Baccarat is one of those casino games that’s incredibly easy to learn, good on the bankroll, but played by few. Why is this? Did you know that betting on the Banker in Baccarat is the best bet you could make in the casino? Probably not. Most people don’t and perhaps that’s why most people don’t play Baccarat. It’s foreign to them.

Here’s how simple Baccarat is. Each hand there’s three possible outcomes.

1. The Banker Wins.
2. The Player Wins.
3. Tie

As a player, you bet either Banker or Player. That’s it. You don’t have to know anything else to win and have fun playing Baccarat. Of course, it will be good if you understand the game more. As I mentioned earlier, betting on the Banker is the best bet in the casino. The house advantage is just 1.06% and that’s absolutely amazing.

Quick Layout Guide

The layout is pretty darn simple. You have a space for the Banker’s cards, a place for the Player’s cards, bank commission, your betting area and that’s it.

When the hand is about to start, you make a bet on either the Banker or Player and the Tie if you wish.

Payout

In Baccarat, winning bets on the Banker or the Player are paid even money, so a $10 wager is paid $10. And the ties are paid 8 to 1, so a $10 wager is paid $80.

One important note is the vig. All wins on the Banker, since that hand has a slight edge, is taxed a vig of 5%. If you win $5, you’d pay 25 cents as a vig.

Action

Keeping it simple, here’s how it goes. First, you and all other players make their wagers. You then sit back as the dealer does all the card work.

The Player and Banker hands each receive two cards. The Player is the first to act, which is why the Banker has a slight edge. If the Player is going to act, that hand is given one card. In Baccarat, each hand can have a maximum of three cards. Also, each decision is based on defined rules.

Next, the Banker takes a turn. Depending on what the Player has, the Banker will either stand or receive a card. Finally, all losing bets are collected and winning bets are paid.

Tracking the Game

If you’re playing in the real world, most tables provide tracking paper and writing instruments. Online Baccarat may have this built into the software. It’s a good idea to track hands, so you can pick up on trends.

Baccarat is one game where I’ll actually follow trends and then bet against them. Either way you play, Baccarat is a fun game with a nice, low house advantage. Give it a try!

All games of video poker can be played with one to five coins and as a player you have to make that choice. If you want to play with one coin click the coin symbol once, if you want to play with two coins click the coin symbol twice and so on. Some machines have a separate symbol for 5 coins that can be activated by a single click, because all good players always play with five coins.

If you look at the payout table for any video poker game you will see that it has five columns. The first column gives the payout if the player has wagered one coin; the second column gives the payout if the player has wagered two coins and so on. Let us consider a payout table for a simple video poker game called jacks or better. The payout begins with jacks or better with one coin for one coin wagered and five coins for five coins wagered. The second highest payout is for straight flush, which is fifty coins for one coin wagered and two hundred and fifty coins for five coins wagered.

The question that arises is if the payout is in proportion to the number of coins wagered how does it matter whether you wager one coin or five coins. The answer lies in the payout for the royal flush. The payout for one coin is 250 coins. In the same proportion the payout for wagering five coins should be 1250 coins. Look at the number for five coins for a royal flush. It is a whopping 4000 coins.

What do casinos gain by offering such a high payout? To understand this you must realize that video poker machines make money for the casino. Whereas individual players will win, over the day, month and year the total amount lost by players exceeds the total amount won by players. This is the reason why casinos exist. If the casino makes a net income of $X when players are wagering with 1 coin they will make $5X when players wager with 5 coins. Even after accounting for the occasional 4000 coin payouts the machine makes more money if players consistently wager with five coins. Hence the casino gives the attraction to players for always playing with 5 coins.

But why should you play with 5 coins if that makes more money for the casinos. You have nothing to lose, but something to gain. It is this high payout for a royal flush with 5 coins that gives a close to 100% return for the player. Playing with five coins instead of one will mean that your bankroll will get depleted faster. So play one-fifth the number of games and but play will five coins. Because if you hit a royal flush and you have wagered only one coin you will rue the day you were born.

If you are anything like me, as soon as websites start going on about anything that they refer to in abbreviation, for example RNG, I switch off and hope it’s not important. After all, if it was really important, or indeed understandable, they wouldn’t talk about it in code, right? Well, I got a bit of a shock when someone actually explained to me what RNG was - it’s really quite interesting, and useful: listen up!

RNG stands for Random Number Generation and it’s a technology that is used to imitate any other form of creating randomness like a shuffle or a dice throw. So, when a website tells you that they’re RNG is the best, they mean that they’re numbers are the most like a naturally randomly generated result, like me shuffling a deck. RNG, because it’s entirely computer reliant is also very safe as it isn’t susceptible to human corruption such as not being a good shuffler, or not giving a strong spin.

Now, in terms of slots this is really interesting. In the good old days there would be wheels inside the machine that would spin and give us a randomly generated result in the shape of images that lined up. Today however, our slot machines don’t have wheels, of course they don’t; apart from anything else they’re on line! So how do they create the results?

