There can be few people who, whether they were aware of it or not, have not experienced some exposure to the game of Baccarat. Anyone who has ever read a James Bond novel or thrilled to the adventures of Ian Fleming's fictional hero at the local movie theatre will recognize Baccarat as 007's casino game of choice. It is only fitting perhaps that the suave and sophisticated Bond should favour a game once the exclusive reserve of the aristocracy.
Appearing first in Italy during the late fifteenth century, the game was immediately popular and began to spread rapidly. In France, it soon became a firm favourite among the elite clientele of the casinos of Paris and the Riviera. Known and loved throughout most of the Western part of the European continent including, rather surprisingly, Britain; it was not until as recently as the late 1950s that the game made its first appearance in the United States. Perhaps predictably, the site of its debut was the infamous "Dunes" casino in Las Vegas".
As Baccarat spread steadily across the globe it also underwent some considerable metamorphosis, and the game that we play today differs considerably from its earliest forms. In addition to the changes in the game itself, there have been some interesting changes in the demographics of its players. The emergence of the internet and the meteoric growth of online gambling has liberated the game from the realms of the wealthy and placed it firmly in the public domain where it is now regularly enjoyed by millions.
Not only may Baccarat now be enjoyed by anyone with a reasonable internet connection and a few dollars in mad money, but also the game's relative simplicity means that new players can master its basics quite quickly. Learning to play Baccarat has been made even easier with so many online casinos offering a free software download or web-based interface and the option of playing purely for fun. In this manner, the new player can gain all of the knowledge and confidence that will prepare them for the real thing.
Baccarat is played by a player and a banker while other players lay bets to cover one of the three possible outcomes. A player's hand may beat that of the banker, the bankers hand may beat that of the player or the two hands may tie. The latter outcome is statistically the least likely and the house pays odds of 8 to 1 for correct predictions. By contrast, correctly predicting a winning hand carries a fifty percent probability and earns only even money from the house.
A winning Baccarat hand is one that as close to nine as possible. In scoring the hands, a convention unique to Baccarat is applied. Under this convention, all tens and face cards carry a score of zero while twos through nines, are assigned their actual face values.
To open, both the player and the banker receive two cards. Should either hand total eight or nine it is known as a "natural" and is an automatic winner unless there is a tie. Should a hand exceed nine in total the initial "1" is dropped. For example, a 7 and a 5 totaling 12 would count only as 2. If both hands still total less than eight the player and banker are required to draw a third card.