Baccarat is a popular casino game that is simple to play and easy to understand. It has a rich history, with rumours that it originated in 15th-century Italy before it certainly exploded in popularity in 19th-century France.
If you’ve ever seen baccarat offered at a casino, whether it’s baccarat online or in a land-based casino, it’s probably Punto Banco which is being played. If you’re looking to get into this game, then it’s advised to learn how to play Punto Banco before the other variants.
There are three major variants of baccarat: Punto Banco, baccarat chemin de fer, and baccarat banque (or à deux tableaux). All three of these have a Player and a Banker, and three possible outcomes. Either the Player wins, the Banker wins or it’s a Tie.
How to play Punto Banco
Before we start looking at different strategies, you need to understand the basics of how to play a round of Punto Banco, which is also called a coup. Punto Banco is a game played between the customer and the croupier, where the customer manages the Player hand and the croupier is the Banker.
Before dealing the cards
First, you need to pick which table you’re going to sit at. If you’re playing Punto Banco online, then you need to pick which game or live dealer you want to play with.
Once the game begins, you’ll pick whether you want to bet on the Punto (the Player) or the Banco (the Banker, or dealer).
Dealing the cards
After the bets are placed, the croupier will deal two hands - one for the Punto and one for the Banco. If there are multiple people sitting at a table, then he will deal a Punto hand to each person, starting from the player on his left.
Once everyone has their hands, the dealer will then turn their cards over and begin calculating the points.
Figuring out the points
The aim of the game is to get as close as possible to a total of 9.
An ace is classed as a 1 and face cards are 10.
Once you go over a total of 10, you ignore the first digit and count the second one only. So if you score 12, you actually score 2. If you score 17, you score 7.
If the Punto or Banco has a total score of 8 or 9, then its a natural win and no further action is taken.
If both hands have the same score, then it’s considered a tie.
Drawing extra cards
If you have an initial total of less than 5, you can request a third card.
The dealer will also have a chance to draw an extra card, depending on the totals on the table. This can be a little confusing, so we made this table to help to explain.
|
If the Player Hand totals: |
Then the player acts this way: |
|
0-4 |
The player will always draw another card. |
|
5 |
The player will have the decision to draw or stand. |
|
6-7 |
The player will stand. |
|
8-9 |
The player announces the natural win. |
If the player DOES NOT draw a third card, then the banker will do the following:
|
If the Banker Hand totals: |
Then the banker acts this way: |
|
0-5 |
The banker will draw. |
|
6-7 |
The banker will stand. |
|
8-9 |
The banker announces the natural win. |
However, if the player DOES draw a third card, then the following table comes into play.
|
If the Banker Hand totals: |
Then the banker acts this way: |
|
0-2 |
The banker always draws here |
|
3 |
The banker draws here, unless the player has already gotten an 8, then the banker stands. |
|
4 |
If the Player Hand is 2-7, then the banker draws here. Otherwise, the banker stands. |
|
5 |
If the Player Hand is 4-7, then the banker draws here. Otherwise, the banker stands. |
|
6 |
If the Player Hand is 6-7, then the banker draws here. Otherwise, the banker stands. |
|
7 |
The banker always stands here |
|
8-9 |
The banker gets a natural win. |
Paying out the winners
Once the winners have been decided, they’ll be paid out according to the paytable. If you predict the winning hand, then you can typically expect to be paid out 2:1.
Winning Punto Banco strategies
While Punto Banco is purely a game of chance, there are always strategies you can learn which might make your time at the table a little easier.
It’s particularly important to have some knowledge of strategies if you’re a beginner, because these will give you some kind of direction while learning how to play.
Betting on the Banco
Despite both hands being completely random, the Banker’s hand has a slight odds advantage.
The Punto hand has a house edge of 1.24%, while the Banco bet is 1.06%. However, to counteract this, you will have to pay a 5% commission if you win a Banco bet. A tie has a house edge of 14.4%, so stay clear of this bet!
If you don’t want to bet on the banker, whether that’s due to your own Punto ego or just because you don’t want to pay the Banco commission on winning hands, it might be worth learning the table above that dealers use when running the game. This will help when calculating points and the risk of overshooting that golden number nine.
Set a budget and stick to it
This might seem obvious, but with such a low house edge in baccarat, it’s easy to get carried away. Whether this is from chasing losses or being lured in by the low house edge, it’s always advised to bet responsibly and manage your bankroll as strictly as you can.
Understanding Punto Banco terminology
If you’re struggling to understand what baccarat is all about, and why there’s a coup involved, then we have a full baccarat terminology guide on the website too.
