Baccarat Roadmap
The grid of coloured marks displayed beside live baccarat that records the history of banker, player, and tie results across recent hands.
Definition
Baccarat roadmaps are the on-screen scoreboards — with traditional names such as the bead plate, big road, big eye boy, small road and cockroach road — that track the sequence of banker, player and tie outcomes over a shoe. They are a longstanding part of baccarat culture, used by players to look for streaks and patterns and to inform their betting. It is important to understand that each hand of baccarat is independent: the past results shown on a roadmap do not change the odds of the next hand, so roadmaps are a tradition and a decision aid, not a predictive tool, and treating them as prediction is the gambler's fallacy. Live tables display them prominently because many players expect and use them.
Worked example
A live baccarat table shows a big road with a long column of banker wins in a row, prompting some players to 'follow the streak' and bet banker; the roadmap records the history accurately, but the next hand's odds (about a 1.06% edge on banker) are unchanged regardless of the pattern.
Why it matters
Roadmaps are everywhere in live baccarat, so learners need to understand what they are — and that they do not predict outcomes, because each hand is independent. For professionals they show how tradition and player psychology are built into game presentation, and they are a useful anchor for responsible-gambling messaging about the gambler's fallacy.