of the sum of the constituent cards, known as modulo ten arithmetic. For example, a hand consisting of 2 and 3 is worth five, while a hand consisting of 6 and 7 is worth three, that being the value of the units digit in the combined point total of thirteen. The highest possible hand value in baccarat is therefore nine.
Versions Punto banco Punto banco is nowadays the most played version of baccarat in the United States. In punto banco, the casino banks the game at all times, and commits to playing out both hands according to fixed drawing rules, known as the "tableau" (French: "board"), in contrast to more historic baccarat games where each hand is associated with an individual who makes drawing choices. The player (punto) and banker (banco) are simply designations for the two hands dealt out in each coup, two outcomes which the bettor can back; the player hand has no particular association with the gambler, nor the banker hand with the house.
Punto banco is dealt from a shoe containing 6 or 8 decks of cards shuffled together; a cut card is placed in front of the seventh from last card, and the drawing of the cut-card indicates the last coup of the shoe. The dealer burns the first card face up and then based on its respective numerical value, with aces worth 1 and face cards worth 10, the dealer burns that many cards face down. For each coup, two cards are dealt face up to each hand, starting from "player" and alternating between the hands. The croupier may call the total (e.g., "five player, three banker"). If either the player or banker or both achieve a total of 8 or 9 at this stage, the coup is finished and the result is announced: a player win, a banker win, or tie. If neither hand has eight or nine, the drawing rules are applied to determine whether the player should receive a third card. Then, based on the value of any card drawn to the player, the drawing rules are applied to determine whether the banker should receive a third card. The coup is then finished, the outcome is announced, and winning bets are paid out.
Punto banco is a pure game of chance and therefore it is not possible for a gambler's bets to be rationally motivated.
Tableau of drawing rules If neither the player nor the banker is dealt a total of 8 or 9 in the first two cards (known as a "natural"), the tableau is consulted, first for the player's rules, then the banker's.
Player's rule If the player has an initial total of 5 or less, they draw a third card. If the player has an initial total of 6 or 7, they stand.
Banker's rule If the player stood pat (i.e. has only two cards), the banker regards only their own hand and acts according to the same rule as the player, i.e. the banker draws a third card with a total of 5 or less and stands with a total of 6 or 7. If the player drew a third card, the banker acts according to the more complex rules as follows: If the banker total is 2 or less, they draw a third card regardless of what the player's third card is. If the banker total is 3, they draw a third card unless the player's third card is an 8. If the banker total is 4, they draw a third card if the player's third card is a 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7. If the banker total is 5, they draw a third card if the player's third card is a 4, 5, 6, or 7. If the banker total is 6, they draw a third card if the player's third card is a 6 or 7. If the banker total is 7, they stand. + Tableau for punto bancoBankertotalPlayer's third card01234567890–2HHHHHHHHHH3HHHHHHHHSH4SSHHHHHHSS5SSSSHHHHSS6SSSSSSHHSS7SSSSSSSSSS
The croupier will deal the cards according to the tableau and the croupier will announce the winning hand, either the player or the banker. Losing bets will be collected and the winning bets will be paid according to the rules of the house. Usually, 1-to-1 even money will be paid on player bets and 19-to-20 on banker bets (even money with "5% commission to the house on the win").
Should both the player and banker have the same total value at the end of the deal, the croupier shall announce "égalité — tie bets win." All tie bets will be paid at 8-to-1 odds and all bets on player or banker remain in place and active for the next game (the customer may or may not be able to retract these bets depending on casino rules).
Casino provision
In the U.S., the full-scale version of punto banco is usually played at large tables in roped off areas or private rooms separated from the main gaming floor. The game is frequented by high rollers, who may wager tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on a single hand. Minimum bets are relatively high, often starting at $100 and going as high as $500. Posted maximum bets are often arranged to suit a player. The table is staffed by a croupier, who directs the play of the game, and two dealers who calculate tax and collect and pay bets. Six or eight decks of cards are used, normally shuffled only by the croupier and dealers. The shoe is held by one of the players, who deals the cards on the instructions of the croupier according to the tableau. On a player win, the shoe moves either to the highest winning bettor, or to the next person in clockwise order around the table, depending on the casino's conventions. The shoe may be refused or the croupier may be requested to deal.
Road maps and scoreboards Modern baccarat tables often display previous results from the current shoe on scoreboards or "road" recording forms. Common baccarat roads include the Bead Plate Road, the Big Road, the Big Eye Boy, the Small Road, and the Cockroach Road. A 2016 study of Chinese baccarat players described these five methods as standard roads and noted that casinos in Macau had introduced electronic screens to display shoe history and road records.
Odds and strategy Punto banco has both some of the lowest house edges among casino table games, and some of the highest. The player bet has, relative to most casino bets, a low house edge of 1.24%, and the banker bet (accounting for the 5% commission on the win) is even lower, at 1.06%. In contrast, the tie bet, which pays 8-to-1, has a high house edge of 14.4%. Most casinos in the United Kingdom pay the tie at 9-to-1, resulting in a house edge of approximately 4.85%.
+ House edge for punto banco (with an 8-deck shoe)If bank/banco wins1.06%If player/punto wins1.24%If ties (8-to-1 payout)14.4%If ties (9-to-1 payout)4.85%
Card counting can be employed to reduce the house edge by about 0.05%. If paired with a technique known as edge sorting, baccarat players can obtain a significant edge versus the casino.
Variations Mini-baccarat is a version of punto banco played on a small table with smaller minimums/maximums. It is popular with the more casual players, particularly those from Asia, where this version is commonly played.
A mini-baccarat variation where even money is paid on winning banker bets (rather than 95%), except when the banker wins with 6, in which case the banker bet pays 1-to-2 (50% of the bet), goes under various names including Super 6 and Punto 2000. The house edge on a banker bet under Super 6 is 1.46% compared to regular commission baccarat's 1.058%. This is equivalent to increasing the commission by 17.45% to 5.87%. The banker wins with a 6 about five times in an eight-deck shoe. In addition to its increased house edge, the Super 6 variation is used by casinos for its speed, since it partially does away with the time-consuming process of calculating and collecting commission on winning banker bets except for winning with a 6.