Pai Gow Poker is a card-based version of the Chinese game Pai Gow, played with dominoes. Played live, Pai Gow poker involves a satisfying balance of luck and skill, with a basic knowledge of strategy essential to beating the game.

In the poker version of Pai Gow the object is for a player to make two poker hands out of the seven cards they are dealt, one or both of which is better than the dealer’s. One must be a five-card poker hand (the high or back hand); the other a two-card hand (known as the low or front hand). The crucial difference between live and online play is that online casinos often offer to arrange the two hands for you, taking out a large element of skill from the game.

Pai Gow Poker uses a 53-card deck, containing one joker. The joker can only be used as an ace or to help complete a straight flush, a straight or a flush. It may not be used to turn three kings into four, for example.

The best hand in Pai Gow Poker is five aces, using the joker as an ace. The next best hand is a straight flush, with all other hand rankings following in the usual order as follows:

• Straight Flush
• Four of a Kind
• Flush
• Straight
• Three of a Kind
• Two Pair
• Ace
• King
• Queen
• Jack

One more crucial point to remember: if the dealers hand and your hand are the same, the dealer wins!

Pai Gow Poker History

Pai Gow, the Chinese game from which Pai Gow Poker originates means “make nine”. It is a notoriously difficult game to learn, unlike its Americanised namesake which is pretty simple.

Pai Gow Poker was created in the 1980’s by Sam Torosian and Fred Wolf, a games inventor who also managed the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles. Wolf introduced the game to casinos in 1987 and it immediately became a huge favourite among Californian casino goers, quickly spreading to Vegas and around the world.