Play Baccarat Online in Indiana

Those wanting to play baccarat online in Indiana for real money cannot do so currently, but that may change soon. Lawmakers in Indiana are considering the possibility of expanding online gambling options, including adding online casinos. When that happens, expect online baccarat to be among the gaming options available in the Hoosier State.

In the following guide, we’ll cover:

• Online casinos with baccarat likely to launch in Indiana
• Baccarat rules, hand values, odds and payouts
• Strategy and other tips for playing online baccarat

Baccarat online vs. retail

Baccarat can be a fun game to play live in a casino, but the online version provides certain advantages as well. Here are a few key differences between how online baccarat is played and what you’ll encounter in a retail casino.

• Rather than sitting around a table with other players, online casino baccarat is typically played individually. The exception is live dealer baccarat where you might be able to see and interact with other players at the table.
• When playing live baccarat, the minimum bets are usually $5 or $10, but online baccarat enables you to play for much lower stakes of $1 or even less.
• The game moves much more quickly online than live. When playing baccarat online, you can often play hands twice as quickly as live (or even faster).
• Sometimes retail casinos offering baccarat don’t have any tables available, or the ones that are open have no free seats. That’s never true of online baccarat where games are always available and there is never any waiting.
• You are also likely to find a greater number of baccarat variations online than live, even when playing live dealer baccarat at Indiana online casinos.

Being able to play online baccarat in the comfort of your home or on your mobile device via a dedicated casino app is another positive for many. That said, some enjoy the social aspect of playing baccarat in person in a retail casino, something live dealer online baccarat does approximate pretty well but cannot perfectly duplicate.

Expected casinos with online baccarat in Indiana

Once Indiana does legalize online casinos, there are several different sites already up and running in other states that will likely be eager to launch in Indiana. Most currently operating online casinos have baccarat among their table games, in some cases multiple online baccarat games.

Here are 10 sites currently available in other states where real money online casinos have been legalized. As you can see below, each of these online casinos offers baccarat, including live dealer baccarat.

It’s worth mentioning that both DraftKings Casino and FanDuel Casino offer First Person Dragon Tiger, another card game that resembles baccarat with different rules.

Incidentally, those other “first person” games are all powered by Evolution Gaming, the developer behind many live dealer games. They generally can be played either as straightforward animated video games but with an option to switch over to a live dealer format.

Online baccarat rules

Baccarat sometimes appears daunting to new players, but it really isn’t that hard to learn. Like other card games in the casino such as Three Card Poker and Ultimate Texas Hold’em, you can learn the basics of baccarat very quickly.

The game involves two players vying against one another, referred to as the player and the banker. Both are dealt two cards and both can either “stand” or “hit” and receive a third card. But unlike in online blackjack, they don’t get to decide which. Rather, the preset rules determine whether they receive another card.

Meanwhile, your main decision will be whether to bet on the player to win or the banker to win. You can also bet on the hand ending in a tie. Here is the order of play in a hand of baccarat:

• First, place your bet on the player, the banker or on a tie.
• Next comes the deal, two cards each to the player and banker, dealt face up.
• At that point, calculate the point value of each hand (explained below).
• Determine if a third card needs to be dealt to the player or banker (or both), as dictated by the rules.
• Finally, add the points again and see who wins (or if it is a tie), then settle the bets.

That’s how a hand of baccarat plays out, but read on to learn more about how the point values of hands are calculated, what determines if a third card gets dealt, and what the odds and payouts are.

The baccarat table

As noted, your first decision when sitting at a baccarat table is whether to bet on the player, on the banker or on the hand ending in a tie. You also get to decide how much to wager. There is usually a minimum you can bet and a maximum, and you can choose how much you want to bet within that range.

Most baccarat games online work similarly. In order to size your bet, you click to choose your chip amount (e.g., $1, $5, $10, etc.). The table layout will show places where you can set your chips either on “Player,” “Banker” or “Tie.” You either drag the chips over or just click on the spot where you want to bet.

From there, you simply click “Deal” and watch the hand play out. In some cases, the hand will pause (say, before a third card is dealt), and you’ll have to click “Deal” again. But all of this is automated. Once the dealing is done, the calculations are done for you, too, and you’ll see whether you won or lost. Your balance will be adjusted accordingly, and then you’ll make a new bet and start a new hand.

