What is a dragon in Baccarat?

What is a dragon in Baccarat?

As weird as the two words sound together in the first place, they are not related to the Dothraki language from the Game of Thrones. We are all familiar with the hard-to-pronounce word of Baccarat, a card-comparing game historically played by the nobilities. You may say we have already had enough of weird words in Baccarat, from “Punto” to “Chemin De Fer”, and now comes the word “dragon,” which seems to not correlate with betting and gambling at all. I welcome you to the lucrative game of Baccarat which generates the highest revenue for casinos all around the world and seems not to care about your confusion.

A dragon bonus bet is a side bet which offers the possibility of betting on the gap between the Player and the Banker hands after all third card draws.

Where to place a dragon bonus bet?

I assume you have at least played a round or two of Baccarat and noticed another betting option alongside the regular Banker and Player ones. This extra betting option is displayed by a dragon face, or the word “dragon”, which sounds as scary, if not less, than the dragon itself.

Should we be really scared of this extra-betting option? The dragon symbolizes good luck in Chinese culture, and so does the dragon side bet in the Baccarat game. It promises huge payouts up to 30 times the original bet if lady luck is on your side. It may have originated in China, alongside some other side bets with interesting names like Panda, where the Baccarat game has a massive fan base.

To get a good grasp of the dragon side bet, a quick recap of Baccarat gameplay will help.

How to play Baccarat? (in comparison with Blackjack, another card-comparing game)

Baccarat is a card-comparing game, like Blackjack, where the total points of two hands are compared against each other to determine a winner. The hand closest to 21 wins against the house in Blackjack or vice versa (the house wins over the Player), but in Baccarat, the hand closest to nine wins over the other hand. The hand that goes over 21 busts in Blackjack, but a hand going over 9 in Baccarat drops its left digit only (no bust concept in Baccarat).

There are two main betting options in Baccarat, the Banker and the Player. They do not correlate with the Player or the House and are just naming conventions (they can be called anything, i.e., Joker and Batman). The hand closest to nine wins, and bets are returned to the players in the case of a tie.

Dragon side bet:

A dragon bonus bet is a side bet which offers the possibility of betting on the gap between the Player and the Banker hands after all third card draws.

Dragon bonus bet, which should not be mistaken for the Dragon 7 side bet, is a lucrative side bet that adds excitement to each draw in the game. It gives a thrilling soul to the somehow boring dead body of Baccarat.

Correctly guessing the gap between two hands is quite a challenge. The dragon bonus bet takes advantage of this challenging guess and sets the payouts to be as higher as the gap between the hands is wider.

The following table explains the payouts based on the gap between the hands.

What can we learn from the above table?

• As you can see if a hand wins over the other hand by a margin of three or fewer, the dragon bonus bet loses on both hands.
• There is a difference between winning by a natural 8 or 9 and winning by a 9 or 8 margin without having a natural.

For example:

Assume the Player hand initial two cards are 10 and King, while the Banker hand initial two cards are Two and Nine. The Player hand equals zero, and the Banker hand equals one. Both hands are eligible to draw a third card based on the Baccarat rules. The Player hand draws a Jack, and the Banker hand draws an Eight. The final hands’ values are zero for the Player hand and nine for the Banker hand. The Banker hand wins over the player hand by a 9 margin.

The dragon bonus bet on the Banker hand wins, while the dragon bonus bet on the Player hand loses. A player can place a dragon bonus bet regardless of whether there are any bets on the Player or Banker hands. The payout is 30 to 1 in the above example.

Reasons behind the Dragon bonus bet existence:

Baccarat, unsurprisingly, comes with many variations like any other gambling game. The most famous of all variations is Punto Banco, which is synonymously referred to as Baccarat by the players. It is like the Texas Hold’em of the Poker world. Another yet old variation is called Chemin De Fer, from which the modern Baccarat (Punto Banco) is derived.

Chemin De Fer has quite interesting gameplay where the banker role can be taken by any player by will. One player risks and finances the bank position. In this variation, the players play against each other, not the house, and the Player with the banker role deals the cards.

On the other hand, the Punto Banco variation is passive, with the casino financing the bank position. The mere invention of side bets, such as tie and dragon bets, has been due to the passive gameplay nature of the game. Baccarat (Punto Banco) is a pure game of chance and does not require any complicated strategy. Players are only responsible for choosing which hand to place their bets on, and the dealer takes care of the rest.

The die-hard fans of Baccarat sometimes confess to the monotonous nature of the game after several rounds. There is no psychology involved as in Poker or no complicated strategy as in Blackjack. Side bets have not been as popular as they are now in Baccarat, with some casinos not even supporting side bets to this day.

In a nutshell:

Side bets such as the dragon bet came into existence to add a little excitement to the rather monotonous game of Baccarat (Punto Banco variation). They make you pay attention to every card drawn from the shoe instead of passively observing the game half-asleep.