Please let me, George the Baccarat-Guru, welcome you to my page where I’ll discuss how to play baccarat. By now you know me well enough to know that I won’t steer you wrong when it comes to baccarat knowledge. I’ve got a lot of experience behind me, and I’m here to share the “wealth” with all my faithful students. If you want to know how to play baccarat, you’re definitely in the right place.
One of the first things you should know about when learning how to play baccarat is about the table it’s played on. When you visit a casino, you’ll find that the full baccarat tables are in an area that’s separate from the rest of the casino. It’s set aside for the high rollers, where the bet minimums can be $50-$100 per hand, and the table limits can be as high as $100,000!
If you want to know how to play baccarat, first you have to know all about the table. This picture shows a traditional full baccarat table.
You’ll see there are numbered spots up to 15, but if you count, there's only room for 14 players. That’s because #13 has been left out for the same reason that lots of tall buildings don’t have a 13th floor (bad luck). On some tables in Asian countries, the 4th position is left out because of the close association this number has with their word for death.
On a full table, three dealers work at the game; similar to Craps. Two Dealers (#1 & #3) stand on one side of the table and they take care of the player's bets on their end of the table. The Caller (#5) stands in the semicircle cut-out opposite the dealers, and makes the calls on the hands and directs the game in general. Now take note that none of the dealers actually deals the cards! If you’ve read my baccarat rules page, you’ll already know a bit about how to play baccarat, and you might remember that the players take turns dealing, so (and you can bet on this!) the casino really needs to pay strict attention to what’s going on.
That leaves #2, which is the Discard Slot (for cards that have been in play); #4 - the Drop Box, where bets won by the house are stored, and #6 - the Tips Slot, where tips for the dealers and caller are put.
And see that row of numbered rectangles across from the caller? That’s where the dealers keep track of the commission on the winning banker bets. They’ve got to do everything they can to make things easy on themselves!
Now, when you are learning how to play baccarat, you need to understand what you see on the table when you want to place your bet. The table layout is really simple and easy to get the hang of. Since there are only 3 bets in baccarat (banker, player and tie), the table is simply laid out as well. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the best part of learning how to play baccarat; the rules are so simple! Each spot at the table has three betting areas that go with it. You’ll see Banker spelled out across one row of betting areas, and below that, Player is spelled out. The small yellow-numbered areas at the top are for betting that the Banker and the Player will tie. And if you read my baccarat tips page, you’ll know this is not a very good choice for a bet, because the odds are definitely stacked against you.
I could go on a bit more on this page, but I’ve already gone over most of the aspects of learning how to play baccarat on my baccarat rules page, so you can go there to see how the dealing goes, and how to count the hands and so on. So by now you’re well on your way along the Guru’s path of gambling knowledge and nearly ready to hit the casinos. But don’t go quite yet, there’s still lots of information on my site to share with you. Continue to look around and get as much as you can from my site and please don’t forget to enjoy yourself!
