How to Play Pai Gow Poker Rules, Strategy, Bonus_7

December 1, 2025

How to Play Pai Gow Poker Rules, Strategy, Bonus

You should also make sure you have a grasp of fundamental pai gow strategy because it can be confusing the best way to split up your hand to maximize your chances. Many casinos offer optional side bets with enticing payouts. One of the most popular is the Fortune Pai Gow side bet, which pays based on the value of all seven cards, not just the two hands you create. Pai Gow Poker is one of the most entertaining and social casino games, combining elements of traditional poker with ancient Chinese Pai Gow tiles. While it can appear tricky to new players, it’s surprisingly easy to learn—and even easier to enjoy. Success in Pai Gow Poker is largely dependent on how the cards are dealt as there are no betting rounds.

Pai Gow Poker: How to Play, Rules to Know and Betting Advice

These probabilities consider all seven cards and without regard to how the player may play the hand. Often in Washington State the casino will not charge the 5% commission on banker wins. They make a profit on the banker’s advantage and side bets only. With no commission, the banker has a 1.30% advantage, and all others playing against the banker a 1.30% disadvantage.

• Pai Gow is an ancient Chinese gambling game that serves as an ancestor for both modern dominoes and baccarat.
• Pai gow is a Chinese betting game that uses tiles instead of cards, and it’s popular in casinos around the world.
• Get ready for a thrilling ride through the world of Online Pai Gow Poker, where ancient Chinese traditions meet the excitement of modern poker!
• By mastering hand-setting strategies, managing bets wisely, and using side bets selectively, players can enjoy a rewarding and low-risk poker variant.
• There is no numeric order to their ranking, and there is no way to know the ranking than to have them written or to memorize the pairings.

It contains simple, intermediate, and advanced strategies for both playing as the banker, against the banker, and combined. This page took months for my assistant JB to create so I hope you’ll have a look. After bets are settled the tiles are collected and a new round is started. We are Here to Help You Make Informed Betting Decisions and help players have more fun and more wins when gambling online. Some tables also have a minimum for an ‘envy’ bet that pays out if another player at the table hits four-of-a-kind or better.

Play the Ace and the next highest card if the low hand is improved over playing the straight, flush, or straight flush. Side bets add extra excitement to the game and allow players to win bigger payouts. Offers an additional side bet on achieving a seven-card straight flush for high payouts. Keep in mind that the Joker can only be used to complete either a flush or a straight, or it becomes an ace. The five ace hand is the strongest in the game and even beats a Royal Flush in Pai Gow Poker.

If both player and dealer played optimal strategy, the house edge to the player when banking would be 0.54%, and when not banking 2.38%. For more on this topic see JB’s optimal house strategy comparison table (24K). To see an enormous document on the actual optimal house strategies see JB’s optimal house strategy charts (735K).

Events like the annual World Series of Pai Gow Poker offer players a chance to showcase their skills in competitive settings, with lucrative prize pools at stake. The Joker can be used as an ace or to complete a straight or flush in your five-card hand. Playing for free is the best way to learn the ropes without risking your bankroll. curacao casino Practice hands, try different strategies, and master hand setting at your own pace. Pai Gow Poker is a poker variant based on the ancient Chinese domino game, Pai Gow.

The Joker in Pai Gow Poker is not wild and you CANNOT assign any value to the Joker. The Joker card in Pai Gow Poker may be used only as an Ace, or to complete a Straight, a Flush or a Straight Flush. If you have an extra pair, play the high pair in your front hand. If you have four of a kind that are jacks or better, split them into two pairs. The High or Low hand is identical to the corresponding hand of the dealer’s and the other hand is ranked lower than the dealer’s. 3 Once all the cards are distributed, the dealer will go back and collect the cards distributed to seats without a wager and place them in the discard rack.

If a player refuses the option to be the bank it is passed to the next player in counterclockwise order. The tiles are shuffled and fixed into piles four tiles high with 8 piles side by side. The first player to receive their hand is determined randomly, often by a throw of 3 dice.

The pips on a Pai Gow tile can be either red or white, and these colorations do matter when applying an often complex scoring system. Two hands require doubling of the minimum, while playing three hands requires a $100 minimum per hands. Natalie Faulk is a Las Vegas-based freelance writer/blogger and the author of several books.

Playing correctly in Pai Gow is all about knowing how to set your front and back hands in the most effective manner. With four tiles to choose from, there’ll always be three possible combinations to form two pairs, and knowing which of these three options to choose from is the key the game. Part of what makes Pai Gow so difficult to grasp for many new players is that the game seems to be operating under a different language altogether.

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Traditional Pai Gow Poker – Players are dealt 7 cards and make a two-card low set and five-card high set. To win the primary bet, the Player’s two sets must be of higher ranking than the two corresponding sets belonging to the Banker. If both of the Player’s sets are lower than that of the Banker, the Player loses his or her primary bet. Pai Gow Poker is a variation of the Chinese domino game pai gow. The game is known for a slow rate of play and lots of pushes, resulting in low risk game.

The table should have clearly marked spaces for both the house high hand and low hand to be displayed. After you’ve set your hand, place the two-card hand in front of the five-card hand on the table. For novice players, selecting “House Way” when arranging your cards is a good way to start until you get a better feel for the strategy of the game. 1 The dealer shuffles his deck and then proceeds to deal seven hands in a line in front of the dealer’s tray, one card at a time, face down, until seven hands of seven cards each are dealt. The dealer then checks that exactly four cards are left over, then places those cards in the discard rack.

For those exploring ways to broaden their casino repertoire, Pai Gow Poker offers a refreshing alternative to popular options like blackjack. If you’ve ever wondered how to play blackjack online, consider Pai Gow Poker as your next adventure—it combines familiar card-playing mechanics with a unique strategic twist. Some of the top Pai Gow Poker tournaments embrace the intricacies of Double-Hand Poker, drawing seasoned players from around the world.

Following are the primary rules when it comes to pai gow. Each casino may have some its own fine points when it comes to player banking and prepaying the 5% commission. If both your high hand and low hand beat the banker, you win. If the banker’s high hand and low hand beat yours, the banker wins. However, if you win one hand and lose the other, the game is a push, and the wagers are returned. Pai Gow poker has long been a staple of casino table games.

One of your hands beats one of the dealer’s hands, while the other loses, in which case your bet is pushed. Pai Gow Poker was invented in 1985 by Sam Torosian, owner of the Bell card club in southern California. While other have made millions inventing casino games, Sam received some bad legal advice that card games were not patentable, and never filed one for his game.

Pai gow is a game that cries out for a way to practice before making a fool of yourself and blowing your money in a casino. If your two hands are exactly the same as the dealer’s (a copy), the dealer wins. We analyze every game to help you find the best bets and best odds to wager on today’s games.

Pai Gow Poker combines the elements of the ancient Chinese game of Pai Gow and the American game of Poker. Pai Gow Poker is played with a traditional deck of 52 cards and one Joker which may be used only as an Ace or to complete a Straight or Flush. Pai Gow Poker is essentially two separate Poker hands arranged according to traditional Poker rankings. Thus, the highest two-card hand is two Aces, and the highest five-card hand is five Aces (four Aces plus the Joker). The goal of the game is to beat the banker with both pairs in your hand to win your bid.