Baccarat Scoreboard: How to Keep Score in Baccarat, Step by Step
A baccarat scoreboard is nothing more than a record of which hand won each round: Banker, Player or Tie, plus a few optional marks for pairs and naturals. Casinos print it on a card you can fill in with a pencil, show it on a screen above the table, and every live baccarat stream draws it in the corner of the video. Knowing how to keep score in baccarat matters for two reasons. First, the two main grids (the bead plate and the big road) follow strict drawing rules, and if you fill them in wrongly your record stops matching the casino's display. Second, a correctly kept score sheet lets you check, over many shoes, what streaks and ties actually look like instead of what memory tells you. This page shows the symbols, the drawing rules, a worked example, the numbers a normal shoe produces, and how to do it on paper or with a free app.
The two grids on every baccarat score card
Every scoreboard, paper or electronic, is built from the same two records, and the three "derived roads" (Big Eye Boy, Small Road, Cockroach Pig) are computed from the second one.
| Grid | What one cell means | How it fills | What it shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bead plate (bead road, 珠盤路) | One hand, in order, including ties | Top to bottom, 6 cells per column, then the next column to the right | The raw chronological log. Nothing is hidden or compressed. |
| Big road (大路) | One Banker or Player decision; ties are marks on the previous cell | Same winner stacks downward; a change of winner starts a new column at the top | Streaks (tall columns) and chops (many short columns) |
| Derived roads | Red or blue depending on whether the big road's column shape repeated | Mechanically, from the big road, starting at the 2nd, 3rd and 4th columns | Whether the shoe's shape is "regular" or "ragged"; not who won |
This article is about keeping the first two by hand. If you want to understand what the tall columns and the derived roads mean, see how to read the baccarat big road and the derived roads guide.
Scoreboard symbols: what each colour and mark means
| Symbol | Meaning | On paper |
|---|---|---|
| Red circle (or solid red) | Banker won | Write B, or fill the cell red |
| Blue circle (or solid blue) | Player won | Write P, or fill the cell blue |
| Green circle (bead plate) / green line through a cell (big road) | Tie | Write T in the bead plate; draw a diagonal line through the last big-road cell, with a small number if several ties follow one another |
| Small red dot, bottom-right corner | Banker pair (Banker's first two cards were the same rank) | A dot or the letters bp in the corner |
| Small blue dot, top-left corner | Player pair | A dot or pp in the corner |
| Outline, star or "N" (some displays and apps) | Natural: the winner had 8 or 9 on the first two cards | Optional; a small N next to the cell |
Colours are the same everywhere: red for Banker, blue for Player, green for Tie. The pair-dot positions (Banker bottom-right, Player top-left) are the convention used on Macau tables and by Evolution and Pragmatic Play displays, so the same card can be read in any casino.
How to keep score: the bead plate
- Draw a grid six cells tall and as many columns wide as your card allows (40 columns covers a full shoe with room to spare).
- After each hand, write the result in the next empty cell: start at the top of the first column and go down.
- When a column has six entries, move to the top of the next column to the right.
- Ties get their own cell, in green or as a T. They are hands like any other in the bead plate.
- Add the pair dots and, if you want them, the natural marks in the same cell.
That is the entire rule. Because the bead plate never skips a hand, it is the one you use to count totals at the end of a shoe, to check whether you missed a hand, and to rebuild the big road if you lose track of it.
How to keep score: the big road
- Start the first Banker or Player result in the top-left cell.
- If the next result is the same winner, write it directly below the previous one.
- If the winner changes, start a new column to the right, at the top row.
- A tie does not get a cell. Draw a green line through the last cell you wrote. If two or more ties follow each other, write the count (2, 3) next to the line. If the shoe opens with ties, draw the line in the first cell and write the first Banker or Player result into that same cell when it arrives.
- If a streak reaches the bottom row (six in a column) and continues, the seventh and later cells turn right along the bottom row instead of going further down. This is the dragon tail. The next change of winner then starts a new column in the first free column at the top, which may be above the tail's cells.
Worked example: 16 hands on both grids
Suppose a shoe starts with these results (B = Banker, P = Player, T = Tie): B B P T B P P P B B B B B B B P. Hand 2 was a Banker pair and hand 6 a Player natural 9.
Bead plate (six per column, ties included):
| Row | Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | B | P | B |
| 2 | B ·bp | P | B |
| 3 | P | B | B |
| 4 | T | B | P |
| 5 | B | B | |
| 6 | P ·N | B |
Big road (ties as a mark, dragon tail on the seven-Banker streak):
| Row | Col 1 | Col 2 | Col 3 | Col 4 | Col 5 | Col 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | B | P (tie line) | B | P ·N | B | P |
| 2 | B ·bp | P | B | |||
| 3 | P | B | ||||
| 4 | B | |||||
| 5 | B | |||||
| 6 | B | B (tail) |
Walk through it: hands 1 and 2 are Banker, so column 1 has two red cells. Hand 3 is Player, new column. Hand 4 is a tie, so it becomes a green line through that Player cell and no column moves. Hand 5 Banker, column 3. Hands 6 to 8 are three Players, column 4. Hands 9 to 15 are seven Bankers: six fill column 5 and the seventh turns right along row 6 into column 6. Hand 16 is Player, and because the top of column 6 is empty, the new column starts there, above the tail. Sixteen hands produced six big-road columns and fifteen big-road cells, while the bead plate shows all sixteen.
