Chemin de Fer Rules: How to Play Chemmy Baccarat

Chemin de fer is the player-banked form of baccarat: the players take turns holding the bank, the casino only deals and collects a commission on the banker’s wins, and the person holding the Player hand may choose to draw or stand on a total of 5. Card values, naturals and the banker’s drawing table are almost the same as in the Punto Banco game most casinos run today. What changes is who puts up the money, who makes the decisions and how the bank moves around the table.

This guide sets out the chemin de fer rules step by step, using the published house rules of a state regulator (the Massachusetts Gaming Commission) as the reference, and then covers the maths, the few real decisions in the game, and how “chemmy” differs from the baccarat you will find at crypto casinos. If you are new to baccarat in general, our beginner’s guide to playing baccarat covers the basics first.

Chemin de fer rules at a glance

• Decks: at least six decks, dealt from a shoe (Massachusetts rule 1(a)).
• Card values: 2 to 9 count face value, tens and court cards count zero, an ace counts one. Only the last digit of a total counts, so 7 + 8 = 15 is a point count of 5.
• Two hands: the Banker’s Hand and the Player’s Hand. The hand closer to 9 wins; equal totals are a standoff and every wager is void.
• The bank: one seated participant is the Banker and bets on the Banker’s Hand. Everyone else bets against that stake, up to its full amount.
• Naturals: a two-card 8 or 9 is announced as a “natural” and nobody draws.
• Player’s third card: must draw on 0 to 4, may choose on 5, must stand on 6 or 7.
• Banker’s third card: follows a drawing table that depends on the banker’s total and the Player’s third card; some traditional rule sets give the banker two optional cases.
• Payouts: winning bets are paid 1 to 1 from the other side’s stakes. The casino takes a commission (vigorish) of 4% or 5% of the banker’s winnings.
• Passing the bank: the banker keeps the shoe after a win and must pass it after a loss.

What chemin de fer is, and where the name comes from

Baccarat came to France in the 19th century in several forms. Baccarat Banque (also called à deux tableaux) used a fixed banker playing against two Player hands at once. Chemin de fer appeared in the late 19th century as a faster two-hand version in which the bank rotated among the players. The French name means “railway”, a reference to speed: at the time the railway was the fastest way to travel, and the game moved quicker than the original.

Chemmy, as British players call it, became the high-society table game of the 20th century. Ian Fleming made baccarat chemin de fer James Bond’s game in his 1953 debut novel Casino Royale. In the film Dr. No (1962), Bond is first seen playing at a chemin de fer table.

The house-banked version, Punto Banco, developed in Havana in the 1940s and is the game almost every casino deals now, on the casino floor and online. In Punto Banco the casino banks every hand, the drawing rules are fixed for both sides, and players simply choose which hand to back. Chemin de fer kept the old structure: you are betting against another person at the table, and the casino is only the host.

Chemin de fer vs Punto Banco

Baccarat Banque, the third classic form, keeps a longer-lasting bank and deals two Player hands against it; it is now rarer still than chemmy.

The practical difference is control. At a Punto Banco table nobody makes a decision after the bets go down. At a chemmy table two people decide: the participant controlling the Player hand when the total is 5, and the banker in the optional cases. You can read more about the rest of the family in our crypto baccarat hub.

Card values and the point count

The scoring is identical to every other baccarat game. Cards 2 to 9 are worth their pip value. Tens, jacks, queens and kings are worth zero. An ace is worth one. A hand’s point count is the last digit of the total, so the count always runs from 0 to 9.

The Massachusetts rules give two examples: ace, 2 and 4 is a point count of 7, while ace, 2 and 9 totals 12 and therefore counts as 2. There is no busting in baccarat. A hand that adds up past 9 simply drops the tens digit.

How the banker is chosen

After the shuffle, the dealer offers the shoe to the table. Under the Massachusetts rule 4(b), the participant who offers to wager the highest amount on the first hand becomes the Banker and deals the cards. If two people bid the same amount, the one closest to the dealer moving counterclockwise wins the shoe.

