Best Baccarat Casinos 2025

Baccarat Basics

Baccarat is a card game played between dealer and player, with quite a strict set of rules. There are three variants of baccarat- punto banco, baccarat chemin de fer and baccarat banque. The typical version played by most casinos and online casinos is punto banco, also called ‘North American baccarat’.

Punto banco baccarat is purely a game of chance. There is no skill element involved, as the outcome of each game is decided by the cards as they are revealed. There is a list of rules which the game must follow, a kind of automated program. With each round or ‘coup’, either the player or banker will win, or there will be a tie.

The cards in baccarat have a point value, with the cards 2 to 9 having their usual value, tens, jacks and queen are worth 0 points and aces are worth 1. If double figures are reached by adding cards together, the rightmost value is used, so a 13 becomes a 3. This means the maximum is 9. The term ‘punto’ refers to the player and ‘banco’ the banker, but these designations are not literally controlled by player and dealer, they are just representatives of the rules. With each coup, two cards are dealt to player and banker with the hopes of getting a total of 8 or 9. Should no resolution be found, more cards are dealt according to strict rules.

Baccarat is not quite as common as other online casino games, but the best casinos will host at least one version. These can vary slightly in rules and appearance.

Improving your chances is difficult with baccarat, since the base punto banco game does not have any player input. However, there are players who swear by using certain betting strategies which help to control how much is being risked. For example, the 1-3-2-4 strategy is recommended, but as with any, there’s no guarantee of success and players must still be willing to risk all money wagered.

The strategy is simple- place the first bet, if it succeeds then place the second. Continue up to the fourth. If a bet fails at any point, start again from the first. The first bet is a single unit, so this might be a bet of $/€5.

The second bet is three units, so this would be $/€15. The third is two units, therefore $/€10. The fourth is four units, which is $/€20 in this example. The idea is that if the first two bets land, even if the third fails, the player has a profit.

When playing chemin de fer, the generally agreed strategy is to hit on a score of 0 to 4 and stand on a 6 and 7. On a 5, the player can essentially play at random.