Quick answer: Baccarat roadmaps are scoreboards that record past results at a live baccarat table. The Bead Plate shows every hand in order, the Big Road groups streaks of Banker or Player wins into columns, and the derived roads (Big Eye Boy, Small Road and Cockroach Pig) describe whether the Big Road is repeating or changing. They are a record of the past only. Every new hand is dealt from the shoe without memory, so no road can predict the next result.
Legal note: play live baccarat only at casinos licensed for players in the Philippines. Roadmaps are a display feature, not a winning system.
Why Live Baccarat Tables Show Roadmaps
Walk past any baccarat table in a land-based casino, or open a live baccarat stream, and you will see grids of red and blue circles next to the dealer. These are roadmaps, sometimes called scorecards or “roads”. The tradition comes from Asian casinos, where players used to track results with pen and paper. Live casino providers now draw them automatically, so you can see the history of the current shoe at a glance. If you are new to how these streamed tables work, our guide to how live dealer games work covers the studio side.
A quick reminder of the colours: red means a Banker win, blue means a Player win, and green means a Tie. Some tables also mark pairs with small dots.
The Bead Plate: Every Hand in Order
The Bead Plate is the simplest road. Each hand gets one circle. The grid fills from top to bottom in columns of six, then moves to the next column on the right. Ties get their own green circle. It is just a complete list of results, which makes it the easiest road to check if you want to see how many hands have been played in the shoe.
The Big Road: Streaks in Columns
The Big Road is the main roadmap, and the others are built from it. It works differently from the Bead Plate:
- A new column starts whenever the winner changes, from Banker to Player or back.
- Consecutive wins by the same side go down the same column.
- If a streak is longer than six, it turns right along the bottom, which players call a “dragon tail”.
- Ties do not get their own circle. A green slash is drawn through the previous result instead.
So a long red column means a Banker streak, and a row of single circles alternating between columns means the result has been “choppy”, switching side every hand.
The Derived Roads: Big Eye Boy, Small Road and Cockroach Pig
The three derived roads are where most confusion starts, because here red and blue no longer mean Banker and Player. Instead, they describe the shape of the Big Road:
- Red means the Big Road is behaving in a repeating or “orderly” way compared with earlier columns.
- Blue means it is behaving in a changing or “choppy” way.
Each derived road compares the current column of the Big Road with an earlier one. Big Eye Boy compares it with the column one step back, the Small Road with the column two steps back, and the Cockroach Pig with the column three steps back. They are drawn with different marks (hollow circles, solid dots and slashes) so you can tell them apart. Their exact starting points and rules vary slightly between providers, so check the help screen of the table you are using.
Why Roadmaps Do Not Predict the Next Hand
Roadmaps are popular because they make patterns visible, and people naturally see meaning in patterns. The problem is that baccarat outcomes do not depend on earlier outcomes in any useful way. The cards come out of a shuffled shoe, and whether Banker or Player wins the next hand is decided by those cards, not by what the board shows.
Believing a streak must end, or must continue, is the classic gambler’s fallacy. A Banker win after eight Banker wins in a row has the same probability as a Banker win at the start of the shoe, around 45.9%, with Player around 44.6% and a Tie around 9.5% in the standard eight-deck game. The derived roads describe the past in a different way, but they are made only from past results, so they cannot carry information the Big Road does not have.
| Bet | Usual payout | House edge (8 decks) |
|---|---|---|
| Banker | 1:1 minus 5% commission | about 1.06% |
| Player | 1:1 | about 1.24% |
| Tie | 8:1 | about 14.4% |
Those house edges stay the same however the roads look. Following a road, betting against it, or switching sides every hand all lead to the same long-run result: the edge of whichever bet you place.
So What Are Roadmaps Good For?
- Knowing where you are in the shoe. The Bead Plate tells you roughly how many hands have been played.
- Keeping track of your session. They help you see what happened while you were away from the screen.
- Enjoying the ritual. Many players enjoy reading the roads. That is fine, as long as the stakes are set by your budget and not by a pattern.
The same thinking applies to other card games with history boards, such as Dragon Tiger: the board is history, not a forecast.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does red and blue mean on a baccarat road?
On the Bead Plate and Big Road, red is a Banker win and blue is a Player win. On Big Eye Boy, Small Road and Cockroach Pig, red means the Big Road is repeating and blue means it is changing.
Can baccarat roadmaps predict the next result?
No. They are built entirely from past hands, and each new hand depends only on the cards in the shoe.
What is a dragon in baccarat?
A dragon is a long streak by one side, usually longer than six, which makes the Big Road column turn right along the bottom.
Which baccarat bet has the lowest house edge?
Banker, at about 1.06% in the standard game even after the 5% commission. The Tie bet has the highest edge.
Final Thoughts
Learning to read the roads makes a live baccarat table less confusing, and it is part of the game’s culture. Just keep the roads in their place: they show what happened, not what will happen. Choose your bet for its house edge, size it to your budget, and let the patterns be decoration.
Online gambling is for adults aged 21 and over. Set a budget before you play and stop when it is gone. If gambling has stopped feeling like entertainment, our responsible gaming page lists the support available in the Philippines.