Baccarat Terms and Meanings: A Complete Glossary
Baccarat has fewer decisions than any other table game, yet more jargon than most. A live table or an online lobby will throw words at you like natural, shoe, burn, squeeze, big eye boy and Super 6, often without explanation. This glossary collects the baccarat terms you will actually meet, grouped by where you meet them, and gives each one a plain meaning — plus the exact frequency or house edge wherever a number helps. All figures are from our own full enumeration of an 8-deck shoe (416 cards).
What does "baccarat" mean?
The name is usually traced to the Italian word baccara, meaning "zero", because tens and face cards count as zero points. The version played in nearly every casino and live-dealer studio today is punto banco ("player–banker"), in which the house banks every hand and the dealer draws cards by fixed rules. Older European forms such as chemin de fer and baccarat banque let players take the bank and make drawing choices; they are rarely dealt now. When people say "baccarat" without qualification, they mean punto banco — the game covered by our baccarat rules page.
Core game terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Player (Punto) | One of the two hands dealt. Just a label — you do not have to bet on it and you are not "the player". |
| Banker (Banco) | The other hand. It acts second, which is why it wins slightly more often: 45.86% of rounds against 44.62% for Player. |
| Tie (Egalité) | Both hands finish on the same total — 9.52% of rounds. Banker and Player bets are returned. |
| Hand / coup | One complete round of dealing. Coup is the French word you still see on some scorecards. |
| Point / total | The value of a hand: add the cards and keep only the last digit (7 + 8 = 15 counts as 5). Totals run from 0 to 9. |
| Baccarat (the hand) | A total of zero — the worst possible hand, and the other suggested source of the game's name. |
| Natural | An 8 or 9 on the first two cards. The round stops immediately. Happens in 34.3% of rounds (18.9% for each side). |
| Le grande / le petit | Old names for a natural 9 and a natural 8. |
| Third card / drawing rules | The fixed table that decides whether each hand takes a third card. Player draws in 50.3% of rounds, Banker in 43.5%. |
| Stand | A hand that takes no more cards (Player stands on 6 or 7). |
Table and dealing terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Shoe | The box the cards are dealt from, and by extension one complete run of cards. An 8-deck shoe gives roughly 80 hands. |
| Burn / burn cards | At the start of a shoe the dealer turns one card face up and discards that many cards (a ten or face card counts as ten). |
| Cut card | A plastic card placed near the end of the shoe. When it comes out, the shoe ends after the current hand (or one more, depending on house rules), so the last cards are never dealt. |
| Squeeze | Slowly bending or peeling a card to reveal it a little at a time. Pure theatre — the card is already decided. Common in Asian casinos and "squeeze" live tables. |
| Croupier / caller | The dealer who runs the table and announces totals. |
| Mini baccarat | A small table where the dealer handles every card and hands are dealt quickly. Same rules, same odds. |
| Midi baccarat | A mid-sized table between mini and the full "big table" game, usually with some card handling by players. |
| Speed baccarat | A live-dealer format with a round every 25–30 seconds — 120 or more hands an hour instead of 60–80. |
| Round history / scoreboard | The screen or card that records results. See the road terms below. |
The different table formats are compared in baccarat variants.
Betting and payout terms
| Term | Meaning | Number |
|---|---|---|
| Commission (vig) | The 5% taken from winning Banker bets, so Banker pays 0.95 to 1. | Banker edge 1.06% |
| No-commission | Banker pays 1 to 1, but a Banker win with 6 pays half. | Banker edge 1.46% |
| Super 6 | That half-paid Banker 6 win, or a side bet on it. | 5.39% of rounds |
| EZ Baccarat | No commission; a Banker win with a three-card 7 is a push. | Banker edge 1.02% |
| Dragon 7 | EZ side bet: Banker wins with a three-card 7. Pays 40 to 1. | 2.25% · edge 7.61% |
| Panda 8 | EZ side bet: Player wins with a three-card 8. Pays 25 to 1. | 3.45% · edge 10.19% |
| Player Pair / Banker Pair | The first two cards of that hand are the same rank. Usually 11 to 1. | 7.47% · edge 10.36% |
| Either Pair | A pair in either hand. Usually 5 to 1. | 14.38% · edge 13.71% |
| Dragon Bonus | Side bet paying by winning margin or natural, up to 30 to 1. | edge 2.65% (Player side) |
| Push | Your stake is returned — no win, no loss. | — |
| House edge | The average share of each bet the casino keeps over time. | see table below |
All side bets in detail: baccarat side bets explained. The tie bet has its own page: tie bet odds.
