What is Pai Gow Poker?
Pai Gow Poker is an American casino game based on the Chinese domino game pai gow, played with a standard deck of cards plus a joker. You are dealt seven cards and must arrange them into a five-card back hand and a two-card front hand. Your back hand must outrank your front hand, and you play both against the dealer. It is one of the slowest, lowest-variance games in the casino, which is why it is a favourite of players who want their bankroll to last.
How to play Pai Gow Poker
Every hand of pai gow poker follows the same simple flow, and the only skill is how you set your seven cards:
Place your bet and get seven cards
You and the dealer each receive seven cards from the deck.
Set your two hands
Split the seven cards into a five-card back hand and a two-card front hand. The back hand must be the higher poker hand.
Compare against the dealer
Your back hand meets the dealer's back, your front meets the dealer's front. The dealer sets their cards by a fixed house way.
Win, lose or push
Win both hands to win the bet, lose both to lose it, and win one while losing the other to push. The dealer wins tied (copy) hands.
The two hands: back and front
The five-card back hand uses standard poker rankings. The two-card front hand can only be a pair or two high cards. The golden rule of pai gow poker is that the back hand must always outrank the front — if you set an illegal hand (a front stronger than the back), it is a foul and you lose automatically. Because you must win both hands, the whole game is about balancing your two hands so each is as strong as possible.
Pai Gow Poker hand rankings
Back hands follow the usual five-card poker rank order. Note two quirks of this poker game: the joker is semi-wild (it completes a straight, flush or straight flush, otherwise it counts as an ace), and in most casinos the A-2-3-4-5 wheel is the second-highest straight, just below A-K-Q-J-T.
| 5-card back hand | Beats |
|---|---|
| Five Aces (with joker) | Everything |
| Royal Flush | — |
| Straight Flush | Four of a kind |
| Four of a Kind | Full house |
| Full House | Flush |
| Flush | Straight |
| Straight | Three of a kind |
| Three of a Kind | Two pair |
| Two Pair | Pair |
| Pair | High card |
| High Card | Nothing |
House edge and the 5% commission
Played by the house way, pai gow poker has a house edge of roughly 2.5–2.7% per hand. The casino also charges a 5% commission on your net winning bets, which is already baked into that figure. Combined with the high push rate — you will tie the overall bet very often — pai gow poker gives you a lot of table time for your money. Banking the game (when allowed) lowers the edge further, but the basic player edge is what most people face.
The house way — and your strategy
The dealer always sets their seven cards by a fixed set of rules called the house way. You are free to set your own hand however you like, and the house way is also a near-optimal strategy for players: it is built on one principle — make your weaker (front) hand as strong as possible while keeping the back hand higher. Our calculator below applies exactly that principle to any seven cards.
Set any hand — the calculator
Tap seven cards and the tool instantly sets your optimal house-way split — the five-card back hand and the two-card front hand — the same way a smart player or the dealer would.
Learn the full method on the Pai Gow Poker strategy page. Prefer a faster poker game? Try Three Card Poker or our engine-verified video poker analyzer.
The calculator sets your hand by the standard house-way / maximise-the-front principle over a 52-card hand. House edge and commission figures are standard published values. Educational content about probability and game theory, not gambling advice.