Baccarat glossary 1: player, banker, tie, shoe

2026-09-24

Walk into a live baccarat table for the first time and the screen is full of words you may not know. This glossary starts with the most basic ones. Roadmap words like runs and ping-pong are collected in part 2.

Player (P)

One of the two sides. Despite the name it does not mean you, the customer; it is simply the name of one hand that receives cards. On roadmaps it is shown in blue. A win pays the amount you bet.

Banker (B)

The other side, shown in red. It follows slightly different rules for drawing a third card, and because of that it wins a little more often. That is why a banker win pays 5% less: the commission.

Tie (T)

Both sides finish on the same score. On roadmaps it is green. When a tie comes up, bets on player or banker are returned. You can also bet on the tie itself, which pays a lot if it hits.

What actually came up across more than 25,000 shoes we collected: banker 46.1%, player 44.6%, tie 9.3%.

Hand

One round in which cards are dealt and a result is decided. You can bet once per hand. At live tables a hand takes anywhere from the mid-20s to nearly 40 seconds.

Shoe

The box that holds several shuffled decks, and also the batch of hands dealt from it until it runs out. When a shoe ends, the cards are reshuffled and the roadmaps start from scratch. In our data a shoe runs to about 67 hands, ties included.

Commission

The 5% taken from a banker win. Bet 10 on banker and win, and you receive 9.50, not 10. It looks small on one hand, but over hundreds of hands it adds up clearly. The full calculation has its own post.

Table and dealer

In live baccarat a table means one real table with a dealer in front of a camera. The lobby has more than 90 of them open, each with its own minimum bet, pace and dealer language. Even in the same game, the number of hands you play in an hour varies noticeably by table.

Summary

Player     blue · a win pays 1x
Banker     red · a win pays 0.95x (5% commission)
Tie        green · player and banker bets are returned
Hand       one round
Shoe       the batch until the cards are reshuffled · about 67 hands

Hiddenpick is a Windows program that runs Evolution live baccarat on Stake for you, following the rules you set. Roadmap words continue in baccarat glossary 2.