Scoreboard (road) terms
These come from the Chinese scorecard tradition and are now on every live baccarat screen. They describe the past only.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Bead plate (bead road) | Every result in order, filling columns of six from top to bottom. Ties get their own cell. |
| Big road | The main chart. Red = Banker, blue = Player. A new column starts whenever the winner changes; ties are a green slash on the previous cell. |
| Streak / dragon | The same side winning several times in a row — a long column on the big road. |
| Dragon tail | When a streak reaches the bottom row it turns right, drawing an "L" shape. |
| Chop / ping-pong | Results alternating Banker, Player, Banker… — a row of one-cell columns. |
| Derived roads | Three charts calculated from the big road: big eye boy, small road and cockroach pig. They compare column lengths one, two and three columns back. Red means "the road is repeating its shape", blue means "choppy" — not Banker or Player. |
| Predictor / "ask" buttons | Buttons that show what the derived roads would draw if the next hand were Banker or Player. |
Step-by-step reading guides: how to read the big road and derived roads explained. To see all five roads build hand by hand, try the baccarat pattern chart.
Strategy and math terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| House edge | Banker 1.06%, Player 1.24%, Tie at 8 to 1 14.36%. It is the cost of a bet: 1.06% means about 10.58 lost per 1,000 wagered on average. |
| Flat betting | Betting the same amount every hand. |
| Martingale | Doubling after each loss. Seven Banker losses in a row from a 1-unit start cost 127 units; the eighth bet is 128. |
| Paroli | Doubling after each win, usually for three steps. |
| 1-3-2-6 | A fixed four-step positive progression. |
| Card counting | Tracking removed cards. Possible in baccarat, but it moves the main bets too little to matter — see baccarat card counting. |
| Variance | How far results swing around the average. After 100 flat Banker bets, 95% of results land between −19 and +17 units. |
| Gambler's fallacy | Believing a result is "due" after a streak. Each hand's odds are essentially unchanged by the road. |
How these ideas fit together: baccarat strategy and do betting systems work?
Worked example: one hand, in baccarat terms
The shoe has been burned and dealing begins. Player receives 3 and 2 (a point of 5); Banker receives a king and a 6 (6). Neither hand is a natural. Under the drawing rules Player draws on 5 and receives a 10 — still 5. Banker on 6 draws only if Player's third card is 6 or 7, so Banker stands. Banker wins 6 to 5. At a standard table a Banker bet pays 0.95 to 1 after commission; at a no-commission table this is a Super 6 win and pays only half. On the big road a red circle is added — under the previous red if Banker also won the hand before (extending the streak), or in a new column if Player did.
Glossary FAQ
What does "natural" mean in baccarat? A two-card total of 8 or 9. No more cards are drawn; it occurs in about one round in three (34.3%).
What does "banco" mean? Spanish/Italian for "bank" — the Banker hand. Punto is the Player hand.
What is a shoe in baccarat? The dealing box and the set of decks in it — usually 8 decks, about 80 hands.
Is "big eye boy" a bet? No. It is a derived scoreboard road that records whether the big road is repeating or changing its pattern.
What is a chop in baccarat? A run of results that switches side every hand — Banker, Player, Banker, Player. On the big road it shows as a row of one-cell columns, which is why players also call it ping-pong. A chop says nothing about the next hand; each result still follows the same Banker 45.86% / Player 44.62% split.
Is baccarat terminology the same everywhere? Mostly, with three dialects. European tables say punto and banco where American and online tables say Player and Banker; Macau-style rooms call the same hands 閒 (Player) and 莊 (Banker) and use road names such as 大路 (big road) and 珠盤路 (bead plate); and live-dealer studios add product names like Speed, Squeeze or No Commission that describe the table, not the rules. The drawing rules, the 45.86% / 44.62% / 9.52% split and the house edges are identical under every name.
What is a monkey in baccarat? Asian table slang for any card worth zero — a 10, J, Q or K. Players squeezing a card shout "monkey!" when they want a zero to keep their total, and the term has nothing to do with a bet or a side bet.
Learning the vocabulary is easiest with a real shoe in front of you: the free Baccarat Scoreboard app lets you tap in results and watches the bead plate, big road and derived roads fill in, marking naturals, pairs, Dragon 7 and Panda 8 as you go.
Frequencies and house edges from exhaustive enumeration of an 8-deck shoe under punto banco rules (Baccarat Terminal, September 2026). 18+. Informational only.