For most people, baccarat isn’t the first card game that comes to mind when you think of casinos. However, it’s a classy, enduring game that is not only fun to play but perfect for the online betting format. If you’re a fan of baccarat or hoping to give it a shot (which we highly recommend!), you can find our top picks for the best South African casinos that offer baccarat below, including the incredible Springbok Casino.
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💰 Min Deposit - R20
💸 Min Withdrawal - R500
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💵 Currencies - Bitcoin, ZAR, €, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash
🗓 Launched In - 2012
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💰 Min Deposit - R100
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💵 Currencies - ZAR, Bitcoin, Litecoin
🗓 Launched In - 2014
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💰 Min Deposit - R100
💸 Min Withdrawal - R200
👨💼 Customer Support - Help Section, Phone, Email, Chat
💵 Currencies - €, US$, CA$, ZAR
🗓 Launched In - 2003
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👨💼 Customer Support - Live Chat, Email, Phone
💵 Currencies - Bitcoin, €, ZAR, $, NZ$, C$, etc
🗓 Launched In - 2004
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💰 Min Deposit - R100
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👨💼 Customer Support - Email, Live Chat, Phone
💵 Currencies - ZAR, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum
🗓 Launched In - 2019
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💰 Min Deposit - €10
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💵 Currencies - £, €, CAD, INR, NOK, ZAR
🗓 Launched In - 2017
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💰 Min Deposit - €10 (or equivalent)
💸 Min Withdrawal - €20 (or equivalent)
👨💼 Customer Service - FAQs, Email, Phone, Live Chat
💵 Currencies - $, £, €, ZAR
🗓 Launched In - 2017
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💰 Min Deposit - R25
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👨💼 Customer Support - Live Chat, Email, FAQs
💵 Currencies - ZAR, Litecoin, Bitcoin
🗓 Launched In - 2018
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👨💼 Customer Support - Live Chat, Email, Phone
💵 Currencies - R$, ZAR, TSH, Mexican Pesos
🗓 Launched In - 2022
Top 10 Online Casinos in South Africa Offering Baccarat Reviewed
1. Springbok Casino
To kick off our list, we have Springbok Casino! While it’s far from the biggest online casino around, it’s a great-looking site that’s easy to navigate and looks professional. You can play all the games you want here, including slots, table games, and video poker. One of the features we love most about Springbok is its dedication to mobile play; it has one of the best mobile sites around, and it even has a dedicated casino app for Android devices. From the mobile adaptability to the promotions to the range of payment options, it’s hard to find anything to complain about.
| Pros ✅ | Cons ❌ |
| Slick site design | Smaller casino site |
| Mobile friendly | |
| Great game variety |
2. Yebo Casino
Yebo Casino is one of the best options available for players in South Africa. It’s targeted at local players and features plenty of ZAR-friendly payment options, some fabulous bonuses and, of course, a plethora of entertaining games. It even has mobile support! Notably, Yebo Casino is well known for its VIP program, which offers exclusive promotions, special support treatment and even VIP-only jackpots. However, Yebo dropped the ball when it comes to withdrawals, with many of the most popular methods not supporting payouts, and some even come with added fees.
| Pros ✅ | Cons ❌ |
| Stellar VIP scheme | Few withdrawal methods & some have fees |
| Excellent bonus lineup | |
| Mobile friendly |
3. Casino Tropez
Casino Tropez is notable on our list for being one of the biggest brands we have to recommend. This internationally recognised brand hosts some of the best casino games around and presents them all in a professional-looking package. The site is a little behind the times, but it’s easy to find what you’re looking for, and there’s so much to choose from! You’ll also be hard-pressed to find another South African casino that supplies so many promotions! If we have to nitpick, we thought some of the bonuses had steep wagering requirements.
| Pros ✅ | Cons ❌ |
| Established international brand | Steep wagering requirements |
| High-quality casino library | |
| Professional site design |
4. Europa Casino
Europa Casino has a classic, professional feel to its casino site, presenting its impressive game library in a way that makes it simple to find exactly what you want. The games themselves come from top developers like Playtech, so you know each one will provide a quality experience. Europa also hosts many bonuses and an excellent range of payment options to use, including many less common methods like Interac and ecoPayz. However, we were let down by the customer service that didn’t have many contact points and isn’t 24/7.
