Baccarat has a lot to offer the casino-goer. It’s a game with an alluring history that stretches from Italy to France, and now to Asia and the US. It has a Bond-dipped mystique, and it oozes with elegance and ritual. Baccarat also has a relatively low house edge of 1-1.5 percent. And, unlike blackjack, it’s not a zero-sum game, where a player’s losses can affect other players’ bets.

While baccarat is a game of chance, there are several strategies that can help players improve their chances of winning. One of these strategies involves using a betting system to manage your bankroll and approach the game with a more structured plan. Another technique is to track the outcome of past hands. Although the outcome of each hand has no impact on future outcomes, keeping track of previous wins and losses for both the player and banker will allow you to adjust your bets accordingly.

In addition to the standard bets on Player and Banker, players can place a Super Six bet, which pays out 12:1 if the player’s hand totals six points or more. Alternatively, a Pair Bet pays 8:1 if the player’s hand is dealt a pair of matching cards. These bets are made alongside the initial bet and must win to receive a payout.

The game itself dates back 700 years, though it may have spun off from pai gow, an ancient Chinese tile game that Marco Polo brought to Europe via his travels in the 13th century. It’s also believed that baccarat evolved from a variant of the popular European card game, chemin de fer. In any case, it gained immense popularity in the Middle East and then spread to Asia.

When a game of baccarat begins, the dealer will deal each hand two cards, face up or face down. The value of the cards is determined by their numbers and the values of the suited and unsuited suits that they belong to. For instance, a 9 and a 7 have the highest value while an 8 has the lowest. The total of the cards in each hand is then added to determine the hand’s overall value. If the total is closer to nine, the hand wins.

Although many players are confused about the rules of baccarat, it is actually one of the easiest games to understand in the casino. Despite the game’s reputation as an exotic and high-roller’s favorite, baccarat is very easy to learn. The rules are simple: you bet on either the player or the banker and the hand that gets closest to a number (9 counts as 0, picture cards and 10s count as zero, and aces count as one) wins. There are a few other rules to know, however, before you play. The first of these is that the game cannot be tied.