How to Play Baccarat: Rules, Odds and the Third-Card Rule

On this page

1. What is baccarat, and why are there no decisions?
2. How does a round of baccarat play out?
3. How are cards counted in baccarat?
4. How does the baccarat third-card rule work?
5. Banker, Player or Tie: which bet is best in baccarat?
6. Are baccarat side bets and roadmaps worth your attention?
7. Live baccarat: speed, squeeze and cost per hour
8. Common baccarat mistakes
9. Frequently asked questions

Baccarat (punto banco) is a card game where you bet on whether the Player hand or the Banker hand will finish closer to 9, or on a Tie. The cards are dealt by fixed rules, so you make no decisions after betting. The best bet is Banker, which carries a house edge of about 1.06% after the 5% commission.

Baccarat has a reputation for being the posh game in the roped-off corner, and the high table maximums do nothing to change that. Underneath the reputation it is one of the simplest games in any casino. You pick a side, the dealer follows a printed rulebook, and the result arrives in a few seconds. There is no skill to master and nothing to get wrong once the chips are down.

That simplicity is also why it is worth understanding properly. The drawing rules look intimidating, the scorecards and coloured roadmaps look like they mean something, and the side bets look tempting. Below you will find how a round works, how the third-card rules actually play out, what each bet really costs, and which parts of the table are noise.

What is baccarat, and why are there no decisions?

The version you will meet at almost every online casino and most land-based tables is punto banco. Two hands are dealt: one called Player (punto) and one called Banker (banco). Despite the names, you are not the player and the casino is not the banker. They are simply two labels, and you can bet on either.

Your only choice is where to put your chips before the deal: Player, Banker or Tie. After that, every card is drawn according to fixed rules. Nobody at the table decides whether to hit or stand, which separates baccarat sharply from blackjack, where your decisions change the house edge. In baccarat, the edge is set entirely by which bet you choose.

Older versions such as chemin de fer let players make some drawing choices, but those are rare today and are not covered here. If a table says “baccarat” online, it is punto banco unless the rules screen says otherwise.

How does a round of baccarat play out?

A round moves quickly, and it always follows the same sequence.

1. Place your bet. During the betting window you put chips on Player, Banker, Tie, or any side bets the table offers. Once betting closes, nothing else is in your hands.
2. Two cards each. The dealer gives two cards to Player and two to Banker, alternating, starting with Player.
3. Check for a natural. If either hand has a two-card total of 8 or 9, both hands stand and the round is settled immediately.
4. Player’s third card. If there is no natural, Player draws a third card on a total of 0 to 5 and stands on 6 or 7.
5. Banker’s third card. Banker then draws or stands according to its own rule, which depends on its total and, if Player drew, on the value of Player’s third card.
6. Settle. The hand closer to 9 wins. Equal totals are a Tie. Winning bets are paid and the next round starts.

A quick example. Player is dealt 3 and 2, a total of 5, so Player draws and receives a 6. That makes 11, which counts as 1. Banker holds a King and a 4, a total of 4. Because Player’s third card was a 6, Banker draws, receives a 3 and finishes on 7. Banker wins, 7 against 1.

How are cards counted in baccarat?

Card values are simple. Aces count as 1, cards 2 to 9 count at face value, and 10s, Jacks, Queens and Kings all count as zero. To get a hand total, add the cards and keep only the last digit. So 7 and 8 make 15, which counts as 5. A hand can never go bust, and the highest possible total is 9.

The zero-value cards are what trip people up at first. A King and a Jack together are not a strong hand; they are the worst possible total. Once that clicks, reading the table becomes automatic.

How does the baccarat third-card rule work?

When does the Player draw a third card?

The Player rule is the easy one, and it is worth learning first because the Banker rule depends on it.

• Either hand has a natural (8 or 9): nobody draws. The round ends there.
• Player has 0 to 5: Player draws one card.
• Player has 6 or 7: Player stands.

Player never takes more than one extra card, and neither does Banker. The maximum in any hand is three cards.

The Banker third-card rule

This is the part that looks like tax law. In practice you never need to memorise it, because the dealer or the software applies it for you. Still, knowing how it works explains why Banker wins slightly more often, and it stops you second-guessing the dealer.

If Player stood with two cards, Banker follows the same rule as Player: draw on 0 to 5, stand on 6 or 7. If Player drew a third card, Banker’s decision depends on two things: Banker’s own total and the value of Player’s third card.

In the table, a third card of “0” means a 10, Jack, Queen or King. Banker totals of 8 and 9 do not appear because they are naturals and the round would already be over.

