Score a hand
Use the hand scorer above or type a team's total for the hand straight into the sheet. The minimum first meld for the next hand follows each team's score: 15 below zero, 50 up to 1,495, 90 from 1,500 and 120 from 3,000. The sheet stays in this browser until you start a new game.
- Maths reviewed by Josh Miller
- Tested by Diana Westfield
This canasta score sheet does the adding up that usually ends with someone recounting a pile of cards on the sofa. Pick a team, enter its canastas, red threes, how it went out, and the card points on the table and left in hand. The scorer gives you the hand total, adds it to the sheet, and shows each team’s minimum first meld for the next deal. Free, printable and saved as you play.
Canasta scoring, hand by hand
A hand’s score has two parts: bonuses and card points.
| Bonus | Points |
|---|---|
| Natural canasta (no wild cards) | 500 |
| Mixed canasta (with wild cards) | 300 |
| Each red three | 100 |
| All four red threes | 800 |
| Going out | 100 |
| Going out concealed | 200 |
| Card | Points |
|---|---|
| Joker | 50 |
| Ace, 2 | 20 |
| K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8 | 10 |
| 7, 6, 5, 4, black 3 | 5 |
Example: one natural canasta, one mixed, one red three, went out, and 260 in card points on the table. That’s 500 + 300 + 100 + 100 + 260 = 1,260. The other team had a mixed canasta, 150 in melds and 45 left in hand: 300 + 150 − 45 = 405.
The red three trap
Red threes are worth 100 each, but only if your team melded something. If the hand ends and your team has nothing on the table, the red threes count against you: one red three is minus 100, four is minus 800. Tick “the team melded nothing” and the scorer flips them. It’s a brutal rule and it’s easy to forget.
Minimum first meld
As your score grows, opening gets harder:
| Team score | First meld must be at least |
|---|---|
| Below 0 | 15 |
| 0 to 1,495 | 50 |
| 1,500 to 2,995 | 90 |
| 3,000 or more | 120 |
The sheet shows each team’s figure under its total, so nobody has to ask. Playing other games tonight? The card game score sheets cover the rest, and the CasinoCalcs rummy score sheet is a close cousin.