Baccarat: How to Play + Best Casinos (2026)

So to speak, up to 14 bettors can sit at Baccarat table, and they are provided with these options to bet on:

• Player wins. Player’s hand has a higher value than Banker’s hand.

• Banker wins. Banker’s hand has a higher value than a Player’s hand.

• Tie (also you can come across other names: Draw or Push). It happens when both hands, Player’s and Banker’s, have the same value.

I would like to stress out that in Baccarat term “Player” has a different meaning, and I deliberately used terms “bettors” and “participants” when I was referring casino players.

“Player” in Baccarat has nothing to do with people playing in it. “Player” and “Banker” just simply two outcomes of the game to bet on, very similar to Red/Black in Roulette. Casino players have no influence on how “Player” plays its hand (opposite to Blackjack, for example), and both “Player” and “Banker” hands are played according to with predetermined rules.

How to evaluate hands

As I have already mentioned, the hand which has a higher value wins in Baccarat. However, the game is designed in such a way that the value of the hand can not exceed “9”. So to say, the best possible hand in Baccarat equals to “9”, and it is also called “Natural”.

Counting process in Baccarat is pretty simple and all you need is just to perform addition on cards’ values. However, as a hand must not exceed a value of 9 in Baccarat, there is one more important rule to it. If the value of the hand equals to 10 or higher, then Baccarat requires to subtract 10 from its initial value so that the hand comes back within “9” boundary.

Let’s consider a few examples to get a better grasp on it.

AK equals to 1 (A is 1 + K is zero = 1)

63 equals to 9

K9 equals to 9 (K is zero + 9 = 9)

96 equals to 5 (9 + 6 = 15, but we must subtract 10 from it since it exceeds 9, that’s how it gets valued as 5)

AK9 equals to 0 (A is 1 + K is zero + 9 = 10, and we must subtract 10 which will result in zero as a final value)

Gaming process and payouts

As we have learnt, there are only three outcomes on which participants of Baccarat can bet, and each of them has their own payouts depending on how hard to predict them.

Bet on Player pays at 1:1 rate (your bet gets doubled).

Bet on Banker pays at 0.95:1 rate (you will get your initial bet back and 95% on top of that). It has slightly lower payout then bet on Player, since Banker’s hands win a little bit more frequently because of underlying maths.

Bet on Tie pays at 8:1 (or 9:1 in some venues).

Step 1. Participants of the game place their bets on those three outcomes.

Step 2. Once all participants have placed their bets, a dealer deals two cards for Player and two cards for Banker.

Step 3. A dealer estimates values of both hands, Player’s and Banker’s, and draws the third card when the rules of the game require to do it. This third card is final (in case it was obligatory to draw it) in Baccarat and game’s round is finished after that.

Here is the rules how a dealer must draw the third card from the deck, where “stand” means no third card and “draw” means that third card must be dealt with.

A player must “stand” if a hand has a value of 6 or 7. Player must “draw” when it has a value of 0-5.

Banker’s choices are predetermined as well and they are completely dependent on how Player must have acted before.

Whoever (Player or Banker) hits 8 or 9 first is considered to be the winner, and the game’s round ends right away without an additional card to be drawn.

Baccarat Types

Punto Banco is the most popular Baccarat game with a huge gap, and, as a result, casino players often refer to Punto Banco as Baccarat itself. Hence, all above-mentioned rules are applicable to Punto Banco.

Chemmy (Chemin de fer) is a Baccarat game, where casino players compete against each other, and it deserves a separate article on its rules.

Banque is somewhat similar to Chemmy, but it has got a different notion of “Banker” making its position more permanent.

Macao is another type of Baccarat, where players compete against “banker”.

About RTP and House Edge

Baccarat (Punto Banco) is 100% game of luck, and there is no strategy to beat the house in the long run. However, all three different types of bets in Baccarat has different RTP or House Edge levels.

Bet on Banker (Banco): House Edge 1.06% RTP 98.94%

Bet on Player (Punto): House Edge 1.24% RTP 98.76%

Tie with 8:1 payout: House Edge 14.4% RTP 85.6%

Tie with 9:1 payout: House Edge 4.85% RTP 95.15%

As you can see, there is a huge difference between Player/Banker bets and Tie bets, and I am sure you have figured out that Tie bets are flat out robbery. Other than that, Baccarat is one of the best casino games for players as it has higher than any online slot RTP level.

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