Loading page
Game rules
Punto banco from an 8-deck shoe: two hands, one fixed drawing rule, and you bet on the result. These are the rules enforced by the JustPoker game engine; where the table and this page could ever disagree, the engine's published tests are the reference.
Baccarat deals two hands, called Player and Banker. The names are only labels: you do not play either hand, you bet on which one will finish closer to 9, or on a Tie. Nobody makes a decision once the cards are out — whether a hand takes a third card is fixed by the rules on this page — so the game is decided entirely by the order of the cards.
The version played here is punto banco, the one found in casinos worldwide: Banker wins pay 0.95 to 1 (even money less a 5% commission), Player wins pay 1 to 1, a Tie pays 8 to 1 and returns Player and Banker bets, and two side bets pay 11 to 1 on a pair in either hand.
Every coup is dealt from its own 8-deck shoe of 416 cards, shuffled from scratch from a server seed committed in advance and a client seed you control. Nothing carries over between coups, and you can rebuild any shoe on our Provably Fair page.
Each spot is a separate bet with its own limit. Amounts are whole cents, and at least one spot must carry a bet to deal.
One side per coup, never both.
Alone or next to a Player or Banker bet.
Player Pair and Banker Pair are separate spots.
Chips on one spot add up to that spot's bet.
Back the Player, the Banker or a Tie, and add either Pair bet if you like. You may not back both Player and Banker in the same coup.
Press Deal. Your bets are checked and staked, a fresh 8-deck shoe is shuffled from your seed pair, and the whole coup is played and settled on our server in one step.
Four cards come out face down in turn: Player, Banker, Player, Banker. The Player's cards are turned first, then the Banker's.
If either hand has 8 or 9 on its first two cards, that is a natural: both hands stand and the coup is decided.
Otherwise the Player draws on 0–5 and stands on 6–7, then the Banker draws or stands by the table below. The table shows the rule it applied and slides a third card in sideways.
The higher total wins, equal totals are a Tie. Winnings were credited in the same step as the stake, and the coup is already in your hand history.
Keyboard shortcuts work whenever the table is waiting for bets. Choose Fast or Instant in the table settings, or press Space or tap the table during a deal, to see the result sooner.
| Card | Counts as |
|---|---|
| Ace | 1 |
| 2 to 9 | Face value |
| 10, Jack, Queen, King | 0 |
Suits play no part in baccarat.
A hand's total is the last digit of its card points, so it is always between 0 and 9: 7 and 8 make 15, which counts as 5; King and 9 make 9; 6, 4 and Queen make 0 (called baccarat). A hand can never bust.
A total of 8 or 9 on the first two cards is a natural. If either hand has one, both hands stand and no third card is dealt; a natural 9 beats a natural 8, and equal naturals tie.
When neither hand has a natural, the Player hand acts first, then the Banker. These tables are rendered from the same functions the game engine uses to deal every coup.
| Player two-card total | Player |
|---|---|
| 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 | Draws a third card |
| 6, 7 | Stands |
| 8, 9 | Natural: neither hand draws |
The Player hand's rule never depends on the Banker's cards.
| Banker total | Player stood | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D |
| 1 | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D |
| 2 | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D |
| 3 | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | S | D |
| 4 | D | S | S | D | D | D | D | D | D | S | S |
| 5 | D | S | S | S | S | D | D | D | D | S | S |
| 6 | S | S | S | S | S | S | S | D | D | S | S |
| 7 | S | S | S | S | S | S | S | S | S | S | S |
D = the Banker draws, S = the Banker stands. Read the Banker's two-card total down the side and the point value of the Player's third card across the top (a ten or picture card is 0). When the Player stood, the Banker follows the Player's own rule: draw on 0–5, stand on 6–7.
This coup is the second published test vector, dealt by the engine. The Player has 2 and the Banker a pair of Aces for 2, so there is no natural. The Player draws on 2 and receives a ten, which counts 0; the Banker, on 2, draws whatever the Player's third card was, and a 3 takes it to 5.
Banker wins 5 to 2. A Banker bet of $10.00 returns $19.50, a Banker Pair bet of $10.00 returns $120.00, and Player and Tie bets lose.
