Baccarat is the casino game with one of the lowest house edges, at 1.06% if you bet on The Banker. However, the majority of gamblers wanting to further increase their odds of winning, look for baccarat patterns on the game history, scoreboard or chart. But ‘how do you read them?’ you might ask.
In the early days, some players created their own baccarat scorecards using pen & paper. They used different colored pens to indicate player wins, banker wins, and ties on paper while playing baccarat.
The invention of the bead plate (also known as zu pun in Cantonese or zhu pan in Mandarin) changed this in a big way. This tray-like device goes by many different names in English, including:
- Baby pig road
- Bead plate road
- Marker road
- Dice road, or
- Cube road
Regardless of what you call it, the bead plate road is an interesting tray that consists of 6 rows in height but the width often varies. It has cubes with four different colors on each side, as follows:
- Blue for player wins
- Red for banker wins
- Green for ties
- White serves no real purpose
The bead plate has roads that you can use to record baccarat trends. The roads are graphic representations of tracking baccarat results, patterns, and trends of the shoe. They help baccarat players read the game history, identify baccarat trends, and predict future outcomes.
Here are the road maps or techniques you can use to read baccarat patterns:
(1) Bead plate baccarat pattern
Most baccarat tables in land-based casinos use the traditional bead plate format to display the scorecard. You can also find this standard road layout at online casinos. It is typically used to keep track of only winning hands using colored circles and beads or dots. In most online baccarat games, you can set the bead plate scoreboard to display letters. That is red B for banker wins, blue P for player wins, green T for ties, and the symbols used are solid colored circles overlaid with a Chinese character denoting the outcome. Alternatively, you can set it to show numbers 0 through 9 on the solid circles.
Both letters and numbers in the circles and beads can be used by baccarat players for pattern recognition. The roads are read from the top to bottom on the grid, beginning from the upper left-hand corner. Meanwhile, the roads fill the grid vertically from top to bottom through all six cells, so it is not infinitely deep.
This baccarat pattern reading layout is sometimes known as a baby pig, marker, dice, or cube. Here is what each colored circle or bead represents in the bead plate baccarat pattern:
- Big blue circle: Player
- Big green circle: Tie
- Big red circle: Banker
- Small blue dot: Player Pair
- Small red dot: Banker Pair
(2) The Big Road
Initially, baccarat scoreboards were only shown on the big road. This is the primary road map and it is from which all other roads branch. In English, the big road is often known as the “big trail” or “big trend,” however the most literal translation is “big road.”
The big road is reasonably straightforward. The layout is made up of a large grid which is always six rows deep and has columns that vary, often from 36 to 50. Like the bead plate system, a player’s win is represented by a blue hollow circle, a banker’s win by a hollow red circle, and a tie is a green line.
When the shoe starts, the first outcome, whether a player win or a banker win, is shown on the top left corner of the big trail. If the second outcome is the same, the appropriate circle is shown beneath the initial one on the same column.
The circle of the same color is marked one place down the last from top to bottom down vertically the column until a different outcome is realized.
When that happens, meaning when a new result comes up, the next circle of a different color is marked on a new column. So, if the first column had blue circles for the several consecutive player wins, the first banker win will be indicated in the second column. As a result, the big trail is transformed into a bunch of columns of alternate blue and red hollow circles, each with a minimum height of a single circle and no maximum height.
Basically, the size of each column indicates the length of the winning run or streak of either the banker win or the player win. The main difference between the bead plate and the big road is how ties are scored. Instead of marking a tie with a green circle, a green line is indicated across the most recent circle.
Unfortunately, you will not know if the tie was scored before or after the result on which the green line is indicated. For instance, if a player wins before or after a tie, the line will still appear on the same hollow circle.
On the other hand, a banker pair is shown on the edge of a circle with a red dot, while a player pair is indicated with a blue-colored dot on the edge of the circle. On scorecards at some online casinos, a natural winner may be marked with a yellow dot in the center of the circle. If the big road has no more columns (which rarely happens), the road moves to the left, and markings in the leftmost column disappear from the screen.
Here are a few important things you should know about the big road patterns:
- Ping Pong – Ping pong is a term that refers to a streak or run of alternate bankers’ wins and players’ wins. A run with two banker wins alternating with 2 player wins is referred to as ‘double ping pong’ by certain players.
- The Dragon Tail – What happens if you hit more than 6 banker wins or player wins in a row? That is an obvious question many baccarat players ask about the big road since you cannot have more than six rows vertically down on the same grid. However, this is something that every baccarat player is looking for. In such a case, the run turns right to the next column at the bottom of the grid. This pattern created by more than six consecutive wins is called the dragon tail.
