How To Play Baccarat
Mini-Baccarat & Midi-Baccarat
The most international of games offers the most heart-pounding drama. Your key to winning is tucked in the game’s eight decks.
How To Play Baccarat
Learn alongside our resident newbie, Priestly, as he discovers baccarat - one of the easier games to play on the casino floor. Priestly works with a Live! Casino table games dealer to help bring you the history, rules, and basic strategy of baccarat.
Baccarat Overview
Baccarat is played with eight decks of cards. The cards are shuffled by the dealer and placed in a dealing “shoe.” The object of the game is to bet on the hand with a final point total closest to 9. All numbered cards two through nine count as face value. Other cards (jack, queen, king and ten) count as 0 and aces count as 1. For example, a seven and queen draw has point total of 7 while an ace and three counts as 4. Any two cards which total 10 (ex: six & four) count as 0. Cards which add up to more than 10 will count as the number over 10 (ex: eight & seven count as 5).
Betting decisions are based on how much you want to bet on the hand of the banker or the player. Wagers can be made anytime before “no more bets” is announced by the dealer. You may also bet that these two hands will end in equal totals or tie. To begin the game, four cards are dealt alternately from the shoe.
The first card is dealt to the player’s hand, second to the banker’s hand, third to the player’s hand and fourth to the banker’s hand. If the point count of either hand is 8 or 9, it is called a “natural” and no additional cards are drawn. The drawing of a third card, if necessary, is dictated by strict rules depicted in the accompanying tables.
In no event shall more than one additional card be dealt to either hand. Providing the banker’s hand does not have a natural, the player’s hand draws a third card first. Thereafter, the banker’s hand is completed according to the table. If both hands end in equal totals, it is a tie and neither hand wins or loses.
All bets on players’ hands are paid 1 to 1 except on a separate tie bet, which pays 8 to 1. The house will collect a 5% commission or vigorish on all money won on the banker’s hand.
Rules For Drawing Additional Cards:
Player
| When first two cards total: | |
| 1-2-3-4-5-0 | Draws |
| 6-7 | Stand |
| 8-9 | Natural-Stands |
Banker
When the player stands on 6 or 7, the banker will always draw on totals of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, and stand on 6, 7, 8 and 9. When the player does not have a natural, the banker shall always draw on the totals of 0, 1 or 2 and then observe the following rules:
| When the first two cards total: | ||
| Bank Has: | Draw When Player's Card Is: | Does Not Draw When Player's 3rd Card Is: |
| 3 | 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-9-0 | 8 |
| 4 | 2-3-4-5-6-7 | 1-8-9-0 |
| 5 | 4-5-6-7 | 1-2-3-8-9-0 |
| 6 | 6-7 | 1-2-3-4-5-8-9-0 |
| 7; | Stands | |
| 8,9 | Natural - Stands | |
Dragon Bonus
This bonus wager is optional. The Dragon Bonus wins when the point spread between the Player hand and the Banker hand is 4 or greater, or there is a natural winner present. The bet pushes when the Player and Banker hands end in a natural tie, and lose in any other instance of a tie hand.