Baccarat Strategy

Baccarat Strategy

Baccarat is a simple card game that is all based on chance. It’s a game that offers excellent odds to a player that doesn’t want to worry about making the right decisions and would rather just enjoy watching one hand after another unfold. Once you understand the basic strategy behind the game you should have no trouble winning more often and making the most of the excellent odds that such a game offers.

How to play the game

Before we can go over any strategies for Baccarat it’s important to take a moment to talk about the basics of the game. It’s played with several decks of cards at a time, and is between the player and the dealer. Each player at the table and the dealer is dealt two cards. The card values are added together and the object of the game is to get as close to 9 as possible. While you play you can bet on either the dealer, yourself or a tie between the two of you, and if you bet right you’ll be rewarded. Betting on yourself or the dealer rewards you by doubling your bet. Betting on a tie will reward you with 14 times your bet at most dealerships.

Card Values

It’s important to know how card values work when you play baccarat.

  • Number cards less than 10 – the stated value
  • 10, and face cards – 0
  • Ace – 1

When you know the values of the cards you’ll have a better idea of whether your hand is good or not. This will help you follow the progress of a hand and figure out if you are going to be winning or losing.

At the start of each hand you simply bet the amount that you want to risk, then choose whether you want to bet on the dealer or yourself or a tie and wait to see what happens. There are no other decisions for you to make throughout the course of the game.

The History of Baccarat

History of Baccarat

Baccarat is one of the older casino card games and has been around in one form or another since the 1400’s. The game originated in Italy and later made its way over to France. The game’s name is Italian for zero, which signifies the value of the 10’s, and face cards of a deck, as well as any even ten sums in the game.

Baccarat quickly become a favourite among French royalty after making it over to the country, and was experienced in a few different forms. Throughout Europe chemin de fer was the variation most played, while Punto Banco was the popular game in England. It wasn’t until hundreds of years later that the game finally migrated over to the United States from South America and to Australia.

In the 1900’s the game began showing up in casinos, and today it’s a staple at most large casinos around the world, played by the wealthy more than anyone else. This table game is known for being favoured by the elite gamblers and players at the casino with millions to spend. Some casinos even report baccarat wins and losses in casino profit and loss reports.

A Beginner’s Strategy

Before you play for real money you must understand the rules of baccarat and have some time playing the game itself. There isn’t much strategy involved, but it’s important to be comfortable with the game and to know what is going on to help you make the right bets, and so that you enjoy the game a bit more as you play along. That’s why you should try a free version of the game until you get the hang of it. This is an opportunity for you to become comfortable with the game, and to learn what you should expect as you play baccarat.

Once you understand how baccarat works you’ll see that the game is purely luck. There isn’t any decision that you can make to really improve your odds, other than placing a bet on the dealer and nothing else. If you make any other move you are essentially making it more difficult for you to win more than you lose, because all the other options have a higher house edge than the dealer bet.

There are three betting options in baccarat, yourself, the dealer and a tie. The tie is a terrible bet every single time, and it’s something that you should never rely on. If you bet on a tie and win you’ll receive 8 or 9 times your original bet depending on the casino. That may seem like a lot, and that it would make the bet worthwhile, but it doesn’t. In order to receive that large payout you have to be willing to deal with a House Edge of 14% every single time that you place the bet. If instead you bet on yourself or the dealer, you’ll still receive your bet back each time that a tie occurs, making a tie even worse of a bet to place since it will help you for free as well.

Your Best Odds

Best Odds

When you consider the odds of betting on yourself and betting on the dealer, the dealer always has a slight edge that you should take advantage of. The House Edge on a dealer bet is just 1.06%, one of the lowest edges that you will get with any casino game, and much better odds than you would find at a pokies machine. If you switch to betting on yourself that edge climbs up to 1.24%.

One important thing to remember though, is that if you bet on the dealer and you win, you get double your bet back, minus 1-5% of that original bet that’s paid to the house. That’s to help make up for the improved odds that you get by betting on the dealer. Even with that slight decrease in payout it still usually makes more sense to bet on the dealer though.

Other than the type of bet you choose, there is no way to affect your odds of winning while playing baccarat. Some players rely on betting systems by adjusting their bet amount as the game progresses, but this is difficult to do successfully, and can actually end up costing a player more than he stands to gain from the technique thanks to betting caps and other casino restrictions.

How to find best online venue

Just knowing the proper strategy to use while playing baccarat is not enough to get the best results. You also have to play at the right casinos. That’s why you should take the time to really learn what your different options are, and pick out the one that makes the most sense for you. Our team of experts takes a long look at the bonuses that different casinos offer, the special offers, the selection of games as well as the quality of the baccarat games themselves when picking out the good from the bad. If you want access to all this information you simply have to read through our reviews and pick out the important information to you. Finding a high quality casino will help make your play experience even more enjoyable and should lead to more success while playing baccarat as well.

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