Pai Gow Poker

The player places and bet and then is dealt 7 cards.  The player must split his cards in a 5 card and 2 card poker hand in whatever way he wants, as long as the 5 card hand is a higher ranking hand than the 2 card one.

The dealer is also dealt 7 cards and does the exact same thing following a predefined strategy for dividing its cards "the house way".

The players and the dealers 2 hands are then compared against each other 2 card v 2 card and 5 card v 5 card with the higher ranking poker hand winning.

The player is paid at even money (less a house deduction of around 5%) if both his hands win and loses his stake if they both lose, otherwise its a push (tie).  If by any chance the player and the dealer have identical hands (much more likely on the 2 card hand) then the dealer wins that hand

The joker is a wild card with some restrictions.  It can only be used to complete a straight or a flush (or a straight flush) otherwise it becomes an Ace (which can be very handy).

  Pai Gow Strategy

The right choice for how to split up any given 7 card hand is pretty complicated and its pretty much impossible to better the "house way".  For this reason the best strategy is to play the house way, where the casino gives you that option.  Some casinos (e.g. Hills and Littlewoods) don't offer this unfortunately but ones that do are Casino 365 and Private Casino.

However only one of these, Private Casino, has the option for you to be the banker.  Private give you the option to be the banker alternatively but restrict banker stakes to the same amount as your last player bet.  Still it effectively halves the house edge over any of the other casinos so is still the best place to play.

  Screen Shot

  Being the Banker (Dealer)

In some versions of Pai Gow it is possible to be the banker.  This is significantly advantageous as

you win on the tied hands

the 5% commission is taken on your net winning (net of losses) rather than on gross winnings.

Whereas the house edge for pai gow as the player is about 2.75%, its as low as 0.2% is you can be the banker.  Typically casinos wont let you be the banker all of the time but sometimes you can get to be banker alternatively, which obviously improves your odds considerably especially if you can make larger stakes when playing as the banker.