Online Mini Baccarat Comes to Rome Casino

by Edward Rogers, News Staff Writer

April 21, 2009

If you are looking for a good game of online Baccarat, the newly established, Rome Casino, recently announced it is offering Mini-Baccarat, and is accepting bets from U.S. players, while the popular European and UK online casino, Virgin Casino, is offering Baccarat bets as low as 50 pence. FYI, Rome Casino doesn't have Baccarat listed on their website, but no worries - it will be there in the download. Rome Casino is powered by the up-and-coming Top Game Software, while UK white-listed Virgin Casino offers the new and improved Wager Works platform.

The game of Baccarat is a permanent fixture at the best online casinos. Catering to high rollers in the brick 'n mortar gambling industry, Baccarat is much more affordable, and consequently, approachable in the online world. Still offering a low Casinos Edge of little over 1%, but with much lower minimum bet amounts (as low as $1 or 50p) at many online casinos, it's easy to see why Baccarat is more popular with European and U.S. online gamblers than their land-based counterparts.

Punto Banco, which is the same thing as North American Baccarat, is the most commonly offered form of the game these days. As for Mini-Baccarat, it's the same game, but with even lower betting limits. The original French version of Baccarat, chemin de fer, is also the same game, but requires the Banker (the shoe revolves from player to player each hand, designating the player as the Banker), to actually bank the hand. In this regard, the game is more like poker. But in online casinos, even European casinos, the Punto Banco version is the default.

Since we're on the subject of Baccarat, here's a couple things you may not know about this historical game (thanks be to the oh-so-insightful Wikipedia). Baccarat, is not actually pronounced like it's spelled - You know, like most people say it with the "t" on the end. Rather, it sounds like Bah-ku-rah. More like a high school football cheer, I know.

And since you probably already know about the association of Baccarat with James Bond, here's a lesser known claim to fame. Remember the cartoon series, Pinky and the Brain? Turns out that one of Brain's master plans to take over the world is to set up a crooked Baccarat casino. As always, Brain's plan doesn't pan out. In this case, turns out nobody wants to play Baccarat - an insightful jab at the land-based version of the game (except for maybe in Macau). But in the online world, where there is no James Bond and Baccarat and Mini Baccarat are more affordable to play, the game lives on very strong. Maybe Brain should rehash his plan. God knows without proper regulation, he stands a good chance to make it happen.

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