How to Play Baccarat: Rules, Third-Card Tableau and Dealer Procedures

Baccarat looks busy from across the pit: a long table, a shoe of cards, racks of chips and a dealer who handles every part of the round. In Punto Banco, the version this guide covers first, you never touch the cards and never decide whether to hit. You put a bet on Player, Banker or Tie before the deal, and the tableau settles the rest.

We first published this guide in 2024 around dealer procedures – the shuffle, the cut, the burn, the announcement of totals. It has since grown into the full rule set: card values, third-card rules, payouts, commission, and what the Online Casino Gambling Regulations 2026 require a licensed site to show you before your first play. If you are a beginner, the five steps below are enough to follow a real table.

How to play baccarat in five steps

A round takes well under a minute once the shoe is running, and five steps cover all of it. We keep it short on purpose, because most of what gets filed under baccarat rules is the tableau applied in order.

Choose your bet. Before a card leaves the shoe, you wager on Player, Banker or Tie. Player and Banker are the names of the two hands, and you are betting on which finishes closer to 9. Some tables add side bets on top of those three.
Two cards each. The cards are dealt Player-Banker-Player-Banker. Two cards per hand is the starting position, face down at a big table, face up at a small one.
Look for a natural. A total of 8 or 9 from those first two cards ends the round. Nothing else is dealt.
Let the tableau work. With no natural on the table, the third-card rules decide whether either hand draws. The dealer applies them without asking anyone, so you play the game and watch.
Settle up. Winners are paid, losers collected, and the dealer takes the 5% commission off a winning Banker bet.

That is the whole game of baccarat in outline. Everything below is detail you can pick up at your own pace.

Card values and totals

Face cards and tens are worth nothing. The Ace counts 1, cards 2 through 9 keep their printed value, and 10, Jack, Queen and King all count 0. Add the cards in a hand and keep the last digit of the sum: a 7 and an 8 make 15, which counts as 5. Three cards work the same way.

Suppose the Player hand holds a 9 and a 4. That is 13, so the hand’s worth is 3. A banker hand holding a picture card and a 6 is worth 6. Neither total is a natural, so the third-card rules below decide what happens next.

Each hand starts with two cards and only two. A total of eight or nine from those two cards is a natural, and a natural beats any three-card total. Two naturals of equal value produce a tie.

The third-card rules

This is the part players skip and then ask about later. The Player hand acts first and its rule is short: draw a third card on 0 to 5, stand on 6 or 7.

If the Player hand stands on 6 or 7, the banker hand uses the same rule – draw on 0 to 5, stand on 6 or 7. The case that needs a chart is when the Player hand does draw. Then the banker hand acts on its own total plus the Player’s third card:

0, 1 or 2: always draws a third card.
3: draws unless the Player’s third card is an 8.
4: draws if the Player’s third card is a 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7.
5: draws if it is a 4, 5, 6 or 7.
6: draws if it is a 6 or 7.
7: stands.

One example: Player stands on 7 and banker holds 4, so the banker hand draws, because it draws on 0 to 5. If Player holds 2, draws a 3 and finishes on 5, a banker total of 4 still draws, since the Player’s third card falls between 2 and 7. Both baccarat hands then hold three cards and the higher total wins.

The banker hand never draws on 7 and never receives a third card on a natural. Dealers know the tableau by heart, and the software behind an online table runs the same lines every round. You can learn it or ignore it, since both will apply it for you.

Payouts, commission and house edge

There are three bets in baccarat and each is priced differently. Player pays 1:1 and carries a house edge of 1.24% on a game dealt from eight decks. Banker pays 1:1 minus a 5% commission on the win, with a house edge of 1.06%. Tie usually pays 8:1, which reads generously until you reach the house edge of 14.36%. When a round ends in a tie, Player and Banker bets push and your stake comes back.

The tie bet is the weakest option on the table, and the arithmetic says so: 14.36% is more than thirteen times the edge on a banker bet. Players take it for the 8:1 payout, and the price of that payout is how often a tie lands. Banker winning more often is the reason the commission exists at all – the table takes 5% back on each winning bet to bring the two main bets close together.

