The Mystique of Baccarat – Why James Bond plays Baccarat

Although the game of Baccarat has been around for hundreds of years, it really only became popular in the mid nineteen fifties, and especially in the early sixties, when it was shown to be the ultimate cool secret agent James Bond’s favourite casino game and some of the early Bond movies.

Anyone who understood the background of Ian Fleming, the author of the Bond books would understand why he chose Baccarat as 007’s favorite card game, over any other casino game, even roulette, which is considerably more gentile. However, Fleming would never allow bond to push his way through the crowds at a roulette table when he could be sitting down drinking his favourite vodka marina, shaken not stirred, while dealing cards to the dealer in the ultra sophisticated atmosphere around the baccarat table.

In one of Bond’s later movies, 007 was actually spotted playing Texas Hold’em, poker, a fact that raised a few eyebrows around the British establishment till it was discovered that he was playing undercover to depose yet another super villain. Bond would never play Texas Hold’em for fun.

As it was then, and as it still is today, baccarat remains probably the most exclusive game in the top online casinos, not just because everybody is so polite to each other around the table, but also because it is a game for very high stakes players. Many of the highest powered Baccarat sessions that go on in the South of France or in London or played behind closed doors and by invitation only, so large are the amounts of money changing hands. And unlike that other famous high stakes game, Texas Hold’em the house remains a key player in Baccarat bankrolling each hand.

Read more on how to play in our next blog post!