Baccarat is a casino game that has become more widely available in casinos as high rollers have moved away from blackjack and other table games. The game is easy to learn, and despite the fact that players can lose more money than they bet, it is an exciting and rewarding gambling experience. It is also a great way to spend time with friends and family. Baccarat can be found at many online and land-based casinos, and you don’t have to be a millionaire to play. You can even find a table for only a few hundred dollars at some casinos.
In the past, baccarat was only played in a special area of a casino’s high roller pit. It was a game where the highest bets were placed, with customers ranging from the average $20 minimum player all the way up to the “whales” who would challenge the dealer to a freeze-out bet that would last until the player lost or won $12 million. One example of this occurred when Akio Kashiwagi took a bet for $12 million and refused to quit until either the banker won or he was dead.
The glitz and glamour of baccarat made it a game for the elite. The dealers wore white gloves and were typically dressed in evening gowns or tuxedos. The tables are large and roped off from the rest of the casino, and the games are played with real cash, or high-denomination chips that resemble $100 bills. In American casinos, the money is spread out on the table, while European casinos use oblong chips.
A baccarat player’s goal is to get as close to 9 points as possible. The game uses 8 decks of cards, with Aces being worth 1 point, and 10s and face cards counting as zero. Once all bets have been placed, the dealer will deal two cards to each hand. The player and banker bets will have different payouts if the winner is the one with the closest total to 9. There is a third bet, the tie, that pays off eight to one if both the player and banker hands equal the same total, but it has a much higher house edge than the player or banker bet.
The game has been popularized by a number of films, most famously in the 1964 James Bond film Casino Royal, where Bond plays the game in a posh casino in Monte Carlo with Le Chiffre and his wife, Dame Eva Peron. It has been featured in several other Bond movies, including Thunderball; Dr. No; On Her Majesty’s Secret Service; For Your Eyes Only; and GoldenEye. In addition, it has been a popular casino game for celebrities like George Clooney, who is often seen in Las Vegas playing baccarat with his girlfriend Amal. In fact, the baccarat game has been so popular that a number of celebrities have opened their own baccarat clubs in Las Vegas. These clubs feature a full-scale baccarat table with high-rollers sitting in a private room, with the tables separated from the rest of the casino.