Best Casinos to play baccarat 2024
Need-to-know baccarat rules
Baccarat is a card game where you bet on an outcome, instead of playing with your own set of cards.
Some of the most important rules to keep in mind are:
- You are able to place one of the three main bets; Player, Banker, or Tie.
- The winning hand will be the one valued closer to nine than the other hand.
- Baccarat will be played with either 6 or 8 decks of cards.
Hand values rules
Although a deck of cards has 13 different types of cards, understanding the card values in online baccarat is easy. There’s no need to keep track of all 13 cards.
All cards between 2 and 9 are valued at their face value. So a 2 is valued 2, a 5 is valued 5, etc.
10, Jack, Queen, and King are all valued at 10.
The Ace is valued at 1.
If a hand value exceeds 10, the first digit of the value is removed, and the second digit is counted as the “real” value. For example, an 8-8 hand adds up to 16, but its “real” value will be 6.
Baccarat bets rules
Although the main bets of baccarat are almost identical, there are slight differences in the baccarat rules that make them unique.
Understanding the differences of the baccarat bet rules will allow you to make thought-through decisions on which bet to place.
Player
A bet on the Player hand means that you’ve bet on this hand being closer to nine than the Bankers. If you win, you’ll receive a payout of 1:1.
One Player-specific rule is that if the first two cards’ value is less than 5, a third card is dealt to that hand.
The edge on the player bet is 1.24%.
Banker
A same-same-but-different hand is the Banker. This is the most popular bet to play at real money online casinos because it has the lowest house edge of all the bets with a mere 1.06%.
The reason for this is that the Banker hand will act differently if the Player has been dealt a third card. Something we’ll take a look at in a bit.
However, in return for the low house edge, this bet only pays 19:20 (0.9:1), due to something known as a 5% commission fee.
Tie
The Tie is the bet with the lowest probability to win of the three main bets, but it does come with a mouth-watering 8:1 payout.
It requires that the Player and the Banker hand have the same value. Tie bet house edge is very high in comparison to the other two:
6-deck game: 14.44% edge edge
8-deck game: 14.36% house edge
Third card rule
The Player bet gets a third card when the hand’s value is under 5.
The Banker get a third card in relation to the values of both hands.
| Banker draws if Banker card value is: | And the Player third card value is: |
|---|---|
| 2 or less | Any |
| 3 | Any except an 8 |
| 4 | 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 |
| 5 | 4, 5, 6 or 7 |
| 6 | 6 or 7 |
Baccarat Rules: Game round step-by-step
- Place your bet on Player, Banker, or Tie.
- (Optional) Place any side bets.
- The dealer deals two cards to Player and two cards to Banker.
- The dealer turns over all cards to reveal their value.
- If your bet is on the winning hand, you will receive your payout.
- A new round begins.
Baccarat rules: Payouts
| Bet | Payout |
|---|---|
| Player | 1:1 |
| Banker | 0.9:1 (house edge) |
| Tie | 8:1 |
House advantage
We mentioned a 5% commission fee earlier in our guide when talking about the Banker bet.
The reason is due to the lower house edge on that hand. When playing at an 8-deck table of standard baccarat rules, the Banker wins 45.87% of the hands, loses 44.63%, and ties 9.51%.
The Player wins 44.63% of the time, loses 45.87%, and ties just as often as the Banker.
Table layout
Baccarat players will be happy to know that the table layout of baccarat is one of the easiest of all online casino games available!
Usually, the table consists of only two sections, one named “PLAYER” and one named “BANKER.”
And that’s it! Your betting interface shows all betting options, side bet options, and baccarat statistics.
Learn Baccarat rules by playing for free
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Playing for free is a great way to place different bets, side bets, and statistics in a risk-free way.
Keep in mind that there are plenty of baccarat variations as well that have their own set of rules, like Bac Bo which is a combination of baccarat and sic bo.
