Baccarat or baccara (; ) is a card game played at casinos. It is a comparing card game played between two hands, the "player" and the "banker". Each baccarat coup (round of play) has three possible outcomes: "player" (player has the higher score), "banker", and "tie". There are three popular variants of the game: punto banco, baccarat chemin de fer, and baccarat banque (or à deux tableaux). In punto banco, each player's moves are forced by the cards the player is dealt. In baccarat chemin de fer and baccarat banque, by contrast, both players can make choices. The winning odds are in favour of the bank, with a house edge of at least 1 percent.
History
The origins of the game are disputed, and some sources claim that it dates to the 19th century. Other sources claim that the game was introduced into France from Italy at the end of the 15th century by soldiers returning from the Italian Wars during the reign of Charles VIII.
Baccarat has been popular among the French nobility since the 19th century. During the Napoleonic era and before the legalization of casino gambling in 1907, people in France commonly played baccarat in private gaming rooms. Dating to this time period, Baccarat Banque is the earliest form of baccarat; it is a three-person game and mentioned in Album des jeux by Charles Van-Tenac. Later, Chemin de Fer emerged as a two-person, zero-sum game from Baccarat Banque. Baccarat Punto Banco, in which the bettor bets on whether the Player or the Banker hand wins, was a significant change in the development of modern baccarat. It developed into a house-banked game in Havana in the 1940s, and is the most popular modern form.
American casinos are generating an increasing amount of their revenue from baccarat play. For example, in May 2012, Nevada only generated 18.3% of its total table gaming win from baccarat. However, in May 2013, this percentage increased to 33.1% and in May 2014 it rose to 45.2%.
Baccarat is the most important table game in Macau, with taxes from baccarat play constituting the largest single source of public funding in Macau.
Valuation of hands
In baccarat, cards have a point value: the 2 through 9 cards in each suit are worth face value (in points); the 10, jack, queen, and king have no point value (i.e. are worth zero); aces are worth 1 point; jokers are not used. Hands are valued modulo 10, i.e., according to the units digit of the sum of their constituent cards. For example, a hand consisting of 2 and 3 is worth 5, but a hand consisting of 6 and 7 is worth 3 (i.e., the 3 being the units digit in the combined points total of 13). The highest possible hand value in baccarat is therefore nine.
Versions
Punto banco
Punto banco is the most played version of baccarat. In punto banco, the casino banks the game at all times, and commits to playing out both hands according to fixed drawing rules, known as the "tableau" (French: "board"), in contrast to more historic baccarat games where each hand is associated with an individual who makes drawing choices. The player (punto) and banker (banco) are simply designations for the two hands dealt out in each coup, two outcomes which the bettor can back; the player hand has no particular association with the gambler, nor the banker hand with the house.
Punto banco is dealt from a shoe containing 6 or 8 decks of cards shuffled together; a cut-card is placed in front of the seventh from last card, and the drawing of the cut-card indicates the last coup of the shoe. The dealer burns the first card face up and then based on its respective numerical value, with aces worth 1 and face cards worth 10, the dealer burns that many cards face down. For each coup, two cards are dealt face up to each hand, starting from "player" and alternating between the hands. The croupier may call the total (e.g., "five player, three banker"). If either the player or banker or both achieve a total of 8 or 9 at this stage, the coup is finished and the result is announced: a player win, a banker win, or tie. If neither hand has eight or nine, the drawing rules are applied to determine whether the player should receive a third card. Then, based on the value of any card drawn to the player, the drawing rules are applied to determine whether the banker should receive a third card. The coup is then finished, the outcome is announced, and winning bets are paid out.
Punto banco is a pure game of chance and therefore it is not possible for a gambler's bets to be rationally motivated.