You don’t have to be a high-roller anymore to play baccarat.
That’s the message the Las Vegas Sands Corporation tries to send every year with the Grand Dragon Master Baccarat Championship, which kicks off here in Las Vegas this Friday at The Palazzo casino / resort.
Anyone with a Grazie loyalty membership card from The Palazzo or The Venetian receives one free entry to the fifth annual event, the world’s largest baccarat tournament featuring a global prize pool of $ 10 million.
“It’s a great way to introduce people to baccarat,” said Derek Morishita, manager of the Palazzo / Venetian table games at poker88.
For a long time, the perception of baccarat was that it was only a game for big gamblers playing in high-limit areas with dealers supporting the tuxedo. Seeing James Bond at the baccarat table in some of his films only emphasizes that theory.
“We even had a tuxedo dealer when we opened,” says Morishita. “It has a mystique to it. People are a little afraid to play it. Now we bring it where (ordinary) people can be more in touch with it. We are trying to introduce it to the mass market. It’s a very simple game. That is fun. It’s fast. ”
While baccarat is very popular in Asian casinos, meatball remains in the United States for games such as blackjack and poker. In a bid to get even more excited about baccarat, casinos now have much lower limit tables.
The Palazzo and Venetian, for example, still have a $ 100 minimum bet on high-end rooms, but they also offer a $ 25 table in the lobby, along with a baccarat video game for a minimum of $ 5. The electronic version includes a live dealer and is a great way to go. for the first time learning the game, but one popular element is missing: you don’t pass the cards.
Part of the appeal for baccarat players is they can actually card. The players tend to be very superstitious. They will determine a certain card to determine the rules governing to determine the cards. They will blow the card. They will even bend the cards at times, commands a new deck to play.
As Morishita said, “They try to take their luck.”
The squeezing will last over the next two weekends – Friday through Monday, and July 29-August. 1 at the $ 200,000 Golden Dragon tournament, the first leg of Grand Dragon, with a total daily prize pool of $ 25,000 at The Palazzo.