Online baccarat card values

Here is how the points are added up and values determined for baccarat hands. Suits don’t matter, only the ranks do. The points are as follows:

• Ace = 1 point
• 2 through 9 = the rank (a 3 is worth 3 points; a 6 is worth 6 points, etc.)
• 10, Jack, Queen, King = zero points

Note, though, that if the cards add up to more than 10 points, you drop the first digit and only count the second one. For example, if the player is dealt a 3 and a 9, that adds up to 12, but the point value of the hand is just 2. If dealt a 7 and an 8, that adds up to 15, making the point value 5. This way, no matter what the point value of a baccarat hand is always going to be between 0 and 9.

Okay, here’s how winning hands are determined and also how it is decided whether or not a third card will be dealt.

If either the player or banker has a hand adding up to 8 or 9, that’s considered a natural and an automatic winner. If both have 8 or both have 9, the hand is a tie. In any case, if a natural is dealt, there will be no third card for the player or banker.

If neither has a natural, the hand continues. First…

• If the player has 6 or 7, the player stands.
• If the player has 0 to 5, a third card is dealt.

Easy enough. Then, it is time to decide if the banker gets a third card. If the player did not get a third card, then…

• If the banker has 6 or 7, the banker stands.
• If the banker has 0 to 5, a third card is dealt.

In other words, the same rules are followed as they were for the player. However, if the player did draw a third card, then what the banker does is directly determined by whatever that third card happened to be. If the player’s third card is…

• Ace, 9, 10, or face card — the banker draws with 0 to 3, stands with 4 to 7.
• 8 — the banker draws with 0 to 2, stands with 3 to 7.
• 6 or 7 — the banker draws with 0 to 6, stands with 7.
• 4 or 5 — the banker draws with 0 to 5, stands with 6 or 7.
• 2 or 3 — the banker draws with 0 to 4, stands with 5 to 7.

In the end, whoever has the highest number of points wins, and if both the player and banker end with the same number of points, the hand is a tie.

To illustrate how it works, here’s a sample baccarat hand:

• The player receives a 4 and a King (total value = 4 points). The banker receives a 9 and a 6 (total value = 5 points).
• Since the player has 4, that’s between 0-5 so a third card is dealt, a 4. Add 4 + 4 and get 8, so the player finishes with 8 points.
• The player’s third card was a 4, which means the banker draws with 0-5 and stands with 6 or 7. The banker has 5 and, therefore, gets a third card, a 9. Add 9 + 5 and get 14, which means the banker finishes with 4 points.
• The player has 8 and the banker 4, so the player wins.

All of that sounds complicated, but when you play online everything is handled automatically. The hand values are instantly calculated, third cards are dealt if the rules dictate they should be, and the winner is automatically determined. If you bet correctly, you win. If not, you lose.

Baccarat online odds and payouts

Let’s talk about how much you win if you win and what your chances of winning are when you play online baccarat.

Winning a bet on the player or banker to win doubles your money, a 1-to-1 payout. Meanwhile, it is much rarer for the hand to end in a tie. Hence, it makes sense that you win more if you correctly bet on a tie. Most often the payout for that is 8-to-1.

Here’s how baccarat payouts look along with the odds and resulting house edge:

Note that if you bet on the player or banker and the hand ends in a tie, the bet is a push and you receive your wager back.

Those rules governing the receiving of a third card actually give the banker a slight edge when it comes to winning the hand. Because of that, you’ll often find that if you bet on the banker and win, you win a little bit less than if you bet on the player and win.

For winning bets on the banker, the online casino will take a small commission, usually 5%. That more or less evens things out, making it equally fine for you to bet on the player or the banker (over the long run). Some games, though, are advertised as “Baccarat No Commission,” meaning there is nothing taken from a winning bet on the banker.

Looking at that table, if you bet $10 on the player and the player wins, you win $10 (doubling my money). If you bet on the banker and the banker wins, you win $9.50 ($10 minus that 5% commission). And if you bet $10 on a tie and the hand ends in a tie, you win $80.

Best baccarat strategy

Here are a few strategy tips for online baccarat.

Know the rules and payouts

You’re already well on your way here, having read all of the above and grasped the rules, odds and payouts. Having this knowledge, you know that betting on the player or the banker is close to the same odds-wise. Either way, you get to play a game with a relatively low house edge (just over 1%) when compared to other games in the casino.

