How to Play James Bond Without Leaving Home

Bond enjoying baccarat in Thunderball

Right, it’s admission time. Are you one of the many folks who has daydreamed about being James Bond? The all-action, dashing super-spy seems to have quite the exciting life, driving supercars and seemingly doing as he pleases.

He even gets a kick out of trips to the casino. We’ve seen plenty of examples of that with Bond, subject of some of the best movies produced, with the Brit agent playing roulette, baccarat, blackjack, and Texas Hold’em in various flicks.

But while it’s unlikely you will be taken on as a British secret agent any time soon, you can at least pretend you are 007 at the casino.

Thanks to sophisticated new streaming technology, you don’t even have to dress up and go to a brick-and-mortar casino to test your gaming skills and luck.

Live dealer studios stream real casino games to gaming platforms, so now you can play with a real dealer using proper cards or a roulette wheel.

Live Dealer Baccarat

James Bond was originally a fan of baccarat. You don’t even have to dress in a Tuxedo to play these live dealer tables offering Bond’s favorite game. But how do live dealer games work?

The action actually takes place in a specially-made studio operated by gaming specialist companies like Evolution Gaming.

The place is full of gaming tables, each with a dealer using real cards or a genuine roulette wheel. The action from each table is streamed directly to online casinos or gaming platforms. Here, punters can select a table and claim a free seat.

Graphics overlay the live-action, allowing online players to choose their bet amount and place their wager on every hand. If you are playing blackjack, you get to select your next move, like hit, stand, double down, or split.

A live dealer baccarat game

Your balance is always visible, plus the dealer will address the table throughout while all players get the chance to chat back via the online chat facility. It’s just like having your own real casino in your own home.

But, if you really want to be like Bond, you must learn how to play Baccarat.

How to Play Baccarat

Now, there is a fundamental misconception about this game. Many people, even those quite used to visiting and playing in casinos, believe that baccarat is a complicated game that is preferred by high-rollers. Instead, most people settle for slots, blackjack, or roulette.

But in reality, baccarat is one of the easiest games to play. And that means you can be just like James Bond and play with a real dealer on your laptop or even your cell phone. Furthermore, the game is not just for high rollers – you can play for just about any stake you wish.

Unlike blackjack, where you must make various strategic decisions during the course of a hand, baccarat sees you needing to make just one decision at the start of every round – whether to place your bet on Player, Banker, or Tie.

You then sit back with your Vodka Martini (shaken, not stirred, of course) and relax as you watch the dealer do all the work. He will deal out the cards to the Player and to the Banker and then play out the hands for you. The aim is to get as close to a total of nine as possible. If you backed the winner, then you win your bet. The live studio systems automatically add your winnings to your online account, and you then select whether to bet on the next round or not.

And that’s all there is to it. There is no mystique, no need for deep pockets – and no need to walk out of your home and travel to the casino.

Why Bond’s Baccarat is a Good Choice

There is another solid reason for being like Bond and playing baccarat, rather than some other casino games, and that’s down to something called the house edge. This is the amount by which the casino is expected to win on any given game. Of course, the casino always has the mathematical advantage – if it didn’t, it would soon go out of business!

But the house edge does vary from one game to another. In baccarat, it is as low as 1% if you always bet on the Banker winning. It means that for every $100 you bet, you are expected to lose $1. With that in mind, you can see your money can last a long time, so you get lots of entertainment while pretending to be Mr. Bond.

Compare that to roulette, where the house edge is more like 2.7% in the European version of the game.

So, there you have it. While we wait for the delayed James Bond film No Time to Die to be released, you can at least do something to be like the agent who is licensed to kill.