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The History of Baccarat.
Like many of the other gambling games that we know today there is a dispute as to were Baccarat originally came from, there are claims from both the French and Italians that they originally invented the game. One of the reasons for such dispute could lead to the actual name Baccarat which in both French and Italian means zero.
It is the Italian claim to Baccarat that most believe as it is the most plausible, it was believed that in the Middle Ages an Italian named Felix Falguierein would play Baccarat with a deck of tarot cards, and however it is also believed that it dates back further to an ancient Etruscan Ritual. The ritual involved a blonde virgin throwing a nine sided dice which related to the nine of gods, this dice would decide the girls future or fate. If the girl rolled a nine or eight she would become a priestess, if she throw a seven or six she would be forever banned from future religious events, if she throw under six then her fate would be to walk into the sea and drown.
In the 1480's it was the Italians that introduced the game to France. In France the game was not known as Baccarat nor was it a game for anyone other then French nobility, who called the game Chemin-de-Fer which was actually the term for railroad. When the game did finally spread up the Rivera it became a quick climber in terms of its popularity and soon had its name shorted to Shimmy or Chemmy before being transported across the channel to England. While the game was in England it under went a number of rule changes before crossing the seas again, this time the Atlantic to Argentina around 1950's. The game landed at the casinos in Mar Del Plata which translates to 'The Sea of Sliver' and was soon attracting many wealthy South Americans.
Baccarat then made its way to the Cuba seaside, Havana were it was called Punto-Banco, this was before the heyday of Castro, with its undergoing some more rule changes. In the European version of Baccarat all of the players in the game would place their bets against each other with the house then receiving a percentage. The adapted version of the game would see all the players bet against the house. A young executive named Tommy Renzon, decided to take the game to Las Vegas, while working at the Capri hotel casino in Havana he adopted a deep curiosity for the game, the casinos in Havana had closed so he had nothing to lose. Tommy took the game to the owners of The Sands Hotel in order to establish a Baccarat pit, The Sands agreed and decided to rope off an area for the game and had dealers all dressed in tuxedos. The first night the game was played at the casino it lost $250,000, however this was not the greatest loss ever seen in Baccarat.
In 1990 Akio Kashiwagi made a historical win at the Baccarat table of the Atlantic City's Trump Plaza Casino of more then $6 millon. He was betting $200,000 per hand. When Akio Kashiwagi returned to the Baccarat table he made history for the second time by losing $10 million.
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