Rules of Pai Gow Poker

Pai Gow Poker is pretty different than your standard Five Card Draw Poker. It’s quite a different take but it's a pretty popular casino game. It originated in China and you play only the dealer and not other players.

There are players, a dealer and a banker for a total of seven spots at the Pai Gow table. The players each get dealt seven cards and must form two separate hands in an effort to beat the banker. The banker’s role switches to another player every hand. The banker can also be the dealer. The dealer plays the hand like any other player when not the banker. Each player bets and the whole deck is dealt as each player gets seven cards.

The two hands each player makes is composed of five cards and two cards. The tricky part is the two-card hand must be lower in value than the five-card hand. It’s harder than it sounds because your first intention based on the standard rules of poker is to use the top pair but you can’t do this in Pai Gow.

The two hands of the player must beat that of the banker’s. The banker wins if the hands are equal. If one hand wins and one loses, it’s a push and you get your money back. The winning players get paid by the dealer from the banker’s funds. Thus, there can be more than one winning player. Losing player bets are paid to the banker. In general, the house takes a 5% commission on winning bets in Pai Gow Poker.