| Pros ✅ | Cons ❌ |
| Games from top developers | Customer service isn’t 24/7 |
| Supports less common payment options | |
| Excellent promotional lineup |
5. ZAR Casino
ZAR Casino is a fantastic choice for any South African gambler. As a site designed for local players, you know it has all the features and ZAR-friendly options you could want from an online casino, including payment methods, customer support and promotions. We were particularly pleased with the variety of games, as the site hosts slots, blackjack, baccarat, video poker and even live dealer titles, which isn’t particularly common from home-grown sites! Unfortunately, the customer support wasn’t 24/7, but since it was focused around the ZA time zone, you’re much less likely to be inconvenienced by it.
| Pros ✅ | Cons ❌ |
| ZAR-friendly payment options | Customer support isn’t 24/7 |
| Great variety of games | |
| Intuitive site design |
6. Yeti Casino
Yeti Casino is one of those wonderful modern sites that host thousands of games. Anyone who plays with Yeti is guaranteed to find a game that suits their taste (even if it takes a while to find one among this pile of titles). You can choose from slots, table games, Slingo, live dealer titles and even casual games if you fancy something a little different. Yeti Casino is also notable for supporting many of the most popular payment methods and even allowing players to use many of them to claim deals, which is extra convenient! The only real letdown from Yeti Casino is the distinct lack of ongoing promotional offers, so the variety of games alone will be what keeps you here.
| Pros ✅ | Cons ❌ |
| Huge, varied game library | Lack of promotional offers |
| Supports many popular payment options | |
| Modern site design |
7. Fun Casino
Fun Casino is a newer site, but it’s prepared to wow you! Its library houses thousands of games from top developers like Pragmatic Play, NetEnt, Playtech and many more. With this kind of quality assurance, you’ll never be short of great titles to play. Fun Casino also supports many different payment methods, allowing players to control their finances in whatever is most convenient. The site doesn’t feature a great bonus lineup, with only the welcome bonus of much note, but the website as a whole is top-tier and sure to keep anyone entertained for a long time to come.
| Pros ✅ | Cons ❌ |
| Thousands of games | Few promotional offers |
| Games from top developers | |
| Many payment methods |
8. Punt Casino
This is a crypto casino, specialising in cryptocurrency transactions like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether. You can play all of your favourite online casino games, just using crypto instead of regular ZAR. Punt’s library is a little smaller than most sites, but despite its size, the games are well-curated to ensure a consistently high-quality gaming experience. Also, since this is a crypto casino, the transaction speeds are nothing to sniff at, consistently meeting fast transaction times. However, as you might guess, if you aren’t involved with crypto, Punt won’t have much to offer you.
| Pros ✅ | Cons ❌ |
| Supports many crypto tokens | Restricted to crypto payments |
| Fast transaction times | |
| High-quality library |
9. 10bet Casino
10bet is a well-known international brand, particularly for its sportsbook, but the casino is also exemplary. It has one of the best-looking websites around, with a clean-cut design that makes it simple to find whatever games you’re in the mood for. It also functions well, with minimal loading times. We also love the range of promotions available too, appealing to all sorts of customers, regardless of their preferences. Finally, we were pleasantly surprised to see that 10bet offers a mobile app for players who prefer to play on the go, but if you use an Apple device, you’ll be disappointed as it’s only for Android.
| Pros ✅ | Cons ❌ |
| Respected international gambling brand | App only for Android devices |
| Mobile friendly | |
| Attractive website |
10. African Grand
The last casino we have to recommend you is African Grand Casino, a top-tier choice for any South African gambler. It features all the games you could want, including slots, blackjack, baccarat, video poker, keno and more! African Grand even offers mobile apps on both iOS and Android devices, so anyone can take their gaming on the go. The main downside was the strict monthly withdrawal limits, so high rollers might have an issue in the long term. But this is a fairly standard practice for sites of this size for the sake of stability.
| Pros ✅ | Cons ❌ |
| Variety of great games | Strict monthly withdrawal limits |
| Mobile apps | |
| Super ZA-friendly casino site |
How We Rank the Top Baccarat Casino Sites in South Africa
Our experts have to consider many factors when picking out the best South African casino sites for baccarat. Here’s a look at some of the most important points to consider when looking for a quality casino.
Baccarat Game Variety
It should go without saying, but when we’re on the hunt for the best online casinos for baccarat, we want to see a decent spread of baccarat games. We don’t expect a top baccarat casino to host baccarat titles as far as the eye can see, but instead place more emphasis on quality and variety. Are the games smooth to play? Is the interface intuitive? Does the software provide additional game information? Is it easy to find a table? In short, we’re looking for an enjoyable and polished baccarat experience.
