Casino Poker Rules: Pai Gow
The Basics
Pai Gow is a Poker contest between dealer and player, in which the player must defeat the dealer's hand by constructing two hands – one ‘high' one ‘low' – from seven dealt cards. The ‘high' hand comprises five cards, the ‘low', two.
Playing the Game
Typical to all casino Poker games the payer must wager a minimum ante bet before receiving their hand from the dealer. Both player and dealer receive seven cards apiece, the dealer's hand being dealt face down.
The player must then sort their seven cards into the two highest ranking high and low hands they can manage. A Joker is included in the standard deck used in Pai Gow, but it is not fully ‘wild' – it is limited to behaving as either (a) an Ace, or (b) any value card if that means it will complete a Straight, a Flush, a Straight Flush or a Royal Flush.
The rules of Pai Gow stipulate that the player's high hand must better his low hand in rank before the combination can be compared with the dealer's. Once the player is satisfied with the arrangement of their two hands, the dealer's cards are turned over. The arrangement of the dealer's cards into high and low hands follows prescribed house rules. The dealer has no freedom to arrange the hands in any way other than that prescribed in the rules.
Three outcomes are possible in Pai Gow:
- The player's high and low hands outrank the dealer's. The player wins.
- Only one of the player's hands beats the dealer's. The game is tied and the player's ante is returned
- Both the player's hands are either beaten or tie with the dealer's. The player loses.
Hand Rankings
With the Joker added to the standard deck of cards in this game, the hand rankings of Pai Gow include an extra rank in comparison to the standard Stud Pokers. These are in descending order of value:
| Hand | Description |
| Four Aces + Joker | All Aces plus the single Joker. |
| Royal Flush | Ace, King, Queen, Jack and 10 from the same suit. |
| Straight Flush | Five cards in consecutive order from the same suit. |
| Four of A Kind | All four cards showing the same number or picture. |
| Full House | Three of a Kind and a Pair (see below). |
| Flush | Five cards of the same suit. |
| Straight | Five cards in consecutive sequence in any combination of suits. Highest ranking Straight is A, K, Q, J, 10 and lowest 6,5,4,3,2. |
| Three of a kind | Three cards showing the same number or picture. |
| Two Pairs | Two groups of two cards showing the same number or picture. |
| One Pair | One pair of cards showing the same number or picture. |
| Nothing | A hand with no matching cards. |
Payouts
A winning hand earns the player even money in Pai Gow, however do be aware that it is usual to the house to take a commission on that payout. This is typically in the region of 5% so for every pound bet a win will earn the player 95 pence on top.
Playing Online
You'll find Pai Gow Poker amongst the goodies at several of the excellent UK online casinos we feature on this site. Our guide above should help you get started with the essential rules of online Pai Gow Poker, but we'd always recommend following up with the game rules published at any online casino you choose to play. These will explain the layout of their software's controls, the commission (if any) charged on a win and the house rules that direct how the dealer's high and low hands must be constructed. For any player who is coming to play Pai Gow as a newcomer, finding a UK online casino which offers freeplay (i.e. ‘for fun') versions of its games can be the best way to try out a few hands before putting some real money bets into play.