What a normal shoe looks like on the scoreboard
People often judge a shoe as "streaky" or "choppy" by eye. The expected shape of a shoe is worth knowing first, because most of what looks unusual is ordinary. These figures come from the exact 8-deck probabilities (Banker 45.86%, Player 44.62%, Tie 9.52%) for a shoe of about 80 hands.
| Per 80-hand shoe | Expected |
|---|---|
| Ties (green marks) | 7.6 |
| Banker/Player decisions (big-road cells) | about 72 |
| Big-road columns | about 36.5 (the winner changes on 50.0% of decisions) |
| Average column height | 2.0 cells |
| Columns of 4 or more | 12.5% of columns, roughly 4 to 5 per shoe |
| Columns needing a dragon tail (7 or more) | 1.57% of columns, roughly one every two shoes |
| Bead-plate columns used (6 rows) | 14 |
| Naturals (8 or 9 on two cards) | 27.4 hands (34.3%) |
| Banker pairs / Player pairs | 6.0 each (7.47% per side); a pair on either side in 11.5 hands |
Two things follow. A run of five or six in one column is not a sign of anything: a run of 6 or more appears somewhere in 68.8% of shoes and a run of 8 or more in 23.4%. And a shoe with four or five tall columns is simply average. Keeping an honest scoreboard over twenty or thirty shoes is the quickest cure for the feeling that the current table is special.
Printing your own baccarat score sheet
A casino scorecard is usually a landscape grid of 6 rows by 30 to 60 columns with a second, identical grid underneath. If you print your own, include:
- Two grids of 6 rows: one for the bead plate, one for the big road. Forty columns each is enough for one shoe.
- A header line for the date, table, shoe number and start time.
- A totals box at the bottom: Banker, Player, Tie, Banker pairs, Player pairs, naturals, longest run. Fill it from the bead plate when the shoe ends.
- Thick lines every five columns so you can find your place quickly.
Use red and blue pens or a single pencil with letters. Many casinos hand out cards and pencils at the table; keeping your own score is normal and allowed on nearly every live floor, while electronic devices at the table are often not. For online tables you can record from the stream without any restriction.
Paper versus a scoreboard app
Paper works until the pace rises. At a standard table (60 to 80 hands an hour) you have about 45 seconds per hand, which is enough to write a cell and check the display. At 120 hands an hour on a speed table you have under 30 seconds, and a single missed hand shifts every later big-road column. The free Baccarat Scoreboard app replaces the pencil with three buttons (Banker, Player, Tie) plus pair and natural toggles, draws the bead plate, big road and the three derived roads automatically, lets you undo a mistaken tap, keeps every shoe by date, and exports a backup file. It needs no account and works offline, so it can be used anywhere a phone is allowed. If you follow online tables, the live baccarat tracker records Evolution and Pragmatic Play tables automatically, hand by hand, so there is nothing to type at all.
Common scorekeeping mistakes
- Giving a tie its own big-road cell. Ties are marks on the previous cell. Only the bead plate gives them a cell.
- Forgetting the dragon tail. A seventh consecutive win goes to the right along the bottom row, not into the next column at the top.
- Starting a new column after a tie. If Banker, Tie, Banker occurs, the second Banker goes directly under the first; the tie is just a line.
- Mixing the two grids. The bead plate wraps every six hands no matter who won; the big road wraps only when the winner changes. Keep them on separate grids.
- Marking pairs on the wrong corner. Banker pair bottom-right, Player pair top-left, so the card still reads correctly when compared with the casino screen.
- Skipping the totals. The numbers at the end of the shoe (ties, pairs, longest run) are where the record becomes useful.
What the scoreboard can and cannot tell you
A scoreboard is a record of the past. It does not change what the next hand will be: the house edge stays at 1.06% on Banker and 1.24% on Player whatever the pattern, and the long-run data behind do betting systems work? show no pattern that lifts a bet above those figures. What a well-kept score sheet does give you is accurate information about ties, pairs and runs over many shoes, a check on your own memory, and a complete record for working out how much time and money a session actually took. The numbers for each bet are in baccarat odds and house edge.
Baccarat scoreboard FAQ
How do you keep score in baccarat? Write each result into a 6-row grid: the bead plate top to bottom in strict order including ties, and the big road where the same winner stacks downward and a change of winner starts a new column. Ties are a green line on the last big-road cell.
What do the red and blue circles mean on a baccarat scoreboard? Red is Banker, blue is Player, green is Tie. A small red dot in the bottom-right corner marks a Banker pair and a small blue dot in the top-left marks a Player pair.
Why does the big road turn sideways? When a streak exceeds six cells the column cannot go further down, so the seventh and later results continue to the right along the bottom row. This is called a dragon tail and happens to about 1.6% of columns, roughly once every two shoes.
What is the difference between the bead plate and the big road? The bead plate records every hand, including ties, six per column. The big road records only Banker and Player decisions and starts a new column whenever the winner changes, so it makes streaks visible.
Does keeping score improve my chances? No. It gives you accurate records; the odds of the next hand are the same whether or not you write anything down.
How many columns does a shoe fill? About 36 or 37 big-road columns and 14 bead-plate columns for an 80-hand shoe, so a card with 40 columns is enough.
Shoe figures computed from exact 8-deck probabilities (Banker 45.8597%, Player 44.6247%, Tie 9.5156%) treating decisions as independent; column statistics from the change probability 2pq = 0.49991 excluding ties. Baccarat Terminal, October 2026. 18+. Informational only; not a gambling service.