Baccarat - Your Complete Guide

Many gambling games - both in a casino and online - are a game of luck. You can play as many rounds of your chosen game as you like, but there is never a guarantee that you will win. Sure, you can try and learn as many strategies as possible to win, but it’s important to remember that luck plays a part.

Baccarat, like so many other online games, is a game of chance. However, there is the chance that if you fully understand the rules and the game probabilities, you could improve your chances of being a winner of the game you are playing. Baccarat is a game for the elite and has always been seen that way. With the introduction of online Baccarat, you can join in and be a part of it, learning how to play and - ultimately - winning. But what is Baccarat? How do you play, and how do you win?

Read on and discover everything you need to know!

What Is Baccarat?

A card game played in both physical and online casinos, Baccarat is a game of comparison. Played between the two hands (the Player and the Banker), Baccarat has three possible outcomes: The Player, the Banker, and the Tie.

How To Play Baccarat

Thankfully, Baccarat is not a particularly difficult game to understand. The basic rules and terminology are simple: the aim is to build a hand of cards that is as close to nine as you can.

Within the game of Baccarat, there are only ever three bets that can be placed:

• The Player’s hand - you

• The Banker’s hand - the dealer

• A Tie

If your bet is placed and it matches the outcome of the round, you win. See, nice and simple!

When you place your bets down, you and the Banker are dealt two cards each. In some circumstances, you may receive a third card, but we’ll come back to that. During the game, the Face cards (King, Queen, Knave) are all worth 0 points, as are the Tens. However, the other cards are all worth their value (2’s are two, etc.). Adding up the value of your cards, you only need to pay attention to the last digit. So, if your hand consists of a 6 and an 8, your hand equals 14 but is worth 4. The hand closest to 9 wins the round.

We mentioned the third card in the game, and that can add a complication to the game. However, during an online game, you are always dealt the third card if necessary and automatically. It’s okay if you don’t understand the rules of the third card - it’s not needed for the online games!

How To Win?

There are SO many tips online about how to win Baccarat. You want to enhance your chances of winning the game as you play, and it starts with setting yourself a budget when you get online. You need to think about not losing everything you have, and self-imposed limits make the game safer to play. If you want to up your chances of winning, play Baccarat for free, and learn how it works. The more thoroughly you know the game itself, the better!

You can use the free play to study the game and understand every single detail. The other tip you need is to bet on the Banker’s hand. If you do this in all Baccarat games, you are going to have a safer stake, and you can continue to do this until the game loses.

Game Variations

As a world-famous card game, Baccarat was always going to have some variations. It’s a simple game, but the variations may have different bonuses and rules. So, it’s a good idea to understand what the options are, so that you can better choose the right game for you. So, let’s look at a list of Baccarat games you’ll find at most casinos and online websites.

Mini Baccarat

A smaller version of the main game and usually, mini Baccarat allows seven plays instead of eight. A standard Baccarat game requires three croupiers as opposed to mini Baccarat requires only one. It's a fun game to play and popular with those who choose it!

Chemin de Fer

The French version of Baccarat, Chemin de Fer, uses six decks of cards as opposed to seven. All players in Chemin de Fer get to play Banker at some point, and all of the cards are dealt secretly (as in, face down). It’s a much older version of the game, but still a historic version worth mentioning.

Punto Banco

This is the most popular game of Baccarat. Punto Banco has its own mini versions of the game that can be played, with its own mini Punto Banco and a Super 6 version that has a total of 6 instead of 9. EZ Baccarat is yet another version of Punto Banco, and it’s easy to grasp with 7.

Baccarat Banque

The last option is Baccarat Banque, and it’s comparable to the older French version of Chemin de Fer. The Banker position is a much more permanent one, and the Banker position does not rotate from player to player. Baccarat Banque uses far fewer card decks, but the betting options are better and lead to higher financial returns, which makes it so popular!

Before you can really get a feel for which Baccarat game suits you best, try out the different variations online. You can play for free to see what the differences are, and you can do it without losing cash. The biggest draw of Baccarat is in its simplicity, and as there are so many different options to play, you can find new bonuses, better features, and various bets. If you are in New Zealand and you are looking for a new game to play online, why not try out Baccarat with Casino Picker? A simple game with high returns should always pique your interest: play today and see how you can win!