There is a logic to it. Player’s third card gives Banker information about where Player probably finished. A Player third card of 6 or 7 often lifts a weak Player hand into a decent total, so a Banker sitting on 6 takes another card to try to catch up. A Player third card of 8 or 9 often leaves Player on a poor total, so Banker on 4 or higher stands against either, and Banker on 3 stands against an 8. Banker acts second and acts on that information, and that is where its small advantage comes from.

Banker, Player or Tie: which bet is best in baccarat?

On a standard 8-deck game, the long-run results look like this: Banker wins about 45.86% of hands, Player about 44.62%, and about 9.52% end in a Tie. When a Tie lands, Banker and Player bets are usually returned (a push), which is why the house edge on those two bets is so low.

You can check the edges with simple arithmetic per unit staked. On Player: win 0.4462, lose 0.4586, so the expected result is about minus 0.0124, or 1.24%. On Banker: win 0.4586 x 0.95 = 0.4357, lose 0.4462, so the result is about minus 0.0105, which matches the published 1.06% once rounding is allowed for. On a Tie at 8 to 1: win 0.0952 x 8 = 0.7616, lose 0.9048 (every non-Tie hand), giving about minus 0.143, roughly 14.4% once the rounding in the published percentages is allowed for. At 9 to 1 the win becomes 0.8568, and the edge falls to about 4.8%.

The practical answer is short. Banker is the cheapest bet on the table, Player is a close second, and the gap between them is less than a fifth of a percentage point. The Tie is a different animal. At 8 to 1 it costs more than thirteen times as much as Banker per unit staked. Even at 9 to 1 it is still more than four times as expensive. For comparison, a single-zero roulette wheel carries a 2.70% edge, so both main baccarat bets are among the cheaper bets in a casino.

Why does Banker pay a 5% commission?

Because Banker would otherwise be a bet the casino loses money on. Banker acts second and draws according to what Player’s third card was, so it wins more often than Player: about 45.86% against 44.62%. If Banker paid a straight 1 to 1, the player would have the edge on that bet.

The commission fixes that. On a winning Banker bet of 10 units you are paid 9.50 rather than 10. That small trim turns Banker from a player-favoured bet into one with a 1.06% house edge, which is still slightly cheaper than Player. Many players dislike paying the commission on principle and switch to Player, which is understandable but costs them a little more in the long run. The commission is already built into the 1.06% figure; you are not paying it on top.

No-commission baccarat

Plenty of online and live tables advertise “no commission”. The casino has not given anything away. Instead, the rules change one specific Banker outcome so that the commission is collected another way. The two common versions work like this.

So “no commission” can be slightly worse or slightly better than the classic game, depending on which rule the table uses. The difference per hand is small, but it is real. Always open the rules or help screen before you sit down, and read exactly what happens to a Banker win.

Are baccarat side bets and roadmaps worth your attention?

Are baccarat side bets worth it?

Side bets are where baccarat stops being a cheap game. The most common are Player Pair and Banker Pair, which win if the first two cards of the chosen hand form a pair. In an 8-deck game they typically pay 11 to 1, and their house edge is around 10% or more. That is roughly ten times the cost of a Banker bet.

Other side bets come and go by provider: bets on the size of the winning margin, on whether the hands total a particular number, on specific card combinations. The payouts are always headline-friendly, and each game publishes its own paytable and return figures in the help screen. If you choose to play one, treat it as a small entertainment cost rather than part of a plan, and keep the stake small relative to your main bet.

Do baccarat roadmaps and patterns work?

No. They are a record, not a forecast.

Most baccarat tables, live or land-based, show a set of scorecards: the bead plate, the big road and its derived roads, filled with coloured circles and streaks. They are attractive and they make the game look like it rewards study. Players fill in paper scorecards at land-based tables, and a common sight at live tables is a chat full of people calling the next “streak”.

The cards do not know what happened before. Each hand is dealt from the shoe by fixed rules, and the past results on the board do not change the chances of the next one in any useful way. A run of six Bankers does not make Player “due”, and it does not make Banker “hot”. The probabilities stay at roughly 45.86% Banker, 44.62% Player and 9.52% Tie on every hand.

The same goes for betting systems. Doubling after a loss, following the shoe, betting against the last result or any progression changes how much you bet and when. It does not change the house edge on each bet, so it cannot turn a negative-expectation game into a positive one. What a progression does change is the size of your bets after a bad run, which is exactly when you least want them to grow.

Live baccarat: speed, squeeze and cost per hour

Baccarat is popular in live casino lobbies, particularly with players in Asia and with high-limit players, and tables often have high maximums. The base game is identical to the one described above, but the variants differ in pace and presentation.

Common baccarat mistakes

Frequently asked questions