Live Dealer Baccarat
Live casino has grown exponentially over the past decade, and we’re happy to see baccarat with live dealer options. The popular form of baccarat is a game that’s ideal for the live dealer format. Since it’s often played as a speculative betting game, the player’s disconnection from the dealing and game pieces doesn’t affect the game experience, making it ideal for online casinos.
Free Baccarat Games
You aren’t going to find any completely free baccarat games; if you’re not playing a casino game with real money, you aren’t going to win any real money either. However, we appreciate it when online casinos offer demo versions of their table games. This lets new players get to grips with the flow of the game, or you can see how a new variation or software works before actually putting money down. We’re also thrilled when online casinos let you use bonus funds on table games like baccarat.
Payment Methods & Betting Limits
We don’t all play with the same bankroll, so it’s important for online casinos to offer games with varied betting limits. The player who wants to drop thousands of Rand on every bet should be just as accommodated as the player who wants to spend next to nothing. Additionally, it’s better if different budgets are kept to their own tables, meaning that people who want to limit their bankroll aren’t coming up against high-rollers, which could negatively impact their own spending.
Also, it’s crucial that any South African casino worth its salt supports a good range of payment options. Transferring money into your account should be safe and convenient, with many options that suit your needs. In general, we like to see debit cards like Visa on offer and one or two e-wallets in addition to the default bank transfer.
Compatibility with Mobile
Mobile gaming has never been such a big business as it is today, especially now that some people are accessing the internet almost exclusively through mobile devices. We’ve started to expect all online casinos to support mobile play in one form or another. Commonly, this will be a mobile website that adapts the desktop site to a smaller touchscreen, but the best of the best will host a dedicated app. Good mobile compatibility offers a streamlined and convenient option that doesn’t lose the user-friendliness of the default website.
Additional Games
While we’re most concerned with the baccarat pickings for this list, that doesn’t mean we won’t hold the rest of the library to the same standard. Online casinos should be diverse and offer a variety of game titles. This ensures that when the baccarat bug has left, there will be plenty of content left to keep us on the site — otherwise, we might as well move on to something better. We want to see plenty of games available, like slots, progressives, blackjack, roulette, poker, crash games and even online Keno games! And a range of live dealer titles never goes amiss, either.
Promotions and Offers
The best thing about online gambling is the wonderful array of promotional offers. There’s so much choice and variety, so we prefer online casinos that feed into this. The welcome offer should be eye-catching but with reasonable terms and conditions, and the site should run regular promotions after sign-up to reward loyal customers. This could be through log-in bonuses and weekly cashback-type deals or accessible VIP schemes that benefit all players, not just the biggest spenders.
How To Play Classic Baccarat: Step By Step Guide
Baccarat has an unfair reputation for being confusing when, in reality, it’s one of the easiest games at the casino to understand and play. If you’ve ever played a game of blackjack, you’ll find baccarat to be a breeze.
The first thing to understand about baccarat is that it’s changed a lot over the years. While it’s a French game, the most popular version of it, Punto Banco, was developed in Havana, Cuba, before making its way to the US and the Vegas Strip. Today, it’s easily the most common version of the game internationally. However, it fits nicely into the classic French structure of gambling games, that being spectator games. This version of baccarat is controlled entirely by the dealer, with participants simply betting on the outcome.
Next, baccarat is basically an altered version of classic blackjack, but instead of aiming for 21, you’re aiming for 9. Double-digit totals drop the first digit to give you your total (i.e. a 17 would be a 7). You bet on whether the player or the banker will win, or if they’ll tie. There are a few extra rules, like the player always stands on 6,7,8 or 9, and the banker will then hit on a 0-5. But these are rules for the banker to be concerned with; you can just sit back, chat with other players and watch the game unfold.
Here’s a rundown of the basic flow of baccarat:
- All participants place their bets — bet on the player, the banker, or a tie. You can also bet on whether the player or banker will get a double.
- The croupier (or computer program) deals the cards face up for you to see.
- Whichever hand is closest to ‘9’ wins, and all bets are paid out.
- Start again!
Baccarat Variations on Offer at Top ZA Casino Sites
Baccarat doesn’t have as many variations as a game like poker, but if you’re looking for a different experience from your gameplay, you’ll be able to find something to suit you. Here’s a look at the most popular variations of baccarat you can find at South African online casinos.
