Baccarat is a casino game of rituals, Bond-dipped mystique and, when played correctly, some of the best odds in all gaming. But it’s not for everyone. That’s why many baccarat players have a talisman or lucky charm and, in some cases, a team of experts to help them beat the house.
As the world’s oldest and most elegant casino game, baccarat has long been the choice of the elite. But now, the game’s popularity is growing among a younger generation of gamblers who appreciate its simplicity and elegance. But is that enough to make the game stick around as casinos try to attract new patrons?
Lou sits at a baccarat table inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. He has a fortress of yellow $1,000 chips stacked in front of him and is sipping a Corona. He has never played baccarat before but is intrigued by its Bond-dipped mystique and the beautiful rituals that unfold around the tables.
The basic rules of baccarat are easy to understand: you place bets on either the player’s hand, the banker’s hand or a tie. The winning hand is the one that comes closest to nine. Ten value cards count as zero and aces count as one. The croupier deals the cards and the player or banker then bets on the outcome.
Many people think they can beat the house edge in baccarat by using betting systems. One of the most common is the Martingale strategy, which involves doubling your bet after each loss, with the hope that a win will recoup all previous losses and provide you with a profit equal to your original bet. The system only works if you have a large enough bankroll to sustain multiple losses and have the discipline to follow it through.
While a seasoned blackjack player can reduce the house’s advantage to 0.5 percent by following a basic strategy, it takes 15 million hands before the player’s edge gets close to even with the banker’s. That’s why savvy punters watch past patterns, hoping to spot trends and exploit them. A former card counter named Francois, for example, has a definite strategy, one that he, maddeningly, refuses to reveal in detail.
Baccarat enthusiasts may also believe that the game is rigged through methods like marking cards or edge sorting. But these tactics only skew the odds, not eliminate them. Ultimately, the only way to change a negative expectation game like roulette is to get information about where the next number will appear before the wheel spins. Baccarat, however, is not a negative expectation game, as it can be beaten if you can clock the results.