For being one of the most popular real money games, Baccarat is still an enigma for many online casino players. In this guide we will provide you with basic rules for playing baccarat on prediction sites. We start with the bets and continue with introduction of main concepts and the process of the game.
Baccarat Bets
Before each hand, online casino player must place bets within the allowed time. A timer indicates the number of betting seconds that remain. The minimum and maximum bets permitted in the game for each betting alternative are also presented on the sign to the right of the dealer. If by any reasons your connection is closed while bet was placed, your bet wins will not be lost and you will win the prize.
Shuffling Cards in Baccarat
Game-play continues until the cut card is dealt. The current round will be continued using the current shoe. Subsequently the game is paused until a new shuffled shoe is brought to the table and Burning Cards Procedure is made (see relevant section).
Dealing in Baccarat
The dealer is responsible for dealing the cards in every hand. The dealer will initially deal two face-up cards to each the Player and the Banker. The values of these two hands will be compared, after which a third card may be dealt to the Player, the Banker or both.
Baccarat Hand Values
In Baccarat, an ace is worth 1, all face cards and tens are worth 0, and other cards (2-9) are worth their face values. If the cards in a hand add up to 10 or more, 10 is subtracted from the hand to give its final Baccarat point value. This means that 9 is the highest achievable value in Baccarat, and the hand closest to 9 wins. The best hand is thus a two-card hand worth 9, called a natural. The second-best hand is a natural 8.
Third Card Rules
The dealer will sometimes deal a third card to the Player, the Banker or both depending on their respective two-card hands. If either the Player or the Banker has a natural 8 or 9, neither receives a third card. This rule overrides any other third card rule.
- If the Player’s hand is 5 or less, the Player receives a third card (i.e. hits). Otherwise, the Player stands.
- If the Player stands and the Banker’s hand is 5 or less, the Banker hits.
- If the Player hits, the value of the Player’s third card and the value of the Banker’s two-card hand determines if the Banker hits as indicated in the chart below (H=hits, S=stands):
The player wins the round if his bet was placed on the hand closest to 9. In the event of a tie, all bets placed on the Player and Banker are returned in a “push”.
Baccarat Side Bets
It is possible to give the Baccarat player additional betting opportunities in each round even if player doesn’t place main bet:
- Player Pair, Banker Pair side bets win if the first two cards form a pair, for example a 5 of Spades and a 5 of Diamonds.
- Either Pair side bet wins if the first two cards on either the “Banker” or the “Player” hand (or both) form any pair on that hand.
- Perfect Pair side bet wins if the first two “Player” or “Banker” cards form a pair of the same suit, for example a pair of 7 of Diamonds.
- Big side bet wins if the total number of cards dealt between “Player” and “Banker” is 5 or 6.
- Small side bet wins if the total number of cards dealt between “Player” and “Banker” is 4
Roadmaps in Baccarat
Many players appreciate the ability to view the results of past Baccarat rounds to look for patterns in an effort to devise a personal strategy of making better predictions in future rounds. For this purpose, it is possible to give the player access to traditional Macau-style scorecards that systematically display the results of previous rounds. Scorecards have traditional names such as the “Big Eye Boy Road”, the “Small Road” and the “Cockroach Road”. The player simply clicks on the appropriate tab to open the desired scorecard.
Statistics in Baccarat
Big Road
This is the main road and it is the road that all other roads are derived from. The big road is fairly simple. It is a grid, six rows deep by twenty columns wide (I’ve seen as few as 36 columns and as many as 50 columns, but it doesn’t really matter). When recording the big road, a hollow red circle represents a banker win, and a hollow blue circle represents a player win.
When the shoe begins, the first result (banker or player, ignore ties for now) is written in the top left corner of the big road. If the second result is the same side as the first, it goes under the first, and as long as the winning side (banker or player) remains the same, circles of the same colour continue down vertically.
When the ‘other side’ comes up, a new column is started, and the process continues through the entire shoe in this fashion. As a result, the big road becomes a series of columns of alternating blue and red hollow circles, with a minimum height of one circle, and no maximum height. Each time the result changes sides between banker and player, a new column is used, so each column corresponds to a run or ‘streak’, allowing easy comparison of the length of streaks.
Ties are not displayed as a separate circle, but simply as a number across the most recent circle drawn, the number indicates the number of consecutive ties. If a tie comes up before there has been any banker or player result yet in the shoe, the number is drawn in the very top left cell in the grid, and then when the first banker or player result is known, that circle is written in the same cell under the number.
Pairs are displayed with a dot on the edge of the circle (red dot for banker pair, blue dot for Player pair). On some displays, natural winners are displayed with a yellow dot in the middle of the circle.
Bead Plate
Red means banker, blue means player and green means tie, and the symbols used are solid coloured circles representing the result. The first symbol appears in the top left corner of the grid and the road fills down vertically through all six cells of the column, before moving to the second column and those six cells are filled in, and so on. There is no moving to a new column until the previous column is filled, irrespective of the result of each hand.
Derived roads
The derived roads are made up of red and blue symbols: hollow circles for big eye boy, solid circles for the small road, and slashes for the cockroach road. The blue and red do not represent banker/player, but rather represent the state of the shoe. There are no special markings corresponding with ties, pairs or naturals. The derived roads only concern themselves with trends and patterns of banker and player results. The derived roads do not begin with a new shoe, but once it starts, an additional red or blue symbol will be added to that derived road after every hand.
Big Eye Boy
- Initiates when the hand after the first hand in the second column of the big road.
- Columns alternate between streaks of red and blue (with a minimum of one row, and no maximum)
- Upon hitting the bottom of the grid (or an occupied cell due to an earlier dragon), the streak of red or blue turns right to create a dragon
- If the grid runs out of room to the right, the entire road scrolls left and the column on the far left drops off the screen.
Small Road
Initiates when the hand after the first hand in the third column of the big road. Similar to the Big Eye Boy except it skips the column to the left of the current column in the Big Road.To have enough information to go on, the Small Road must wait until the entry after the first entry in the third column of the Big Road.
Cockroach Pig
Initiates when the hand after the first hand in the fourth column of the big road.
Payouts in Baccarat
- A winning bet on the Banker pays 1 to 1 minus a 5% commission to the House.
- A winning bet on the Player pays 1 to 1.
- A winning bet on a Tie pays 8 to 1.
- A winning bet on a Player pair pays 11 to 1.
- A winning bet on a Banker pair pays 11 to 1.
- A winning bet on a Perfect Pair pays 25 to 1
- A winning bet on a Either Pair pays 5 to 1
- A winning bet on Big pays 0.54 : 1
- A winning bet on Small pays 1.5 : 1
Return to Player
The optimal theoretical payout percentage for Baccarat is:
- Banker 98.94%
- Player 98.76%
- Tie 85.64%
- Player pair 89.64%
- Banker pair 89.64%
- Either pair 86.29%
- Perfect Pair 86.97%
- Small 94.73%
- Big 95.65%