Baccarat Rules

Mini-baccarat is one of the easiest games to play with little or no skill. Mini-baccarat is played at a blackjack sized table using a fixed set of rules for both the player and dealer. Players simply wager on which of the two hands of cards adds up to or comes closest to 9.

Two cards are dealt for both the player and banker and depending on the initial cards dealt, a third card may be drawn. The winner is the cards whose total is closest to 9.

The game is played with eight decks of cards. Each numbered card less than 10 is worth its face value and tens and face cards are worth zero. The player makes no decisions on drawing because it is done by the set rules. Other than placing the bet, there is no thinking required on the players part.

Play begins by the players betting on either the "player", "banker", or "tie". After all bets are down, the dealer gives two cards each to both the player and banker positions. The winning hand is the hand whose total is closest to 9. A two card total of 9 is called a natural and cannot lose. The 8 is the second best hand and is also called a natural. If both player and banker are dealt identical hands, it is a tie and niether bank or player wins.

If neither hand has a natural, the player's hand is always the first to be played, followed by the dealer. If the first two cards total five or less, another card is drawn. If they total six or seven, no furthur cards can be drawn. No more than a total of three cards can be drawn for either hand and when both hands have been played out, the total closest to nine wins.

Calculations have been made to show the odds of the player winning are 44.62%, losing 45.85%, and tying 9.53%. Those percentages clearly show betting on the banker is the wiser bet. To even out the odds, the house charges a 5% commission on winning bets placed on the banker. Factoring in the commission, it still shows you are better off betting on the banker everytime. The player has a disadvantage of 1.36% to the house, while the banker has a disadvantage of 1.17% AFTER playing the commission. The tie bet is the worst bet and has a house edge of 14.04% so don't bother making this bet as part of your strategy.

Baccarat Tips

Trends and Streaks
Every baccarat table will have scorecards and pencils for you to keep track of the outcome of every hand. Most players carefully analyze their scorecards and try to spot trends and streaks. A common streak play is to play the last winning hand. For example, if the bank just won, bet on the bank hand. If the players hand just won, make a bet on the player. This way you you are placing your bets on that hands streak and may want to slowly increase your bets but come back down when it loses. It is not uncommon to see streaks up to 15 or more on the same hand.

Tie Bet
As stated in our rules, tie bets payoff is 8 to 1 but is a bad bet and have a house edge of over 14% compared to just 1% on either banker or player. Make it part of your playing strategy to never places a sucker bet on the tie.

One and Six Decks
The less decks the game is played with the better it is for you. You will only find one and six deck baccarat online. The house edge on a 6 deck game is the same for banker and player but the tie bet increases to 14.44% compared to 14.01%. In a single deck game, The house edge for banker drops to just 1.01% but raises the house edge on player to 1.29% compared to 1.24% on 8 deck games and raises the house edge on tie bets to an astonishing 15.75%!