Baccarat is a casino card game played for high stakes. It is usually found in the high-roller sections of European and Nevadan casinos. The game is similar to blackjack but requires no technical skill. Instead, players wager on which hand they think will be closer to a total of nine. Players can choose to bet on either the Banker or Player hand, and they can also bet that the hand will be a tie.
The croupier (the person who collects and pays bets and assists at the table) announces the winning side of each hand. Winning bets are paid out even money, and losing bets are collected. The croupier also pays the Banker’s commission when he wins. In baccarat, the cards are dealt from a shuffled deck of standard 52-cards. The value of the cards is determined by their rank and pip denomination. The cards with values of 2 – 9 count as zero, whereas the 10’s, Jacks, Queens and Kings count as one, and the Ace counts as a 1. The higher the total, the closer to nine the hand will be.
Before the hand begins, each participant at a baccarat table places their chips on either the Banker or Player hand. A dealer then calls “no more bets,” and the dealer deals one card to each box. If your bet matches the box with the highest-ranked combination, you win. The dealer then reveals the second card. A third card may be drawn depending on the outcome of the first two cards. In addition, some casinos offer a Super Six bet in which a player can win by betting on the Banker’s first pair of cards to have a total of 6 points. The payout on winning a Super Six bet is 12x the initial bet amount.
A tie bet is another option available in baccarat, but it is a risky proposition with a high house edge of over 14 percent. For this reason, most serious players stick to placing a player or banker bet.
There are many reasons why high rollers like to play baccarat, including the cultural appeal of the game and the fact that it offers better odds than roulette or blackjack. Bill Zender, a former Nevada Gaming Control agent and casino dealer who literally wrote the book on managing casino games, believes that Asian high rollers are especially attracted to the game for these reasons.
The game has become increasingly popular among high rollers around the world, and is now the game of choice for many of the top gamblers in Las Vegas. The game is typically played with real cash in American casinos & European casinos use high-denomination oblong “plaques.” Players can place their bets on the player or banker hand, and they can bet that the game will end in a tie. Some casinos will allow bettors to combine the two by placing a banker and player bet together, offering slightly lower house edges than if they were playing just the banker or player bets separately.