Baccarat is a gambling card game supposed to have been introduced into France from Italy during the reign of Charles VIII of France. There are three accepted variants of the game: baccarat chemin de fer (railway), baccarat banque (or a deux tableaux), and punto banco (or North American baccarat).

Baccarat (pronounced Back-a-rah) is a simple game with only three possible results - ‘Player’, ‘Banker’ and ‘Tie’. The term ‘Player’ does not refer to the customer and the term ‘Banker’ does not refer to the house. They are just options on which the customer can bet.

Baccarat is an unusual game in that any score of 10 is worth 0 (or ‘Baccarat’). The highest score that can be achieved is 9. Two picture cards would have a score of 0. A 9 and a 6 would not equal 15 but 5. (Minus the first digit) An ace counts as 1 and the rest of the cards retain their face value.

Baccarat has many points of resemblance to blackjack, but the element of chance is much more prominent. The stakes are made before any card is dealt, and one player plays for several. There is therefore, save on the part of the banker (and not even then, in punto banco), scarcely any scope for personal skill or judgment.

The object of the game is to acquire a hand of cards with a total sum of nine. The cards from ace to nine count each according to the number of its pips. Face cards and tens are baccarat, a synonym for zero. Thus a player holding a three and a ten has three only; a player holding two face cards, a two and a five counts seven only. Similarly, every ten points reached as part of a total score, however made, is disregarded: so that a five and a six count, not as eleven, but as one only; three, seven and five, not as fifteen, but as five; and so on. In other words, Baccarat scores are reckoned modulo 10.