Online Pai Gow Poker Rules

Pai Gow Poker is on the growing list of casino games with roots in Asia. It was adapted for use in Las Vegas casinos in 1980 by Fred Wolf, a Los Angeles area casino manager. The original Chinese game of the same name was played with dominoes, but the modern westernized version is played with a standard deck of playing cards. Pai Gow Poker has a lot in common with traditional poker games but each player is only tasked with playing against the banker (which is often another player). Read on to learn the rules and discover how to play this unique casino table game.

Understanding the Game

The overall objective of the game is to hold two hands of cards that rank higher than the dealer’s two corresponding hands. Card values are standard but there is a Joker in the deck which is wild in Straights, Flushes, and Straight Flushes. It may also be used as an Ace. Because of the Joker, hand rankings are essentially the same as in other poker games with one exception: the top hand is Five of a Kind Aces. Note that in some games the Joker is totally wild.

To start the game, the dealer creates seven stacks of seven cards and discards the deck’s remaining cards. All players at the table make a wager and then the dealer is able to start the game by rolling three dice from a cup. He takes the sum of all three dice and counts clockwise from himself to determine who gets the first stack of cards. The remaining stacks of cards are then distributed in order around the table. The dealer also receives one of the stacks.

Decision Time

Once you have your seven cards, your job is to create two distinct hands. One of these hands, the “high hand”, needs to have five cards. The other, the “low hand” needs to have the other two. You can form these however you would like, but the five card hand has to be more valuable than the two card hand. Failing to do this is a foul and you will have to forfeit the round. Of course, the highest possible two-card hand is a pair of aces.

Once all of the players and the dealer have prepared their hands, they need to place them on the designated spaces on the table for comparison. To win, both of your hands must beat the corresponding hands held by the banker. When this happens, the banker pays out even money (1:1). If either of your hands is identical to the dealer’s corresponding hands, it is called a copy, and the banker wins it. If one of your hands is a winner, but the other is a loser, then the bet is a push and your wager is returned to you. Since everyone is playing under the same rules, this is a game that would normally have a 0% house edge, however, the casino needs to make a profit, so the house charges a 5% commission on all wins.