Most of our modern slots are categorized as ‘3 reel’, ‘5 reel’, or ‘7 reel’, but we’ve already said that there aren’t actually any reels, so what is this referring to. The modern slots have instead of physical reels, a sequence of images that may be displayed on virtual wheel. These sequences of images are far more numerous than was ever possible on slots with physical reels because there simply wasn’t enough space. On a video slot for instance, there may be a sequence of let’s say 147 possible positions which correspond to the symbols that appear on your screen. A computer using the RNG technology will spit out combination after combination of numbers. Each of these numbers will tell the virtual reel to go to the corresponding position on the virtual reel sequence. So, for example, on a 3 reel slot there will be 3 sets of sequences; each sequence will consist of 147 positions which in turn will be represented by a symbol on your screen. The RNG will spit out numbers, maybe 45, 98, and 138. The computer then knows to send the first reel to position 45 in its sequence, the second to 98 in its sequence, and the third to 138 in its sequence. This then gets represented on your screen with the spinning of a reel.

So now you now you know what RNG is and how they managed to fit all of those cherries into such a small space!

Did you know that not all Roulette games in the casino are created equal? How about that the game’s mechanics can change as you are playing? Yes, it’s true. If you’re going to play Roulette in the real world, there are some facts you need to know.

Walk around any Las Vegas casino and take a look at the Roulette tables. What’s the one thing that immediately stands out? Think for a minute. Got it? A different person is operating each Roulette game. So why does this matter?

It’s the dealer who spins the ball around the wheel. In the old days-and today in some lower-end casinos-the dealer would also spin the wheel. Today, it’s usually a machine that keeps the wheel going at a certain speed.

However, there isn’t a machine that spins the ball. This means that the ball is speeding along at a different pace for each dealer. If you play more than 40 minutes to an hour, you’ll also experience a dealer change and thus a change in the ball speed and outcome.

I have seen some people who can get to know a dealer’s pattern-since most dealer’s spin the same way all the time-and figure out what section of the wheel the ball is about to drop into by look at where the wheel was when the dealer started the spin.

Here’s another factor you need to think about. Unlike online casinos, the real world casinos use physical items. That wheel is a physical item that was manufactured. While they all have the same specifications, they are all a little different. Also as they are used, they tend to shift slightly-we’re talking physics here.

There was a famous Roulette team in Las Vegas that once made a living by charting the wheels. They’d watch lots of games and figure out if the wheel had any tilt, warping, etc. They’d also pay attention to the dealers-spin rate, etc. By putting those combinations together with a solid playing style and a little luck, they were able to rock n roll at the Roulette tables in Vegas.

Will knowing all of this make you a guaranteed winner in Vegas? No. But, it can help you score more wins and that just might make your playing time more enjoyable. And who knows. You may walk out of the casino a big winner. It’s a war zone out there. You have to utilize every piece of information that might give you an edge as you can.

It seems like only yesterday when this fun game started appearing in Casinos in the United States. As you might expect from the name, Caribbean Stud Poker got its illustrious start in the Caribbean. It eventually worked its way onto cruise ships and one day the game finally docked on U.S. shores.

This exciting game is now offered in just about every casino, both online and in the real world. It’s usually considered a party game, because, like Blackjack, everyone is playing against the dealer.

Caribbean Stud Poker is played on a Blackjack-style table and seats multiple players. If you’re playing the game online, you might be the only one playing-some online casinos are offering multi-player games now.

The layout for the game has three main betting areas. First, there’s the Ante spot, which is where your initial wager goes. Next there’s the Bet spot, which is why you bet to stay in the game-more on this later. Finally, there’s the progressive jackpot wager slot. When you drop $1 into this slot, you’re entered into the progressive jackpot.

Quick Game Play

In other articles, I’ll go over the game play and strategy in more detail, but for now, let’s run through the general game play of Caribbean Stud Poker.

Before the hand is played, you must enter a wager. The lowest betting limit I’ve ever seen in the real world is $5. You might find limits lower online. So, let’s imagine that you placed $5 on the Ante spot.

Next, you need to decide if you want to be entered into the progressive jackpot. If so, put $1 into the slot. You can’t be entered into the jackpot after the hand is dealt.

After all players have made these two moves, the hand is dealt. You’ll be given five cards. This game doesn’t have many big decisions. Unlike video poker, there are no draw cards, so these are the only five cards you’ll get. At this point, you need to decide if you think your hand will beat the dealer’s hand or not.

You can choose to fold now and lose your Ante wager, or you can stay in the hand and place a Bet wager. This new wager is equal to two times the Ante wager. So, if you made a $5 wager to start the hand, your Bet wager would be $10.

After all players have decided, the deal flips over his or her hand and bets are either taken or paid. At this time, any progressive winners are paid.

Time to Learn More

This article was just a quick intro to Caribbean Stud Poker. In other articles, I’ll go further into detail about playing the game, including progressive payouts, game decisions, playing strategy and more.

For now, I hope I’ve wetted your appetite for this fun game.