Baccarat

Baccarat origin

Baccarat is quite a popular card game today, though where exactly it was invented is not yet clear. According to most scholars, baccarat first started as a religious ceremony. Baccarat evolved from this religious ceremony and in Italian, the word meant zero. The reason for this is that the value of most cards in the game is zero.

In the ancient days, the game had first been played with the help of tarot cards. An Italian player by the name of Felix Falguierein had been the first one to whom the game had been attributed. It is believed that he came up with baccarat first in 1480. In around ten years from then, Baccarat had already made its way to France. From there it spread to many other countries in the world and it became especially famous in China.

Baccarat had been considered to be quite a novel game and was played by the noble families from France. The game had been called Chemin de Fer in France in the earlier years. It is still unclear whether baccarat had actually originated in Italy or in France. In France, the rules and game play of baccarat had been changed completely.

Baccarat rules

Chemin de Fer became such an important game in France that it had all the noble families and the rich and wealthy hooked on instantly. In the French version of baccarat each player had to take turns to be the banker and take control of the finances. From France the game spread on to the British Islands. There several more changes were made to the game and it the game there was known as the European Baccarat. In this version of the game, the bank was controlled by the casino and a dealer had been used for the game.

However, it was only around the 20th century that baccarat came to the US. The game had first been made familiar with the rich and the famous of the US but it failed to interest them, because of which it quickly died out. In the 1950s the game made its way to Argentina and it quickly began to be featured in most casinos in Argentina. In Argentina several rich and wealthy families from the South America often came to play at the casino and from there it spread to Cuba where it was given a new name, Punto Banco. The rules were changed again and when it came to America, the game was given the name American Baccarat. In the American Baccarat, the players play against the casino and not against any opponents.

The game had been introduced in Las Vegas and it received better fame in the city. Though it never became as famous as the other casino card games like blackjack and poker, it is still played by plenty of people.