- Double Dragon Tail – In the unlikely case where the next streak goes beyond 6 consecutive player or banker’s wins, the run follows a similar trail by turning when it hits the bottom row of the grid to create another dragon tail. The two dragon tails create what is known as the ‘double dragon tail.’
(3) The Big Eye Boy Baccarat Pattern Recognition Method
The Big Eye Boy is another technique baccarat players use to recognize patterns, trends, and behavior of a particular shoe. It is used to spot patterns and repetitive behaviors in other baccarat scoreboards. The method is used to tell you whether a deck is producing repetitive streaks or not.
For this reason, the Big Road scoreboard is typically used with the big eye boy. More specifically, a mark is indicated in the big eye boy grid each time a new column starts on the big road scoreboard. The two charts use circles of the same colors and have nearly similar formats.
The most significant difference is in the use of colors. In the big road chart, red corresponds to the banker, while blue represents the player. However, in the big eye boy, red indicates consistent repetition, while blue corresponds to the other way around.
You can use the two charts to decide what to do for your next bet. For instance, if the outcomes of the last 8 hands were: player, player, banker, banker, player, player, banker, banker, the big eye boy chart will tell this. In this way, you might want to bet on the player hoping that the shoe will follow the same pattern.
Here is a summary:
- Each time a new column begins on Big Road, a mark is made on Big Eye Boy
- The red circle indicates a predictable shoe that is repetitive
- The blue circle represents an unpredictable and erratic shoe.
- When the first and second columns are compared, if they both have circles, a red circle is added to the large eye boy. Otherwise, the blue color is displayed.
- The color of the following circle is determined by examining the cells to the left and above the new entry; if both are the same, red is indicated, otherwise blue
(4) Small Road Baccarat Pattern
Although it works like the Big Eye Boy, the Small Road is perhaps the most complicated baccarat pattern. That is because you will have to begin in the third column to spot patterns. Even then, you must skip two cells left and then move up.
(5) Cockroach Pig
The Cockroach Pig follows the same idea as the Small Road system. But, unlike the latter, it skips the first 2 columns from the left on the big road scoreboard. The cockroach pig pattern spotting technique begins from the fourth entry and will show the repetition of the baccarat cards. Another difference from the big road is that the cockroach pig method uses diagonal likes instead of a bead, dot, or solid circle.
The cockroach pig does not start until the first entry has been completed in big road’s fourth column.
Does baccarat have a pattern?
The short answer: no, baccarat does not have a pattern. Baccarat is a game of part chance and part luck. Besides, most online casinos use random number generators that ensure each outcome is unpredictable, random, and independent from the previous result.
Do not forget baccarat has a house edge just like any other casino game. That means the odds are always against you, no matter if you are playing baccarat at an online gambling site or a land-based casino. Make sure to claim welcome bonuses on your minimum deposit.
You can also use betting systems like Martingale and Fibonacci to improve your chance of winning. But nothing is guaranteed when you play baccarat games. Note that many casinos display baccarat scoreboards. You can use baccarat roads to identify trends and predict the next outcome. However, they might waste your time and reduce your gaming experience.
How do you read baccarat tables?
Here is how to read a baccarat table, scoreboard, or big road chart:
- A hollow blue circle indicates a player’s win
- A hollow red circle indicates a banker’s win
- The first outcome is indicated in the topmost left corner of the chart
- The next outcome is marked under the first if it is the same. The run goes on until the outcome changes, in which case it goes to the second column.
- The longer a red column when reading vertically down, the longer the banker winning streak
- The longer a blue column when read vertically down, the longer the player’s winning streak
This method of reading baccarat patterns applies to baccarat variants that use eight decks. You can use different methods for
What are the roads in baccarat games?
Roads in baccarat are layouts, statistics, maps, or charts that are used to identify trends, spot patterns, and predict future outcomes. These roads are usually displayed on the screen of a baccarat table.
What is a cockroach road?
A cockroach road in baccarat is also known as the cockroach pig. It is a pattern tracking system in baccarat that indicates card repetition and starts after the fourth entry on the big road. Although it follows the big road scoreboard, the cockroach road skips the first two columns to the left.
Otherwise, the cockroach pig or cockroach road is similar to the small road baccarat system.
Generally, many red marks in cockroach pig, the small road, or the big eye boy indicate consistent repetition in the big road chart. Thus, the cockroach road is a derived road just like the small road and the big eye boy.
What is the most common pattern in baccarat?
The most common patterns in baccarat are…
- The bead plate pattern
- The cockroach pattern
- The big eye road pattern
- The big road pattern
- The small road pattern
What is the edge in baccarat?
The edge in baccarat is 1.06% or 1.24% for the Banker or Player, respectively.