If Baccarat doesn’t seem like the online casino game for you, why not try one of the top 10 online casinos for Blackjack?
Chemin de Fer
This is the classic version of baccarat as it rose to popularity in 18th-century Europe (although it wasn’t the first, that would be Baccarat Banque). This version is more involved than punto banco and is much closer in play to blackjack. The players are dealt two cards face down and either hit or stand with the goal of having a better hand than the banker. If your hand is closer to 9, you win. This is the most popular version played in French and other European casinos to this day. However, thanks to punto banco being so much easier to adapt to online play, it’s not quite so popular at online casinos.
Mini/speed
Mini baccarat is a variation of punto banco played at smaller tables with much lower stakes. Usually, only seven people can play at a mini baccarat table, and there are only three betting options. At brick-and-mortar casinos, this game is known for being fast-paced and more casual than the large, cordoned-off punto banco tables. One of the main differences at land-based casinos is that regular punto banco will share dealing between the different players at the table, while mini-bac doesn’t. Obviously, this isn’t a difference you’ll notice at online casinos.
Squeeze
There is functionally no difference between baccarat squeeze and regular baccarat. The only difference is that the cards are dealt face down and slowly revealed to enhance tension and excitement. This works better at land-based casinos than online casinos, where speed is favoured, but live baccarat squeeze is a lot of fun as a midpoint between the two.
No Commission
When you bet on the banker, bets are paid out with a 5% commission to the house. This is because the banker has better odds of winning any given hand, so the house puts its edge on these bets. As you might guess, no commission baccarat is a version of the game without that commission. However, it usually means other specific bets only pay back 50% or such, like in ‘Super 6.’
Top Tips for Playing Baccarat
One of the appeals of baccarat is how little skill is involved in it. Some people equate the game to winning a coin flip since the odds of either the banker or the player winning are almost 50% (with the tie pushing both just shy of it). However, there are still some tips you can bear in mind to improve your odds and enjoy your game more.
- Bet On Banker:
While the probability of the banker or player winning is almost exactly 50/50, there is a slight advantage to the banker. This is a difference of less than 1%, but when you’re gambling, that margin can make a tangible difference. As such, the classic advice in baccarat is to always bet on the banker or to at least favour the banker in your bets. However, keep in mind that banker bets only pay back 95%, as there’s a 5% commission in place as a direct result of that odds difference. - Avoid The Tie:
While betting on the banker or the player doesn’t make too big of a difference, betting on a tie is almost universally a bad idea. The appeal is that tie bets pay back 8-1, which is a huge profit. However, that payout is only so good because of the house edge on these bets, which is almost 15%! Ouch. As such, unless you’re feeling particularly lucky, we recommend steering clear of tie bets. - Choose Games With Fewer Decks:
In most casino card games, it’s well-known that fewer decks in play can reduce the house edge. Casinos prefer using more decks because it deters card counting and other forms of cheating, but you don’t have to be a professional to benefit from fewer decks. It’s not much of a difference, but every 0.1% counts in casino games. So try to stick to baccarat games played with 6-8 decks. - Explore Variants:
While punto banco is easy and highly accessible, that doesn’t mean it’s the best version of baccarat for you! We recommend checking out all the different types of baccarat you can find online, including ones we haven’t detailed here. If you want a more involved experience, Chemin de Fer could be more up your alley, or if you want something lower stakes, you can consider mini-baccarat. - Place Small Bets:
Controlling your bankroll is always an important part of playing casino games. Nothing takes a casino game from fun to nightmarish faster than losing everything you have at once. You should keep your betting small to combat this, especially since baccarat payouts are almost all 1–1. Make smaller bets, keep your play sessions short and be mindful of your headspace to keep your experience lighthearted and enjoyable.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the best Baccarat variant?
If you’re looking for a good time with a high player return, you can’t beat American baccarat.
Can I play Baccarat for free?
Some online casinos offer demo modes of their table games, and you can also use bonus funds on baccarat. However, you won’t win real money if you don’t play with real money.
Is Baccarat available at all South African casino sites?
Baccarat is harder to find at South African casinos than some other games. It’s not quite as popular as titles like blackjack or roulette, but most online casinos will host at least one game of classic baccarat.
Can I play live dealer Baccarat games?
Yes, baccarat is a game that translates flawlessly into the live dealer format. We highly recommend checking it out if you’re interested.