Punto Banco is the most widely played form of baccarat and the version found in most casinos and online lobbies. Punto stands for the player’s hand and banco for the banker’s. Unlike older forms such as chemin de fer, the casino banks every hand and all drawing decisions follow a fixed table, so players simply choose one of three bets: Player, Banker or Tie.
Cards are dealt from a shoe of six or eight decks. Twos to nines count at face value, aces count as one, and tens and picture cards count as zero; only the last digit of a total matters, so 9 is the best hand. The Banker bet carries a house edge of about 1.06% after the usual 5% commission and the Player bet about 1.24%, which keeps the game popular with high rollers. For operators, Punto Banco is a cornerstone of any live casino offering.