Baccarat is a card game that is dealt out of a shoe with six to eight decks of cards shuffled up and placed in the shoe. The shoe is just a box designed to hold the cards and let them be dealt for each hand. Two hands are dealt each time, one for the bank side of the hand and one for the player's side of the hand.

The players at the table can make one of three bets on each baccarat hand before it is dealt. They can bet on the bank, the player or the tie hand. If the banker hand wins then all players who bet the bank win. The same is true if the player hand wins, then all of the player bets win. On a tie bet, it must come a tie or the bet loses. The payoff on a tie bet is 8 to 1. The payoff on a player bet is even money. The bank payoff is even money with a five percent commission.

The common way to play baccarat is to follow the shoe. This means to bet on the side that won the last hand. The way a player at a baccarat table can win a lot of money is catch a long run on one side of the shoe. They do this by parlaying their bets and leaving it on the side that won the last hand. Since the way the cards come out of the shoe was setup when the shoe was shuffled, the casino cannot do anything about a run on the bank or players side.

Following the shoe is a strategy that works most of the time, but it can be a losing strategy if the shoe is flip-flopping between bank and player. If this happens then the player's bet is always on the wrong side.

Why players keep track of the way the hands are coming is they hope to see a pattern they can bet on. For example the winning side of the deal can only win maybe four times in a row. If you were following the shoe, and you saw this pattern, then on the fifth deal you would cut your bet to a minimum, but not switch sides with your bet. Winning side has been seen to run over twenty hands in a row. Betting against a trend can be very costly for the better when a trend continues for a while. This course of betting is not recommended as a trend can stay in place longer than a player can tolerate. Play the winning side and hope that you are catching a max trend. If you are so lucky be sure to start a small parlay when making your bets.

One rule that is followed by some players is to not bet a tie hand until the first tie hand happens. A shoe can go from start to finish with no tie hands being dealt.
Most players bet the tie on a feeling or a hunch. Others will bet the tie when a certain number of hands have been dealt since the last tie. Whatever the method the tie is great to catch due to the payoff it pays to the winner.

Play the trend or do not play is the rule in a baccarat game. The trend is your friend in baccarat. The other scheme is to add a small amount to each succeeding bet that you make. Do this when a trend is in place. Not pushing the trend is a mistake that many players make when playing the game of baccarat. In fact few players will up their bet when winning, but will do it when losing. This is a backwards way to play the game. Bet more when winning and less when losing.