From sticky California card rooms to the glamorous casinos of Monaco, baccarat is one of the world’s most beloved casino games. This popularity can be attributed to several factors, including its relative ease and allure as a high-rollers’ game with low house edges – with banker having only an extremely slight edge against player.
At its core, casino poker involves six cards being shuffled together and then distributed randomly amongst all players seated around an oval table, with play beginning directly to the right of a croupier (a professional dealer responsible for overseeing play at the table, dealing cards to customers in random order and collecting winning bets). A croupier may wear either white dress uniform with black hat, or sometimes both!
Players place bets on either a player hand, banker’s hand or tie; in order to win, a player hand must total closer to nine than that of the banker; when there is a tie outcome, many bet on both parties as this makes for a powerful bet. When there is no clear winner after dealing two cards to each player, croupier will deal two more and determine who has the final digit closest to nine; any hand totalling 10 and 9 are considered equal in value while eight is lowest.
Although there are various rules and variations of baccarat, all three major variants – punto banco (commonly referred to as North American Baccarat), baccarat chemin de fer (“chemmy”) and baccarat banque (“a deux tableaux”) have similar basic rules. Punto banco has one of the easiest setups with its fixed minimum bet amount and bank amount while the other variants allow more variation with regard to rules and card counts.
Baccarat, unlike poker and blackjack, is a game of pure chance that requires little strategic analysis or gamesmanship on your part. Play is quick, and no other bets have any effect; making it an ideal form of gambling for new gamblers who wish to avoid feeling intimidated by casino floors. For best results it is advised to bet in “runs,” meaning if one side is winning they should stay with it instead of switching over to betting on the banker side.
Though its roots remain obscure, some experts speculate that baccarat may have descended from ancient Chinese tile game pai gow or may have emerged during Marco Polo’s travels in Italy in late 13th century. No matter its source or original purpose, the game quickly gained favor among royalty and aristocracy alike. Baccarat first gained popularity in France during King Charles VIII’s courtiers’ favor under Napoleon Bonaparte and later spread throughout England and America via Tommy Renzoni in Las Vegas in the 1950s, becoming an attractive game among high rollers. Unfortunately, though, it never quite achieved that popularity so some casino owners kept it hidden behind velvet curtains in special rooms until recently.
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