American Baccarat
American Baccarat played at Online Casino
American Baccarat – also commonly known as North-American Baccarat – is the form of baccarat most commonly played in casinos around the world today. In fact, if you’ve seen a baccarat game played in your favorite casino – online or live – chances are it’s the American Baccarat version of the game.
While baccarat is over 500 years old, the older forms of the game never really caught on in the United States. But in the 1950’s, a new version of baccarat – known as Punto Banco – was brought to Las Vegas casinos. Compared to other forms of baccarat, this new American Baccarat was simple to play, required players to make no strategic decisions, and allowed the casino to bank every hand, as is the custom with most modern casino games. The new game was a hit, and quickly spread around the world to become the dominant form of baccarat for casino gamblers.
How to Play American Baccarat?
A game of American Baccarat begins with the player making a wager on the outcome of the next hand. The player can predict that the banker hand will win, the player hand will win, or that the two hands will tie. In this game, the “player” hand isn’t controlled by the player; rather, the dealer controls both hands, and the designations are simply used for betting purposes, and in the rules of how each hand is played.
After all players make their bets, the dealer deals out two cards each for the player and banker hands. Hands are scored by adding up the point value of each card in the hand, and taking the final digit in that total; for instance, a hand with a total value of 14 is scored as 4. This means that the best possible hand is a 9, and the worst hand is a 0. Aces are worth one point, cards from 2-9 are worth their number value, and tens and face cards are worth 0.
In some cases, one or both hands may receive a third card. The dealer follows strict rules that determine how the banker and player will play their hands. The first rule is that if either hand is worth 8 or 9 points, neither hand will receive any more cards. Failing that, the player hand will take a third card if it is worth 5 points or less, and stand on a 6 or 7.
The banker hand follows more complex rules, partially determined by the action of the player. If the player stands, the banker will take a third card with 5 or less, and otherwise stand. However, if the player has taken a third card, the banker will follow a more complex chart, that looks as follows:
- Banker score of 0-2: The banker will always hit.
- Banker score of 3: The banker will hit unless the player’s third card was an 8.
- Banker score of 4: The banker will hit if the player’s third card was 2-7.
- Banker score of 5: The banker will hit if the player’s third card was 4-7.
- Banker score of 6: The banker will hit if the player’s third card was 6-7.
- Banker score of 7: The banker will always stand.
After any third cards are given, the hand with the higher score is the winner. If a bet on the player hand wins, that bet wins even money. If a bet on the banker hand wins, it also wins even money, minus a 5% “commission” taken by the house. Tie bets pay off at 8-1; in some casinos, ties may pay 9-1 instead.
American Baccarat Strategy
Since there are no decisions to be made by the player in American Baccarat, there isn’t much strategy beyond knowing which bets are the best for the player. Even with a 5% commission, the banker bet is still best, as the house edge there is just 1.06%. The player bet isn’t much worse, coming in with a house edge of 1.24%. The bet to steer clear of is the tie bet; there, the house edge is over 14%.
As you can see, players do not have an impact on the outcome of any hand in Baccarat. This is fairly different in other very popular form of gambling in the United States – online poker. In this game players compete against each other, not against the house as in Baccarat, thus they hold all the power and the outcome of any hand is strongly dependent on a combination of particular player’s skill as well as a little bit on luck. If you want to give poker a try, we would suggest giving the ones on the Online Baccarat frontpage a try. They accept customers from almost all countries and are quite generous when it comes to rewards.
Where To Play American Baccarat Online?
American Baccarat is definitely not uncommon, instead it actually is available at pretty much every online casino site out there.
Not only will you be able to play American Baccarat online, but when you join VegasParadise.com, you will also be able to Live dealer games and bet on sports. All of that from a single account. There also is no hassle with deposits and withdrawals, given that various prepaid cards and Western Union is accepted. Of course, credit cards are also there!
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