Day: January 12, 2025
Baccarat – The Game of Choice for High Rollers
Baccarat is often seen as a casino’s game of choice for high rollers. It’s also an important revenue driver for many operators, bringing in healthy mass and premium segment play. But as the casino customer base shifts, does this once-reserved game have staying power? We asked GGB contributor and gaming industry consultant Bill Zender to share his thoughts. Zender has witnessed baccarat’s growth firsthand throughout his 40-plus year career in the gambling industry. In his opinion, the game has benefited from Asian high-rollers’ cultural preferences. The popularity of baccarat has generated variations, such as Mini and Side Bets, but its essentials remain the same. A bettor places his bet on either the Player or Banker hand, then waits as two cards are dealt to each. Ultimately, the hand that totals closest to nine wins. The values of the two cards are added together, and the second digit is dropped (for example, a seven and a six would total thirteen; it’s dropped to a three). The Player and Banker hands each pay out 1:1 if they win. A 5% commission is charged on winning Banker bets, which is collected by the dealer and tracked in the Banker’s box. One of the reasons that baccarat has grown in popularity is that it’s a relatively simple game to understand. It’s played with six decks of cards, shuffled together and then arranged into a shoe. Players are seated in a random order around the table; play begins to the right of the croupier and continues counterclockwise. The croupier then deals a card to each of the Player and Banker boxes, with the Banker hand having the lower house edge. In baccarat, the game’s integrity is paramount. The standard procedure for introducing eight new cards into the game is to have each card inspected, backs and faces, by both the floor supervisor and the dealer. The cards are then scrambled or “washed,” and finally grouped together and loaded into the shoe. A number of casinos have gone to manufactured pre-shuffled cards in an attempt to speed up this process. However, most that have tried this process have reverted to the traditional procedure because of labor costs and the security that the cards provide. Another element of baccarat’s integrity is that the croupier never reveals the cards to players. This is done to prevent them from peeking at the cards, and it’s why a baccarat dealer is so well-dressed. The only exception to this is when an error occurs during a hand; in such cases, the mistaken card is set aside and used for the next hand, without bets being placed on it. This is similar to the error-reporting procedures used in blackjack.
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