Six decks and eight decks are both common, and the figures above are the eight-deck ones. Multiply your average wager by the house edge and you get the expected cost of a round, which grows with the number of rounds you sit through.

What the dealer does

In Punto Banco the dealer runs the whole shoe. It opens with a shuffle, then a cut made by a player or by the dealer, and a cut card marks the end of the shoe. Many casinos burn a few cards at the start before the first hand is dealt.

The deal runs Player-Banker-Player-Banker, one card at a time, and the dealer announces each total as it lands. The tableau gets applied without input from the table, winners are paid, and the 5% commission comes off a winning banker bet. Your only job is to have your bet placed before the first card leaves the shoe.

One dealer, or a bank that rotates

Two formats sit either side of Punto Banco, and they change who holds the bank and who gets a decision in the round. One is quicker, the other hands you a choice the standard version never gives you.

The mini version: one dealer, face-up cards

Mini-baccarat uses a single dealer, a smaller table and faster rounds, with cards dealt face up by the dealer. If you are still picking up the basic rules, the small table is the easier place to watch a few rounds.

Chemin de Fer: the bank moves

Players take turns holding the bank, and the banker role passes around the table from hand to hand. Players may choose whether to draw on a total of 5, a decision Punto Banco removes entirely. If every game of baccarat you have seen followed the dealer’s script, this format will feel like a different card game for the first few rounds.

Live studio tables, software deals and what a bonus is worth

Online baccarat comes in two shapes. A live table has a dealer in a studio dealing from a shoe on camera while bets are placed on screen, so the shuffle, the cut and the tableau are visible in real time. An RNG table uses software to deal and runs the same rules, which suits players who want a faster loop or a smaller wager. Our live dealer casinos page explains how the studio tables work.

Bonus terms are the part most punters skim. SpinCity and XON count live roulette and live blackjack at 10% towards wagering and other table games at nothing. QuickWin counts table and card games at 0% and live games at 10%. If you plan to clear a bonus on baccarat, note that the contribution on those three brands is small or zero, so the playthrough stays where it is until you play something that counts. Our wagering calculator shows the real figure, and current offers sit on the bonuses page.

Picking the best online table comes down to what a site publishes: the rules, the odds and the RTP, shown before your first play. That is also the standard the law now sets.

What the regulations require before your first play

Under the Online Casino Gambling Regulations 2026, a licensed casino must show the rules, the odds and the RTP before the first play and must say whether your opponent is a human or a computer (reg 22). Baccarat is named in the Act as a casino table game, so an online casino running it sits inside those disclosure duties. The framework is covered in our gambling law section.

Baccarat at New Zealand Casinos

Christchurch Casino deals Midi Baccarat, played as a “squeeze” game where players handle and turn the cards or as a “non-squeeze” game where the dealer turns them, plus Rapid Baccarat; its invitation-only Premium Lounge has high-limit baccarat. SkyCity Queenstown publishes a play guide for Tiger Baccarat, and Grand Casino Dunedin and SkyCity Auckland both run baccarat tables. You must be 20 or over to enter; see our guide to New Zealand casinos.

Questions players ask

Is it better to bet on Banker or Player?

On the numbers, Banker. The house edge is 1.06% against 1.24% for Player on eight decks, so the banker bet is the cheaper one across a long run of rounds. The gap is small, and the 5% commission means a winning banker bet returns less than a winning Player bet at the same stake. Plenty of players bet on the banker for that difference; plenty ignore it. Neither choice changes the tableau.

Why does the Banker bet pay commission?

Banker wins slightly more often than Player across a long shoe, and the 5% commission is how the table keeps the Banker edge at 1.06% while paying 1:1 on a win. So a winning banker bet pays less than a winning Player bet at the same stake, and the two house edges end up close together.

Can you count cards in baccarat?

You can track a shoe, but it changes little here. A game uses six or eight decks, a cut card near the end marks the last hand, and many tables burn cards at the start. The tableau settles every round, so what you think you know about the remaining cards never turns into a decision you can act on. Counting gets more airtime in blackjack, where your own decisions change the result; our roulette guide explains why betting systems do not move the house edge either.

If you want to learn how to play baccarat, start at a small table and watch two or three rounds before your first bet. The rules of baccarat hold across every variant, and the tableau does the thinking either way.