Punto Banco
Punto Banco is a simple card game. It is derived from the famous card game baccarat, which is also called "the rich man's card game", and is James Bond’s favorite game.
There are two possible antagonists in this casino game. One of them is Punto hand (Punto – punter, player) and the other is the Banco hand (Banco – banker). Players can make a bet on any of them and in each hand, after short play, the winner is proclaimed. Our casino has introduced a new feature in this casino game that makes the game more dynamic: we allow playing on several boxes at once. Within each hand, the Punto and Banco can play several times.
BetVoyager features a conventional version of Punto Banco and a version with no house edge.
Basic Rules of Punto Banco
Punto Banco uses eight 52-card decks. Suits have no meaning. All face cards and 10s are worth 0 points, Aces are worth 1 point, and the remaining cards are assigned their face-value (for example, an Eight is worth 8 points and a Deuce is worth 2 points). After adding the total value of a hand, only the last digit is counted. For example, three 7s are equal to 1 point (not 21). The maximum possible sum is 9 and the minimum is 0.Before the deal the player makes a bet on at least one box in Punto Banco. He can bet on Punto, Banco or on a tie (Egalite). The player can combine these bets as he likes, meaning he can make two or even three bets on each box. These bets can be of different sizes.
Since all bets are placed, a successive play on boxes begins. Both the Punto and the Banco are dealt two cards face-up. In some cases, the third card can be added to any pair of cards, and as a result each side can have either two or three cards (see paragraphs 5–7 for further details). The side with the largest sum of points wins.
If the bet on Punto wins, it is paid 1:1 and the player loses the remaining bets on the box. If the bet on Banco wins, there is a slight difference and the bet is paid 95:100. In other words, the casino keeps 5 percent of the win. When the game ends in a tie, the bet on a tie is paid 9:1. Whenever there is a tie, any bets on Punto and Banco are considered unplayed and they are returned to the player.
Our No House Edge version features the following payouts. If the bet on Punto wins, the player gets additional 2.76% of the win. In other words, this bet is paid 1.0276:1. If the bet on Banco wins, the casino keeps not 5% of the win, but only 2.7%. When the game ends in a tie, the bet on a tie is paid 9.5:1.
The payouts on all bets for Punto Banco are rounded down to the nearest cent.
If either Punto or Banco was dealt 8 or 9 points, the game on that box is over. The Punto’s and Banco’s points are compared, and result is determined on the box.
If the Punto hand has 6 or 7 points, further actions depend on how many points the Banco has. If he has 6 or 7 points, the game is stopped, and result is determined. If the Banco has less than 6 points, he is dealt the third card, after which the game on that box is concluded.
If the Punto has less than 6 points, he is dealt a third card. Now the Banco can also take a third card if necessary, after which the game on that box is concluded. Two factors influence whether the Banco will receive a third card: the sum of his two original cards and the final card dealt to the Punto. This relationship is shown in the following table ("+" marks the cases when the Banco is dealt the third card):
| Banco's Points | Punto's Third Card | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | |
| 0–2 | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + |
| 3 | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | |
| 4 | + | + | + | + | + | + | ||||
| 5 | + | + | + | + | ||||||
| 6 | + | + | ||||||||
| 7 | ||||||||||
Additional Information about online baccarat
The player can play on up to four boxes in this card game. The bet on the Punto is made in the Punto field, the bet on the Banco is made in the Banco field, and the bet on a tie is made in the Egalite field. The minimum and maximum bets are indicated on the game table.
To make a bet, it is first necessary to choose a chip with the desired face-value. At the beginning of the game, this chip is chosen by default, and the chip with the minimum face-value fixes itself onto the cursor. If the player wants a chip with a different face-value, he can select it by clicking on that chip with the cursor. The player can also use the scroll wheel on his mouse to change the chip’s value. After the chip is selected, the player can place a bet by clicking the mouse on the desired part of the game table and his bet will appear there. Each subsequent click adds another chip of the selected face-value to the bet. If the player wants to remove the last chip from his bet, he can remove the chip fixed onto the cursor by clicking the cursor on any empty part of the game window and then clicking on this bet.
The "Clear" button can be pressed to remove all the bets from the table. If the player wishes to repeat his bets from the previous hand, he can press the "Rebet" button. The "Deal" button will begin the game after the bets have been made.
If the player wants to play several hands in a row and use the same bet each hand, he should click the "AUTO" button to start autoplay.
If the player moves mouse cursor over this button, he will see a counter appear above it that displays the number of hands that will be made during autoplay. At the beginning of a game session, this number is equal to the maximum possible value – 1000, but it can be changed with the switches on the counter. Autoplay starts as soon as the "AUTO" button is clicked, at the same time the maximum game speed is being set. The manual mode is restored by pressing the "AUTO" button once more.
Cards are shuffled before every hand in Punto Banco.