Unlike most casino card games, Baccarat allows participants to choose which side of the table to bet on: the Player’s hand or the Banker’s hand. The goal is to correctly predict which hand will contain the cards that are closest to nine points in total. Successful bets even pay money (1:1) and Tie pushes. It couldn’t be much easier. Until the advent of the internet and online gaming, Baccarat could only be enjoyed at multiplayer tables in land-based casinos. Many of them offered stakes so high that they excluded all but the wealthiest patrons. In the late 20th century, Mini Baccarat became the version of choice for rank and file players, and that was the form of the game that began to appear on websites as a single-player option in the 1990s.
Playtech, for example, has always offered a very simple online platform with realistic graphics and sound. There are options to set bet amounts from one to three hundred units. The game starts by betting a bet on the player or banker to win. Tie bets are also allowed, paying 9 to 1. The player and banker positions receive two cards, they are dealt face up. The sum of the numbers on the cards determines the value of the hand, with Aces counting as one point, the face value of 2~9, and all “face” cards (King, Queen, Jack) counted as zero.
If the total of the two cards is less than ten, that is the value of the hand, such as 3-5 is worth eight points or A-K is worth one point. If the total is more than ten, only the last digit is counted as the value of the hand, as 5-9 is worth four points (not fourteen) and 3-8 is worth one point (not eleven). Hands that add up to exactly ten are worth zero, known as baccarat, from which the game’s name is derived. Both the player and the banker may have the opportunity to draw an additional card in an attempt to improve the value of their hands. In most online versions of the game, whether or not the draw is determined by the standard Baccarat Rules automatically, then there are really no options for the online player to make, other than which hand to bet on and how much to bet.
If both hands have the same value, the result is called “equal” or a tie. When a tie occurs, player and banker bets are returned as a “push” and tie bets win. Tied bets lose, however, whenever the final result of the hand is not a tie. The House Edge is incorporated into the game’s payouts. Successful bets on the Player’s hand pay even money, with a Chamber margin of 1.36%. Winning bets on the banker’s hand also pay out even money, but they are charged a 5% commission, equivalent to a net house edge of 1.17%. Although the Ties pay 9 to 1, the true odds are closer to 19 to 2, which again gives the House its edge.
Since then, Playtech has added a multiplayer mode that allows private games to be created for friends to meet or for players to join tables where games are already in progress. A chat function allows communication with another player.