Like other gambling games such as Blackjack the dispute as to the true origins of Baccarat lies in claims from both the French and the Italians. The reason for this is that the word Baccarat in Italian means exactly the same in French 'Zero'.
The Italian claim which most agree with sates that the game was invented by Italian Felix Falguierein around the middle aged and was played with a deck of Torat cards with this game being based on an ancient Etruscan ritual. This ritual was of the nine gods who prayed to a young blonde virgin who would be waiting to throw a nine sided dice, the number on the dice which would be shown after the throw would determine the virgins fate, for example if a eight or a nine was revealed then the young virgin would become a priestess, if she throw a seven or six she would be banned from any future religious events and any number under six the girl would have to walk into the sea to drown.
It was around the 1480's that the Italians took the game to Europe and France in particular. Baccarat in France was called 'Chemin de Fer' by the nobles of France, and it became a game exclusively to the them as they would often seek new and different idle pastimes to amuse them and they soon warmed to it quickly. When the game finally spread up the Rivera it soon became a quick casino favourite and had its name shortened to Chemmy or Shimmy, before crossing the channel to England and begun to undergo rule changes before crossing the Atlantic to Argentina around the 1950's and landed at the casinos in Mer Del Plata (the sea of silver) and attracted many a wealthy south American.
Baccarat then made its way to Cuba and the Havana seaside, this was before Castro's heyday where it was called Punto-Banco and underwent some important rule changes. In the European version of the game players would bet against each other and then the house would receive a percentage, in the new version all players would bet against the house. Francis 'Tommy' Renzeni was a young executive at the Capri Hotel casino in Havana and observed the players of Baccarat with a great curiosity which is when he moved to Las Vegas, Nevada to convince the owners of The Sands Hotel, among them was Frank Sinatra, to establish a Baccarat pit, The Sands agreed and an area was roped off with the dealers all wearing tuxedos. The game ended up loosing The Sands $250,000 on the first night, the appeal of Baccarat didn't last and even today you will probably only find mini Baccarat in many of the Las Vegas casino.
In Atlantic City in 1990 the publicity for Baccarat grew when a man named Akio Kashiwagi won $6 million at the Trump Plaza casino, he was given the nickname 'The Warrior'. After setting this record he went on to set the record for losing $10 million but considered himself to be lucky as he only really lost $4 million in total.
Today baccarat is established firmly in the casinos of the world and has made a smooth transmission to the internet with most online gambling sites offering baccarat.
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