How to play Punto Banco: rules, strategies and advice

Punto Banco Baccarat came from Cuba in the sixteenth century. It is a game of chance, which is popular in casinos and where skill and strategy have little impact, essentially making it very different from today's more popular games like from texas holdem no limit (more info about this way to play here). There are three betting sections on each side of the Punto Banco table:

• the Punto (player) area ;
• the Banco (bank) area ;
• the Tie, Draw or Égalité area, which is the side bet section.

The goal of the game is to get closer to a point value of 9 than the other player.

One can play Punto Banco in 2 different types of tables. The blackjack-type table with a unique dealer is one of them. But one can also play in a much larger table, with three dealers and twelve chairs for the players.

There are three variants of the Punto Banco Baccarat game:

• the mini Punto Banco Baccarat
• the midi Punto Banco Baccarat
• the large Punto Banco Baccarat.

In each of these three Punto Banco Baccarat variants, what differs is the size and the shape of the table and the number of players.

Specific vocabulary

There is a little bit of specific vocabulary for the Punto Banco game. Spread is the word used instead of play. Thus we can say that a casino is spreading a Punto banco game when a game is about to start. The word Shoe has two different meanings, both in Punto Banco & Blackjack. The shoe is the box where are placed the cards that will be dealt in the game. But a shoe is also the number of hands dealt from a full shoe until the cards are finished or until the cut card is reached.

The Cut Card is a plastic card that is inserted six cards from the bottom of the pack of cards.

A Natural means that a player has reached a total of 8 or 9.