Baccarat 101 – From Newbie to Ready to Play in 8 Minutes

If you want to know how to play baccarat, you’ve come to the right place. Here, you can learn baccarat basics and be winning at baccarat in no time!

This sophisticated game, long associated with elegance and strategy, has been a staple in James Bond classics like Dr. No and GoldenEye and remains popular in Chinese casinos. If you’re curious about mastering it, the basic rules are a great place to start:

Rules of Baccarat

Baccarat rules are pretty simple, even though the game may seem intimidating when you’re not familiar with it.

There are two basic bets: 1) the player and 2) the banker. It isn’t like blackjack. You’re not the player, and the banker isn’t the dealer. Instead, you can bet on either one. They have a roughly equivalent chance of winning (there is a slight edge to the banker – more on this below). You can also bet on a tie, although this is a long shot.

Cards will then be dealt. The winning hand is the one that gets closest to a total of 9. If you bet on the winner, you get paid.

Baccarat Card Values and Totals – Scoring the Game

Simple baccarat instructions have to start with how to tally up a score for a hand. Cards two through nine have their face value. Tens and face cards are worth 0. And aces are worth a point. To calculate the hand total, add up the values and then use only the final digit. For example, a hand with a 7 and an 8 totals 15, but the baccarat value is 5.

Baccarat Steps – How Hands Play Out

If you’ve been playing baccarat online a bit, you might have seen that some hands in the game have two cards, and sometimes there are more. This is the only complicated part of the game – how cards are dealt.

First, if the player or banker hand has a total of 8 or 9 with the initial two cards, it’s a “natural,” and the round ends immediately. Otherwise, these rules apply:

Player’s Third Card Rules

The player’s hand comes first.

• If the player’s total is 6 or 7, the player stands.
• If the player’s total is 5 or less, the player draws a third card.

Banker’s Third Card Rules

Now, it’s the banker’s turn. The banker takes a third card based on their own total and the player’s total:

• If the banker’s total is 7, the banker stands.
• If the banker’s total is 6, and the player’s third card is 6 or 7, the banker draws.
• If the banker’s total is 5, and the player’s third card is 4-7, the banker draws.
• If the banker’s total is 4, and the player’s third card is 2-7, the banker draws.
• If the banker’s total is 3, and the player’s third card is anything but an 8, the banker draws.
• If the banker has 2 or less, the banker draws.

Think of it this way: the more the banker needs a card, the more likely it is that the banker draws. A total of 7 is strong enough not to need a card, but a total of 2 is not.

Baccarat Odds and Payouts – Betting to Win

Beginner Baccarat tips revolve around a simple piece of advice: bet on the banker. Both the player and the banker bets pay 1:1, but the banker wins more often. For this reason, a small commission is often charged on banker bets (around 5% of your wager). Banker bets win 45.86% of the time, while player bets win 44.62% of the time. More info on the house edge can be found on Wikipedia.

Baccarat strategy for beginners also often cautions gamblers to avoid the tie bet. It pays 8:1 or 9:1 but has the highest house edge (around 14.36%). Many baccarat players use it to spice things up from time to time. Or, they put small bets on the tie and larger bets elsewhere as part of a baccarat strategy.

Betting Systems for Baccarat – Spicing Things Up

There are a number of ways to bet from round to round in baccarat that players try. Give these a shot if you want to spice things up a bit when you play baccarat online.

• Flat betting. This is pretty simple. You just bet a fixed amount round to round. You can stay committed to betting on one side or the other, or you can switch as you go along.

• Streak betting. For this method, you try to stick to hot streaks for one side or the other. If the player has hit twice in a row, it can be fun to wager on the player to win a third hand.

• Martingale betting. This one can get expensive fast, so proceed with caution. The plan with Martingale is simple. If you lose, double your bet and wager again. Eventually, because the bet is essentially a coin flip, you’ll win back any amounts lost and then some. The method is “foolproof” on paper, but in reality, hits a couple of limits. One could be the table limit. What do you wager when you hit the max bet for the table? You’d be out of luck, and the method would crash. The other limit is your bankroll. Even when you’re at a high roller table, you can quickly find yourself reaching for a very large amount. Starting at $10 will have you betting $160 after five losses!

• Paroli betting. This method rides hot streaks. Double your bet after each win. Do this three times, and then reset to your base wager. Whenever you lose, go to the base wager again. Paroli betting in baccarat makes winning more fun while also keeping losses limited.

Getting Started with Baccarat

Try baccarat in practice mode before playing for real money. That way, you can get a feel for things before you have any assets at risk. And don’t forget to manage your bankroll carefully. That is, only bet a small fraction of your total stack, and don’t chase losses blindly. That way, you can live to fight another day if things aren’t going your way.