The History of Baccarat 101
Do you know anything about Baccarat History 101? Are you eager to find out more about one of the most popular games? Baccarat is played at large kidney-shaped tables where 12 players and two dealers, plus a caller, can sit.
There are two fields in front of every player: Player and Banker. They play it between two opposing hands. The player and the banker and has a house edge, of no lower than around 1 percent, with the winning odds being in favor of the bank.
Table of content:
- The History of Baccarat
- The Origin of Baccarat
- People playing Baccarat in the Middle Ages
- Baccarat during the 1490s
- The French aristocracy playing Baccarat in 1500
- The Development of American Baccarat
- New York Times articles
- Americans playing a game of Baccarat
The Origin of Baccarat History 101
When it comes to Baccarat History 101, first of all, the origin of Baccarat is not certain. One presumption, based on the number nine, traces the roots of the card game back to Ancient Rome.
This version of Baccarat History 101 has come out of the old Etruscan story of the nine gods, who prayed to a blonde virgin while they were waiting for her to throw a nine-sided die. Her fate would depend on the result of the die.
An eight or a nine would mean that she would become the priestess. If she threw a six or seven, she couldn’t participate in any religious activities. If she threw any number less than six, she would walk into the sea and drown.
The first record of the game is from the 19th century. Therefore, all other accounts from an earlier time cannot be substantiated. One account, that came out of hearsay, is that the Baccarat card game was created in Italy in the 1400s by an Italian gambler Felix Falguiere or Falguierein, who first played the game with Tarot cards.
The card game was famous as “baccara”, which means “zero” in Italian. It’s because all the tens and face cards were worth zero. The French spelling “baccarat” became globally popular later on. That’s why a card or a hand with a value of zero is famous as a ‘baccarat’ today.
People playing Baccarat in the Middle Ages
The “play of cards at tables” term was in a French manuscript dated to the 1330s. Before the invention of the printing press, card games were hardly a popular activity. That’s mainly due to the scarcity of playing cards.
They had to be either hand-painted or block-printed by using a carved wooden block as a stamp. A Chinese technique people have used for Pai Gow tiles (replacing cards in games) which Marco Polo introduced to Italy in the late 1290s when he returned from his Asian expeditions.
This is mainly based on a correlation between the meaning of Pai Gow (make nine) and nine being the best score in Baccarat as well. However, this information is still uncertain, since it lacks historical evidence.
With the invention of the printing press, playing cards became more widely spread as they were in packs of 78. Known as The Devil’s Picture Books, playing cards were now more abundant. New card games sprung up everywhere and older games, such as Baccarat, people had to change in order to play them with cards today.
Baccarat during the 1490s
During the 1490s, Baccarat became popular in France, thanks to soldiers who were returning from the Italian conflicts. The game was King Charles VIII’s favorite. It soon became very popular among the French aristocracy, and it was like that for several centuries.
During the Napoleonic era, two different versions of Baccarat, Baccarat en Banque and the non-banking Chemin de Fer were also popular among players. These card games were so popular that even after Louis Phillip made casinos illegal in 1837, people have still used to play them in houses running underground gambling operations outside the law while retaining popularity in Europe.
The French aristocracy playing Baccarat in 1500
The first mention of Baccarat in a document was in 1847. It was when Charles Van-Tenac included a 13-page mathematical analysis of the game, the first printed one ever, in his Album des Jeux.
Even if we don’t care whether Baccarat is an Italian or French work-of-art, the game of Baccarat is very old. Traveling through countries and continents for centuries, it acquired different rules and variations.
Today, you can find the game worldwide. Nevertheless, the French variation of Baccarat became popular in England, where they changed the game’s name to European Baccarat.
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The Development of American Baccarat
When it comes to Baccarat History 101 in America, everyone knows that this game migrated across the ocean to South America and the Caribbean over time. It became popular as American Baccarat. First, it became famous as Punto Banco in Cuba and was changed to suit the local culture in many ways.
One of the main changes was that the players did not play against each other but only against the house. The casinos also acted as the bank. The privilege was not passed to the individual players.
New York Times articles
The first record of Baccarat in the United States was in 1871. In an article in the New York Times, the Club-house at Long Branch, where visitors were flocking around the “faro spread, the roulette table, and the Baccarat board”, was described.
There was also an article in the New York Times, this time from 1899, a journalist wrote about the arrest of 30 Frenchmen playing Baccarat, which means that the game was being played in the United States decades earlier than originally thought.
When it comes to the early 1950s, American Baccarat was originally developed at the Mar del Plata casino in Argentina. Then, in the late 1950s, just around the time that the Castro government was closing the Havana casinos, Tommy Renzoni brought the game to the infamous Dunes casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A., as a combination of European Baccarat and “Chemin de fer”.
Americans playing a game of Baccarat
Nowadays, this American version is the Baccarat card game played at most casinos in the USA, the UK, and Australia. Although a few rules have been changed in every country, the style has remained the same. It has kept its elegance and is still one of the most appealing games to high rollers.
To popularize the game, Mini-Baccarat was invented. It has the same basic rules as American Baccarat. But it has lower table limits and procedures that people have simplified to attract not- so-wealthy players with an average bankroll. Nowadays, even if you are not a “high roller”, you can still enjoy the game of classic Baccarat.
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