Baccarat is a casino game of pure chance. It is usually played in a sealed-off area called a Baccarat pit, but can also be found online. It is a card game in which players bet on which hand of the Banker’s, Player’s, or Tie will have a value closest to nine points. Cards are dealt from a six- or eight-deck shoe and all face cards equal one, while tens equal zero and the Ace equals 1.

Unlike blackjack, where a skillful player can improve his or her chances of winning by learning to count cards, this is not possible in baccarat. However, players can increase their chances of winning by only betting on the Banker’s hand when the odds are favourable and only placing a bet on the Player’s hand when the odds are less favourable.

The most important thing to remember when playing baccarat is that it’s not about making money, but about having fun. So it is best to decide how much you want to spend in advance and treat the money as if it were cash that you’d spend on a night out, not as money to gamble with. You don’t want to run out of money halfway through the night – and that can be stressful.

Baccarat is very accessible to all players, and the most effective strategy is to always back the banker every round. This will give you the best chance of beating the house edge, but there are other, more exotic staking strategies that may help improve your odds even further.