Baccarat: how it works

The game

The baccarat played in most casinos is Punto banco. Two hands are dealt each round, one called the player and one called the banker. The names are just labels: you do not play either hand, and you can bet on either one, or on a tie.

Tables come in a few sizes. A full-size table seats a dozen or more players; Mini-baccarat uses a smaller table and the dealer handles all the cards. The rules of play are the same.

Every card drawn follows fixed rules. There are no decisions to make once the bets are down, which makes baccarat one of the simplest table games to learn. Each round is called a Coup.

Card values

• Aces count 1.
• Cards 2 to 9 count their number.
• 10s, jacks, queens and kings count 0.

Only the last digit of a hand's total counts, so a hand value is always 0 to 9. 7 6 adds to 13 and is worth 3. K 9 is worth 9. 5 5 is worth 0. The hand closer to 9 wins.

The deal and naturals

Cards come from a shoe, usually of eight decks. The dealer gives two cards to the player hand and two to the banker hand, alternating, player first.

If either hand has 8 or 9 on its first two cards, that is a natural. Neither hand draws, and the round is settled. A 9 beats an 8; equal naturals tie.

With no natural, the player hand acts first, then the banker hand. Each hand gets at most one more card.

At the start of a shoe, the dealer turns up one card and burns that many cards (a 10 or face card means ten). A cut card near the end of the shoe marks the last coup before a new shuffle.

The player's third card

The player hand follows one simple rule:

The banker's third card

If the player hand stood on 6 or 7, the banker hand uses the same rule: it draws on 0 to 5 and stands on 6 or 7.

If the player hand drew a third card, the banker's move depends on its own total and on the value of that third card. This chart is the Tableau:

A 10 or face card counts as 0 here, and an ace as 1.

Example: the player has 10 4 (4) and the banker has 2 3 (5). The player draws 6 , making 0. The banker has 5 and the player's third card is a 6, so the banker draws.

Another example: the player has 9 8 (7) and stands. The banker has J 5 (5). With no player third card, the banker draws on 0 to 5, so it draws.

The bets

When the hands tie, player and banker bets Push: they come back with no win or loss.

The banker hand wins a little more often than the player hand, because it acts second and its drawing rules use what the player drew. The 5% commission on banker wins takes back that advantage and a little more, but the banker bet still has the lowest House edge of the three. The tie pays well but carries a much higher edge. These edges are for eight decks.

EZ Baccarat

EZ Baccarat is a commission-free version. The draws are the same. The difference is the banker bet:

• Banker wins pay a full 1 to 1, with no commission.
• If the banker wins with a three-card total of 7, banker bets push instead.

That push takes the place of the commission. With eight decks, the banker bet's edge comes out at about 1.02%, and the player bet is unchanged.

EZ tables usually offer two side bets:

• Dragon 7: wins when the banker wins with a three-card 7. Pays 40 to 1. House edge about 7.6%.
• Panda 8: wins when the player wins with a three-card 8. Pays 25 to 1. House edge about 10.2%.

Pair bets

Player pair and banker pair are side bets that the first two cards of that hand are the same rank, such as Q Q . Each pays 11 to 1, whoever wins the round. With eight decks, the house edge on each is about 10.4%.

FlopMAX's table

By default, FlopMAX deals classic punto banco from eight decks, with the 5% commission on banker wins. EZ Baccarat, with Dragon 7 and Panda 8, and the pair bets are in the game's settings. Every coup is dealt card by card by the rules above.

Scoreboards and roads

Baccarat tables often show a Scoreboard of past results. The common grids, called roads, record each coup as player, banker or tie, and some arrange them in patterns of streaks and switches.

They are a record of what happened, nothing more. Each coup is dealt from the cards left in the shoe, by the same fixed rules. No pattern in the roads predicts the next coup. Reading one into them is the gambler's fallacy.