Baccarat is one of the most popular card games both in online and land-based casinos and it’s very easy to see why. No matter if you’re a beginner or a veteran, with the right strategy, you can make it big in this game. If you’re an avid fan of the James Bond movies, you might have heard the name baccarat already if you’re not familiar with it. 

Thanks to its ease of mastering and the house having a low advantage, it has more and more people playing the game. So if you don’t know how to play baccarat, here’s the basics of playing the game.

How to Play the Game

First things first, there are three main bets you can pick when playing baccarat online or in an actual casino namely the player hand, bank hand, and the tie bet. Your goal would be to guess which hand will be the closest to the number 9 or if both the player and bank hand will be tied. After picking your bets, the croupier will then deal 2 cards facing up.

Before we proceed, remember that in baccarat, numbers 1-9 will have face value, 10 and the faces would have 0, and aces would equal to 1. For example, if the player hand would have 2 and a Queen, the hand would be worth 2. 

Or if the bank will have 4 and an ace, the hand would have 5. If the hand exceeds 9, the first digit of the sum would be accounted for. For example, if the hand equals 17, then it will only be counted as 7.

Each hand can hold three cards in total but it depends on the casino’s rules if the situation calls for a third card. Now that you know the basics, let’s talk about some strategy.

 Always Wager with the Banker

If you’ve heard of the saying, ”You should always wager on the banker,” then you probably have an idea of how this strategy works. And no, it’s not just superstition. It all boils down to simple math. Theoretically, the advantage of the house is 1.06, which means that the return to player or payout percentage of the house is 98.94%. 

This means that if you bet 100 $1 bets, you’ll get $98.94 back. This is just a slightly higher advantage than the player which has an RTP of 98.76. 

How about the tie? Well, it has the biggest payout of 8:1 but it also has the lowest RTP which only has 85.64%.

Fibonacci Strategy

This one is easy and is also boiled down to simple math. It relates directly to the Fibonacci number system that goes 1,2,3,5,8 and then the list goes on. 

Here’s the gist of the strategy; every time you lose, you should increase your bet on the next wager. This will continue until you hit a win. 

But why would I continue to increase my bets if I keep on losing? This is because by increasing your bet, you’ll eventually get it back when you win. And yes, this is just chasing a bet with extra steps.

The Paroli

The Paroli is simple and a lot of people like it. It has existed since 16th century Italy where it was linked to a game called Basset. Now, people are using it for a lot of casino games such as blackjack, craps, and baccarat. 

It’s a form of positive betting system where you double your bet every time you win. The goal of this strategy is to win three times a row and go back to the start again in a cycle.

For example, you bet on the player hand with $10. Don’t stop until you win. After winning, double it to $20. When you lose, go back to the first step which is betting $10. Once you manage to win 3 times in a row, go back to the first step; easy as that.

Takeaway

Although baccarat appears to be a difficult game at first glance, it is actually quite simple to master. Not to mention playing baccarat online or in a brick-and-mortar casino, is a beginner-friendly game that you should master before moving on to other, far more sophisticated games. It’s simple and fast-paced, not to mention a lot of fun.