How to Play Baccarat Online

Do you know how to play baccarat online? If not, then you really need to get the low down on this easiest of bets. Though the house has the advantage in this game, but you can significantly reduce your variance by following the basic rules for online baccarat.

As in most of the card games that appeared in the past century, baccarat is typically played among the wealthy upper classes. But this is a very old game, and the houses that still offer baccarat today recognize that it is a game of great popularity. As would be expected of a game that has the word “casino” attached to it, baccarat is yet another casino game, and the banking sections of the game draw much of the same sort of fan base as the roulette or blackjack fans.

The game is played with a shoe that contains 8 decks of cards shuffled in a “control” room. The cards that are dealt into the “toothed reel” are normally known as the deck of shelled cards. The cards that are not shelled are called the deck of free cards. As the name implies, these cards are not on the table shelled, and so they are free to receive bets, although the player bet must be on the card that matches the current value on the card.

The basic values that are used in baccarat are the eight, ten, twenty, thirty, forty and fifty. These represent the number of points that each hand has. The points are as follows:

  1. The card with the highest value is worth ten points.
  2. The card with the second highest value is worth eight points, and the one with the third highest value is worth six points.
  3. The card with the twelfth highest value is worth five points, and the card with the thirteenth highest value is worth four points.
  4. The card with the four highest values is worth four points, and the card with the fifth highest value is worth three points.
  5. The card with the sixth highest value is worth two points, and the card with the seventh highest value is worth one point.
  6. And the last card worth either nothing, or six points, is the “amphibious” or “imprivate” card.

When a player is dealt her two cards, the player must make a decision regarding where she will bet. Here are some options that players may take:

  1. The player may always bet on the ‘Tie’ – the player stands on twelve points, and if the hand is a tie, she lays a one-point bet at that value.
  2. The player may always bet on the ‘Spare’ – the player stands on fifteen points, and if a player has a spare hand, she may double the stake up to a four-point bet.
  3. The player may always bet on the ‘Privateer’ – the player stands on sixteen points, and if there is a private hand, the player may bet double on the same hand, and the dealer will reveal his hand first.
  4. The player may always bet on the ‘Big Player’, and if he has already made a hand, the player must double his stake on his first hand.

When a player wins a hand, she is paid even money, except when the banker wins. Dewacasino pays out to the banker even money on a tie, or even money for purposes of playing the game again. The banker must pay the winner the banker ante, or vigorish, which is a commission collected by the banker for every dollar bet by the banker in a hand. The banker must also pay a five percent commission to the player for each hand played against the banker.

If you’re unfamiliar with the terms in a hand, you can’t bet without first understanding the terminology used in a particular hand. The following descriptions are precise descriptions of the possible hands, and their descriptions, as used in all published baccarat games.

Hand contains:

  1. Two cards of the player’s rank appear in the front position, as for example: Ace, King, Queen, Jack.
  2. Three cards of the player’s rank appear behind the suit cards (A, K, Q, of the player’s rank), as for example: Ace, King, Queen, Jack of hearts.
  3. Once a hand has been “dealt” (when all the cards have been dealt into the front position and no more can be dealt), the players may discard in excess of the half of the face value of their cards in the discard pile to receive new cards.
  4. After the draw, the hand is completed, and the dealer places the finished card face up beside the original top card in the center of the table as the new top card.