The banker’s first stake must be at least the amount bid. On every later hand while they keep the bank, the stake must be at least equal to the previous one and no more than twice it. The regulator’s own example: a banker who took the shoe with a 1,000 bid must stake at least 1,000 on the first hand; if that hand wins and they stake 2,000 on the second, the third stake must fall between 2,000 and 4,000. In practice this means a winning bank grows quickly, which is part of the game’s appeal at high-stakes tables.

Betting against the bank: banco, suivi and partial bets

Once the banker has put up a stake, the other participants bet against it. Their combined wagers can never exceed the banker’s stake. The order of preference is fixed:

1. Banco suivi (or “suivi”). A participant who matched the banker’s whole stake on the previous hand and lost has first right to go “banco” again for the full amount.
2. Banco (or “banco seul”). Next, anyone may call banco and cover the entire stake alone. If several people call, the one seated nearest the banker counterclockwise gets it.
3. Partial wagers. If nobody goes banco, players starting to the banker’s right and moving counterclockwise can cover part of the stake until the total equals the bank or the dealer calls “no more bets”.

Any part of the banker’s stake that nobody covers is simply withdrawn. Nobody can add, raise or pull a bet after “no more bets”.

The participant who called banco (or, failing that, the one with the largest wager against the bank) becomes the “dominant player” and controls the Player’s Hand for that round. Everyone else betting against the bank rides along with that person’s decisions. This is the source of most table chatter in chemmy: if the dominant player stands on a 5 you would have drawn on, your money follows their choice.

The deal, step by step

1. The dealer announces “cards”. The banker deals four cards from the shoe, face down: the first and third to the dominant player (the Player’s Hand), the second and fourth to the banker.
2. The dominant player looks at the Player’s Hand without showing it. With a two-card 8 or 9 they announce “natural”, all cards are turned up and nobody draws.
3. Otherwise the dominant player calls “card” (on 0 to 4, or on 5 if they choose) or “stay” (on 6 or 7, or on 5 if they choose).
4. Before any third card goes to the Player, the banker checks their own two cards. A banker 8 or 9 is a natural and ends the round. With less than 8, the banker announces “under eight” and deals the Player’s third card face up.
5. The banker then turns their cards over and draws or stands according to the drawing table below.
6. The dealer announces both point counts and the result. Equal counts are a standoff and all stakes are returned.

Every announcement by the banker or dominant player is repeated aloud by the dealer, so the whole table knows what was said. That rule exists because money changes hands between players, and a misheard “card” or “stay” matters.

The Player’s choice on 5

The single strategic decision in classic chemin de fer belongs to whoever holds the Player’s Hand when its two cards total 5. On 0 to 4 they must draw. On 6 or 7 they must stand. On 5 they may do either.

This decision has interested mathematicians for well over a century. Joseph Bertrand’s 1889 analysis of whether Player should draw or stand on 5 is often cited as an early step toward game theory, and Stewart Ethier has shown that Bertrand’s results came, without credit, from an 1881 paper by Albert Badoureau. The modern answer is that neither “always draw” nor “always stand” is optimal in theory, because the banker can adjust to a predictable opponent. Ethier and Gámez solved the full game in the journal Games (2013). In their model with six decks and no commission, the Player side’s best mixed strategy draws on some 5s and stands on others, and the game is worth about 1.28% of the stake to the banker.

For a real table the takeaway is simpler. The Las Vegas Advisor’s summary of the modern game says the best practical play is the mandatory Punto Banco strategy: draw on 5. If you stand on 5 in a pattern the banker can read, you hand the banker information they can use in the optional cases.