Five spots, as printed on the felt. A winning bet returns its stake plus the winnings; examples use a $10.00 bet.
| Bet | Wins when | Pays | $10.00 returns | On a Tie | Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Wins when the Player hand is higher. A Tie pushes it: the stake comes back. | 1 to 1 | $20.00 | Push | $500 |
| Banker | Wins when the Banker hand is higher and pays 1:1 less a 5% commission, rounded down to the cent. A Tie pushes it. | 0.95 to 1 | $19.50 | Push | $500 |
| Tie | Wins when both hands finish on the same total. | 8 to 1 | $90.00 | Wins | $100 |
| Player Pair | Wins when the Player's first two cards are the same rank (K-K is a pair, K-Q is not). | 11 to 1 | $120.00 | Settled on the pair | $50 |
| Banker Pair | Wins when the Banker's first two cards are the same rank (K-K is a pair, K-Q is not). | 11 to 1 | $120.00 | Settled on the pair | $50 |
Player and Banker cannot be backed in the same coup
The Banker hand acts after the Player and its drawing rule takes the Player's third card into account, so it wins slightly more often: 45.86% of coups against 44.62% for the Player, with 9.52% ties. Paid at even money, Banker would favour the player.
A winning Banker bet is therefore paid 1 to 1 less a 5% commission on the winnings, which is 0.95 to 1. The commission is taken at the moment of payment — nothing is owed or carried over — and the winnings are rounded down to the cent. With the table's whole-dollar chips the result is always exact; odd amounts round as in the table.
| Banker bet | Commission | Returned |
|---|---|---|
| $1.00 | $0.05 | $1.95 |
| $1.01 | $0.06 | $1.96 |
| $2.50 | $0.13 | $4.87 |
| $10.00 | $0.50 | $19.50 |
| $10.50 | $0.53 | $20.47 |
Returned = bet + winnings, where winnings = the bet × 95%, rounded down to the cent.
The house edge is exact, not simulated: our test suite enumerates every way the first six cards of an 8-deck shoe can fall and plays each through the drawing rules. Banker is the best bet on the table at 1.06%, Player close behind at 1.24%.
The Tie and Pair bets pay more but cost much more: 14.36% on Tie and 10.36% on each Pair. A pair comes up when the second card matches the first card's rank, 31 of the 415 cards left — about 7.47% of the time for each hand.
There is no strategy in baccarat beyond the choice of bet: the drawing rules are fixed, and past results say nothing about the next coup, because every coup is dealt from a new shoe. Please read our responsible gambling information and set limits before you play.
| Bet | Wins | House edge | RTP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Banker | 45.86% | 1.06% | 98.94% |
| Player | 44.62% | 1.24% | 98.76% |
| Tie | 9.52% | 14.36% | 85.64% |
| Player Pair | 7.47% | 10.36% | 89.64% |
| Banker Pair | 7.47% | 10.36% | 89.64% |
Player and Banker bets push on a Tie (9.52% of coups), so their win and loss chances do not add up to 100%.
The table keeps two scoreboards of your recent coups, as a casino baccarat table does. The Bead Plate records each result in its own cell, top to bottom and then left to right. The Big Road puts a run of wins by one side in a column and starts a new column when the other side wins; a Tie is a green slash on the entry before it, and a run too long for the column turns right along the bottom row. The roads are a record, not a forecast.
Bead Plate
Big Road
Each coup's 416-card shoe is derived from three inputs: a server seed whose SHA-256 hash is shown to you before you play, your own client seed, and a round counter (the nonce). The same HMAC-SHA256 byte stream and Fisher–Yates shuffle as our other games are run over 8 decks.
Cards are dealt strictly in shoe order: the first card to the Player, the second to the Banker, the third to the Player, the fourth to the Banker, then the Player's third card and the Banker's third card when the rules call for them. A coup never uses more than the first six cards.
Rotate your seed pair on the Fairness & Seeds page to reveal the server seed, then open any coup in your hand history and check both hands with the verifier.
Any correct implementation must deal these first six cards and these results.
| Server seed | Client seed · nonce | First six cards | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3f9a1c8e…9d0f2a | justpoker · 0 | Ks 6d Qs 3c Th Ts | Banker 9 – 0 |
| c0ffee00…abcdef | player-client-seed_01 · 4 | 2s Ah Ts Ad Ts 3c | Banker 5 – 2 |
| 00000000…000000 | a · 6 | 2c 7s Ac Kd 4c 4s | Tie 7 – 7 |
The verifier's baccarat mode rebuilds the 8-deck shoe from the server seed, client seed and nonce, and replays both hands with the drawing rules.
Player or Banker from $1.00 to $500.00. Your balance, limits and reality checks apply at the table exactly as they do everywhere on JustPoker.
18+ only. Gambling can be harmful; play within limits you set in advance. Help is available through the organisations listed on our responsible gambling page.