Dragon Tiger

Dragon Tiger is the simplest card game in a live casino. The dealer puts one card on the Dragon side and one on the Tiger side, and the higher card wins. There is no drawing rule, no hand total and no decision to make once the cards are out — a round is over in seconds. It is often described as a two-card version of baccarat, and Evolution, which runs the best-known live table, calls it extremely popular around the world.

This guide covers how a round works, what each bet pays, the one rule that changes the value of the main bets, and the real odds of every bet, worked out from the cards in the shoe.

Dragon Tiger at a Glance

How a Round Works

1. Place a bet. Put your chips on Dragon, Tiger or Tie. The Suited Tie is an extra bet you can add on its own or next to a main bet.
2. Two cards are dealt. When betting closes, the dealer draws one card face up for the Dragon and one for the Tiger. No further cards are drawn.
3. The higher card wins. A winning Dragon or Tiger bet is paid at even money.
4. Equal cards are a tie. The Tie bet wins. If the two cards also share a suit — two sevens of hearts, for example — the Suited Tie wins as well.

That is the whole game. Unlike baccarat there are no third-card rules to learn and no totals to add up: a single card decides each side.

Card Values

Only the rank counts, and suits play no part in deciding the winner. From lowest to highest:

A · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · J · Q · K

The ace is the lowest card in Dragon Tiger, which catches out players coming from poker or blackjack. An ace on the Dragon side loses to a two on the Tiger side.

Bets and Payouts

What happens to a Dragon or Tiger bet on a tie

This is the rule worth checking before you sit down. Under the standard rules a tie costs a Dragon or Tiger bet half its stake: bet 10 on the Dragon, the round ties, and 5 comes back. Some tables take the whole stake instead. The table’s help screen states which rule it uses, and the difference is large — it moves the main bet’s return from 96.27% to 92.53%.

The Real Odds of Every Bet

Because each side gets exactly one card from the same shoe, the odds can be worked out exactly. An eight-deck shoe holds 416 cards: 32 of each rank and 8 of each individual card. The chance that the Tiger card matches the Dragon card’s rank is 31 in 415, which gives a tie in 7.47% of rounds. The rest split evenly, so the Dragon and the Tiger each win 46.27% of the time.

Put those chances against the payouts and you get the long-run return of each bet:

Three things follow from the table:

• The main bets are the better bets. Dragon and Tiger give back the most, and the two are exactly equal — there is no “stronger” side.
• The Tie pays well because it rarely lands. At 11:1 it still returns less than the main bets, and at 8:1 it gives back about two thirds of what is staked on it.
• The Suited Tie is a long shot. It lands about once in 59 rounds, so a 50:1 payout still leaves it below the main bets.

Do the Roads and Trends Help?

Live Dragon Tiger tables show a set of scoreboards, often called roads, that chart the results of past rounds in the shoe — streaks of Dragon wins, runs of Tiger, where the ties fell. They are a record of what has happened, and they are part of the fun of the table.

They do not tell you what comes next. Both cards in a round come from the same shuffled shoe, so whatever has already been dealt, the Dragon and the Tiger always have exactly the same chance of winning the next round. A long run of Dragon wins does not make the Tiger “due”. The same goes for any “prediction” app or signal group: the game does not allow the next card to be known in advance.

Dragon Tiger vs Baccarat

Baccarat’s Banker bet carries a lower house edge than Dragon Tiger’s main bets, at around 1.06%. Dragon Tiger trades a little of that for speed and simplicity. Our baccarat guide and live baccarat guide cover the longer game.

Versions You Will Find

• Dragon Tiger (Evolution, live). The standard live table, dealt from a shoe in a themed studio, with the Tie at 11:1 and the Suited Tie at 50:1 and a full set of roads.
• First Person Dragon Tiger (Evolution, RNG). The same bets without a live dealer. You play at your own pace, can deal free hands to build up the roads, and can shuffle the shoe at any time. A button inside the game moves you to the live table.
• Super Speed Dragon Tiger (Evolution, live). The same game with shorter rounds.

Several other studios run their own Dragon Tiger tables, and the payouts can differ — the Tie in particular. Check the paytable in the game’s help screen before your first bet.

Where Dragon Tiger Is Available

Dragon Tiger is a standard table in live casino lobbies. Two operators reviewed here list it in their live casino:

Welcome offers as published in the reviews on this site, where the wagering requirements and full conditions are set out.

If you like the quick one-card decision, Andar Bahar is the Indian card game built on the same idea of guessing which side a card lands on, and Teen Patti is the Indian three-card game you will find in the same live lobbies. The rest of the catalogue is in the casino games guide.

Playing It Sensibly

A Dragon Tiger round lasts under half a minute, so an hour at the table can mean well over a hundred bets. Decide your stake and your stopping point before you start, set a deposit limit and a session time limit in your account, and use the reality-check and time-out tools a licensed operator provides. Free, confidential support is available at BeGambleAware.org. 18+ only.

Also worth a look: Casino War — one card each against the dealer, with a war on every tie.

Dragon Tiger: frequently asked questions