The banker’s drawing table

When the Player’s Hand stands with two cards, the banker draws on 0 to 5 and stands on 6 or 7. When the Player has drawn a third card, the banker’s move depends on that card, which is always dealt face up. This is the table in the Massachusetts rules:

Older European rule sets leave the banker two optional spots. If the banker holds 3 and the Player’s third card is a 9, or the banker holds 5 and the Player’s third card is a 4, the banker may draw or stand. Both cases are draws in the fixed table above, and the Las Vegas Advisor notes that drawing is also the best play. A house that publishes a fixed table, as Massachusetts does, removes the option altogether, so always check the posted rules before you take the shoe.

Payouts and the casino’s commission

Chemin de fer has no house odds in the Punto Banco sense. Winning wagers against the bank are paid 1 to 1 out of the banker’s stake, and a winning banker is paid 1 to 1 out of the other participants’ stakes. The casino’s income is the vigorish: under Massachusetts rule 9(c) the licensee takes either 4% or 5% of the amount the banker wins on each round, collected straight after the round. The rate must be the same for everyone at the table.

A worked example shows how the money flows. Say the banker stakes 1,000 and three players cover 500, 300 and 200.

• Banker wins: the banker collects the 1,000 from the three players. At a 5% table the casino takes 50, so the banker nets 950 and keeps the shoe.
• Player wins: each player is paid 1 to 1 from the bank (500, 300 and 200). No commission is charged on Player wins, and the banker must pass the shoe.
• Standoff: all stakes are returned and the same banker deals again.

Because the bank roughly doubles with each win that is fully covered, a run of four banker wins turns a 1,000 opening stake into something near 16,000, less commission. That is also why passing the shoe early is a common choice: the banker may pass voluntarily after any round, and must pass after a loss.

Passing the bank

When the banker loses, the shoe goes to the participant on the previous banker’s right and then counterclockwise until somebody accepts it. When a banker passes voluntarily, the shoe is offered in the same order to anyone willing to stake at least the previous banker’s last wager and no more than twice it. If nobody will, the shoe goes to the highest bidder, and the banker who passed cannot join the first round of that bidding. Moving seats to jump the queue is not allowed: under rule 10(e) you miss your turn.

The odds behind chemmy

Because the drawing rules are so close to Punto Banco, the underlying probabilities are close too. With eight decks and fixed rules, the Banker hand’s win rate is 45.86%, the Player hand’s 44.62% and a tie 9.52%. In a casino-banked game that gives a house edge of 1.06% on Banker (after the 5% commission) and 1.24% on Player.

In chemin de fer the money flows between players, so the same numbers split three ways. Using the eight-deck figures with fixed drawing rules (ties void, as they are in chemmy):

• Per 100 units the banker puts at risk, the Banker’s Hand wins about 45.86 units and loses about 44.62, so before commission the banker is ahead by roughly 1.24 units.
• A 5% commission on 45.86 units of winnings costs about 2.29 units. The banker therefore ends up about 1.06 units down per 100 staked, the same figure as a Punto Banco Banker bet.
• At a 4% table the commission is about 1.83 units, and the banker’s loss shrinks to roughly 0.60 units per 100.
• Players betting against the bank pay no commission, but they back the weaker hand and lose about 1.24 units per 100 to the banker.
• Ties simply void the round, so there is no tie bet with a 14.36% house edge to tempt anyone.

So both sides lose a little over time, and the casino collects the difference. The optional draws on 5 and in the banker’s two traditional cases move these figures only slightly.

Our separate baccarat odds explainer walks through the Punto Banco figures bet by bet. None of the chemmy decisions change these numbers much, so the edge you face is set mostly by the commission rate and by which side you take.

Strategy tips that actually matter

Baccarat in any form is a game of chance with a small decision layer. A few points are still worth knowing.

• Draw on 5 as the Player. It matches the fixed Punto Banco rule and the practical advice for the modern game, and it keeps you unreadable.
• As banker, follow the table. In the two traditional optional cases (3 against a 9, 5 against a 4), drawing is the recommended play.
• Size the bank to your budget. You must stake at least your opening bid on every hand you keep the shoe, and you are personally covering everyone else’s wins. Decide in advance after how many wins you will pass.
• Check the commission. A 4% table is better for bankers than a 5% table, and the rate is posted.
• Ignore patterns. Scorecards and “streak” systems do not change the probabilities of the next hand. Our baccarat strategy guide explains why betting systems cannot beat a fixed edge.