Knowing the standard rules and payouts for baccarat means you’ll also be aware of any deviations from the norm, making you a better-informed gambler.

Steer clear of tie bets or other long-shot side bets

As you can see from the table above, getting 8-to-1 on the tie bet isn’t actually that great when compared to your chance of actually winning. That 14.44% house edge on tie bets is huge when compared to player and banker bets, and also compared to the house edge in many other casino games. Sometimes you might see 9-to-1 payouts for ties, in which case the house edge drops to just under 5% — still big, but not as bad.

Meanwhile, we should note some online baccarat games will offer special side bets that almost always also have big house edges and therefore aren’t recommended either. Most of these bets, like Player Pair, Banker Pair or Either Pair, involve one or both hands including a pair (two cards of the same rank). There’s a Perfect Pair bet, too, that the two cards will be both the same rank and suit (in multi-deck games). These bets have big payouts (e.g., 25-to-1 for Perfect Pair), but the odds of winning them are worse, making the house edge especially big.

Other common long-shot side bets include Dragon 7 (a bet that the banker will end with 7 points from three cards) and Panda 8 (a bet the player will end with 8 points from three cards).

Be smart with your bankroll

Baccarat is very much a gambling game. Even if James Bond seems to have a knack for it, it isn’t much like poker, or even blackjack, where having some skill can improve your chances of winning.

Whenever you play a game in which you are risking money, you always want to practice responsible gambling. Never risk more than you can afford to lose. Understanding the rules, odds and payouts in baccarat can help you be more responsible when you play.

Online baccarat tips

To sum up, here’s a list of our best tips for playing online baccarat:

• Learn the rules and how the game works, including how the player and banker receive cards and how points are added up.
• Don’t worry about remembering all the particulars governing whether the player or dealer receives a third card. When playing online, that is handled automatically.
• Understand the odds and payouts so you know why bets on the player or banker to win have a relatively small house edge and bets on ties and side bets have a big house edge.
• Review the online casinos to see which baccarat games they offer. Many have the same games, although there are some differences.
• Play free baccarat online to learn more about the game and become familiar with how hands are valued without risking any money. Many online casinos feature free-to-play demo versions of baccarat games that allow you to test them out.

Important baccarat terminology

It’s always useful to know the particular vocabulary associated with the casino game you are playing. Here’s a quick-hit list of baccarat terms:

• Baccarat — The name of the game also refers to the worst hand you can make, totaling zero points. Remember if your cards add up to 10 or 20, the total is zero because you drop the first digit.
• Banco — Spanish for “banker.”
• Chemin de Fer — A variant of baccarat in which only one player can bet on the banker and the others must all bet on the player. This game is more often found in Europe than America, and not so often online.
• Commission — The amount taken by the casino from a winning bet on the banker (usually 5%).
• House Edge — The amount the casino stands to win over the long term as determined by the mathematical probabilities of the game.
• La Grande — The “big one,” referring to a natural 9.
• La Petite — The “little one,” referring to a natural 8.
• Live Dealer Baccarat — An online version of baccarat that allows you to play with an actual dealer streaming live from a studio, often with other players present as well.
• Mini Baccarat — A variant of baccarat in which a casino staff member acts as the banker and always deals (rather than players doing so). Online baccarat essentially emulates mini baccarat, in most cases.
• Natural — When the first two cards of a baccarat hand add up to 8 or 9. When a natural is dealt, the hand always ends immediately and bets are settled.
• Pass — A hand in which either the player or banker wins (i.e., no tie).
• Punto — Spanish for “player.”
• Punto Banco — Literally means “Player Banker” and is the version of baccarat most often offered at online casinos.
• Push — A tie hand in which both the player and banker’s hands end with the same point total.
• Shoe — In live baccarat, cards are dealt from a shoe like at a blackjack table. The same term is used for online baccarat, even though the animated cards are represented graphically and are not shuffled but determined by a random number generator.
• Shooter — An alternate name for the banker.
• Tie — When both hands end with the same number of points. Wagering on a tie is a “tie bet.”

With all the lingo down, fans of casino games in Indiana have a lot to look forward to when online casinos arrive. When that happens, be sure to give baccarat a try at one of the baccarat online casinos listed above. Here’s hoping the hands you bet on will feature plenty of naturals.