A Brief History of Baccarat
To many baccarat is an unknown in the casino, you will often see it roped off in exclusive looking areas of the casino and being played by people who look like they know what they are doing and have money to burn. Most people that have even heard of baccarat are unaware of how to play and the origins of this seemingly exclusive game, so I will try to enlighten you.
First off, it is not an exclusive game; it is open to all and is not only very simple but offers the lowest house advantage in the casino. Its origins are the source of much debate but I will go into what is considered to be the most accepted version.
The French and the Italians both claim that baccarat is their invention – it is even thought likely that the earliest roots of the game can be traced back to a pagan ritual. This ritual decided the fate of a young virgin and consisted of nine spirits praying whilst she tossed a nine sided die. If she tossed either an 8 or 9 then she became the priestess of the temple, a 6 or 7, the she was to leave and never partake in any further religious activity but rather scarily if she rolled below a 6 then she had to walk down to the sea and drown herself.
Whether you believe this or not is up to you, what is certainly more believable is that Baccarat (pronounced bac – car – ah) means zero in Italian, the reason for this being that the most common points score for a card in the game is zero. The Italian gambler Felix Faligurierein is credited in coming up with the first version of the game in the 1480s, this game quickly crossed the north Italian borders and took hold in France.
In France the game was picked up by the nobility and quickly became a game played by those with status