The first official set of rules for the modern version of Baccarat were devised by a man named Felix Falguiere in 15th century Italy.
This has led some to suggest that the significance of eight or nine (a ‘natural’ in Baccarat) supplying the best outcome might have had a formative influence on the rules of the game. Meanwhile, it is claimed that in ancient Rome various games were played that involved rolling a nine-sided dice, with those who rolled an eight or nine receiving prizes. Falguiere named the game Baccara (Italian for zero) as the majority of cards are worth zero. Pai Gow (‘make nine’ in English) was a popular game in the former that utilised tiles to denote numbers, potentially indicating a link to Baccarat, in which nine is the maximum score that can be achieved. While the common conception is that Baccarat originated in France, some historians have suggested that the game’s roots can be traced back to ancient China and Rome.
