When James Bond sits in the casino, he usually plays baccarat (except in Casino Royal, where it was poker, of course). In the noble-looking game, knowledge of French helps and those who want to play it in local casinos should know a few fixed rituals. But there are also quite simple variants, which are played in online casinos as a machine or in the live casino. To explore it, look at the live Baccarat – play this game with real dealers. Anyway, to win you will need knowledge about some useful gambling strategies.

THE HISTORY OF BACCARAT

Baccara, however, is said to have originated in a Neapolitan dialect and to mean “zero” – this is the meaning of the word, at least in the otherwise more French-influenced game. There are different statements about the age of the game. Some suspect it to have originated as early as the 16th century, while others see its emergence much later in the 19th century.

RULES OF BACCARAT

Baccarat belongs with games like “Blackjack” or “17 and 4”, “Macao” or “Red Dog” to the simpler card games. There are only a few rules in the basic game and the gambling and betting character is in the foreground. Skill and ability play practically no role in the most widespread variant of baccarat, “Punto Banco”.

The card values are added together in each case. If a so-called hand, i.e., the point value of the player’s or banker’s two cards, exceeds the total of nine, the ones digit counts. So, a seven and a four added together would be eleven, which means the hand counts as one. If two cards add up to ten, such as a six and a four, the hand counts as a zero. This would be a “baccarat”, the lowest possible score.

In the real-money version of “Punto Banco”, which is widely used in online casinos as a live and slot version, there are fixed rules as to when a third card is drawn.

If the player or the banker reaches the point value eight or nine with the first two cards already dealt anyway, the player wins – unless both have the same card value, in which case it’s a draw. This is called a “Natural 8” or “Natural 9”. The Natural 9 is, of course, worth more than the Natural 8. If you want to put it more delicately, you speak of “La Petite” (the eight) or “La Grande” (the nine), as in the original version of the game.

The player must make a third card draw if he only has a score of zero to five in his hand. These are all the rules for the “Punto Banco” variant. The older variants differ in particular in the rules for when a third card is drawn by the player or the banker.

WHAT BETTING STRATEGIES HELP WHEN PLAYING BACCARAT?

Well, a statistician would say “probably none”. However, he would make the same statement for pretty much all other types of gambling. Because the luck or the coincidence determines accordingly in completely predominant measure the exit of the play.

Well, of course you can use betting strategies such as the Martingale strategy or the Fibonacci strategy (we have discussed these in detail here in the context of roulette strategies) or you can bet on the other side each time in turn. The more games you make, the more your losses and profits will balance each other out – if you handle your bets sensibly. Therefore, the most important strategy in this game of chance is to limit your losses.

Anyway, remember, thar the most important thing is to play relaxed and responsibly.