Live Baccarat

Baccarat is one of the oldest and most popular Casino card games. It is generally available in all Casinos both landbased and online. Baccarat is especially popular in Asia where it is almost a religion amongst gamblers and eclipses Roulette and Blackjack in terms of popularity.

Baccarat Srategy

Baccarat is a game of chance. However, some bets have a lower advantage to the house that others. In pure technical terms, the best bet is on the Banker. However, just betting on the Banker all the time would be pretty dull and most players play Baccarat for the fun.

You will see lots of systems online that claim to offer the perfect way to beat Baccarat. Most of these do not stand up to scrutiny, but some do offer a greater chance of success. Unfortunately, most of the better ones are highly complex and are not practical for most people. Others are based on Martingale (see the Roulette section) and require a large diference between smallest and largest bet at a table and a large player bank roll.

Baccarat Rules

The game itself is very simple. The players play against the dealer on a table similar in structure to a Blackjack table. There are 3 conventional bets available: Player, Banker or Tie. Traditional Baccarat actually involves the players dealing. As this can be slow, Casinos developed Mini Baccarat in which the dealer deals all the cards to the players. In online Live Dealer Casinos, all Baccarat games are of the Mini Baccarat variant.

The number of cards in the shoe can vary from Casino to Casino, but it is normally 6 or 8 decks online. Cards are given a point value based upon the number of the card, with Ace’s worth 1 and face cards worth 0.

Each player is dealt 2 cards as is the dealer. To calculate the score, the cards individual points are added together then the right hand number in the total is taken as the score. If the the score is less than 10, then the score is the total. For example, if a player is dealt 3 and 9 then the total is 12 and the score awarded is 2. If the cards dealt are 2 and 3, then the total is 5 and the score awarded is also 5.

No more cards are dealt to a player if their score is more than 5. If the dealer has an 8 or a 9, then, both the dealer and the players are not dealt any more cards. If the player has a higher score than the dealer and has bet on the player, then the player wins (paid out 1-1) and the house deducts a 5% commission on the win. If the dealer has a higher score and the player has bet on the dealer then the player wins (paid out 1-1) and the house deductions the 5% commission.

If the player and dealer have the same score – a tie – and the player has bet on the tie, then the player is paid out 8-1 on the bet.

Some Live Dealer software suppliers are developing the ability to ‘bet behind’ the boxes. This is popular in Asia and enables players watching the games to bet on other people’s bets. The result is that many more people can play at a table, than would be normally possible.