The chemmy table, shuffle and etiquette

A chemmy table is oval, with numbered seats all the way round so players face each other. The croupier calls the game, but the banker handles the shoe and deals. When a Massachusetts table opens, the new decks are spread face up so the first players can inspect them, then turned face down and mixed by “washing”, also called the chemmy shuffle. After the shuffle a player is offered the cut, a cut card goes at least 14 cards from the back of the stack, and the first card out of the shoe is burned along with as many more cards as its value (court cards and tens count as ten for this).

Etiquette follows from the fact that you are betting against people, not the casino. Announce “banco” clearly, keep your hands away from the shoe unless it is yours, and do not show your cards until the rules say they are turned. If you hold the Player hand for the table, make your decision on a 5 promptly and say it aloud so the dealer can repeat it.

Can you play chemin de fer online?

Rarely. Chemin de fer needs players to bank each other, which does not fit the standard online model where the casino is the counterparty to every bet. Almost every baccarat table you will find at an online or crypto casino, RNG or live dealer, is Punto Banco. Some live studios offer “squeeze” or no-commission versions, and these still run the fixed Punto Banco drawing rules, not chemmy.

If you want baccarat with a crypto bankroll, the closest experience is a live Punto Banco table; our live table games guide covers how those streams work. For in-house crypto games where the result can be checked after the round, see how provably fair verification works. Real chemin de fer remains a land-based game, mostly at private gaming rooms and the few casinos that publish rules for it.

Play within limits

Chemmy can move a lot of money quickly because the bank roughly doubles on every covered win. Set a loss limit before you sit down, never chase a passed shoe, and use the deposit limits and self-exclusion tools your casino offers. Our responsible gambling page lists help services, including Gamblers Anonymous for players outside the UK and US.

Frequently asked questions

What are the basic rules of chemin de fer?

Chemin de fer is baccarat with a player-held bank. One participant banks and deals, the others bet against that stake, and the hand closer to 9 wins. Tens and court cards count zero, aces count one, and only the last digit of a total counts. The Player hand must draw on 0 to 4, may choose on 5 and stands on 6 or 7; the banker follows a drawing table. A tie voids all bets.

What is the difference between chemin de fer and baccarat?

Chemin de fer is one form of baccarat. The baccarat most casinos deal today is Punto Banco, where the casino banks every hand and all drawing is fixed. In chemin de fer the players take turns as banker, the Player hand may stand or draw on 5, and the casino earns only a commission on the banker’s winnings.

What does banco mean in chemin de fer?

Calling banco means you will cover the banker’s entire stake on your own. Banco suivi gives first claim to a player who went banco on the previous hand and lost. If nobody calls banco, other players can cover parts of the stake until it is fully matched.

Should you draw on 5 in chemin de fer?

In practice, yes. The game-theory solution mixes drawing and standing, but the commonly recommended play for the modern game is to draw on 5, which matches the fixed Punto Banco rule and keeps the banker from reading your habits.

How much commission does the casino take in chemin de fer?

The casino takes a share of the banker’s winnings each time the bank wins. Under the Massachusetts Gaming Commission rules the casino may charge either 4% or 5%, and the same rate applies to everyone at the table. Players who win against the bank pay no commission.

When does the banker pass the shoe in chemin de fer?

The banker must pass the shoe after losing a hand and may pass it voluntarily after any round. The shoe then moves counterclockwise to the next participant willing to take the bank.

Can you play chemin de fer at online casinos?

Very rarely. Online and crypto casinos are almost always the counterparty to every bet, so their baccarat tables, both RNG and live dealer, run Punto Banco rules. Chemin de fer is mainly a land-based game.