Pai Gow: How to Play the Chinese Gambling Game

Pai Gow is a Chinese gambling game that is based on dominoes and means Make Nine in English. It’s a Chinese variation of dominoes and is played with 32 pieces. Pai Gow is primarily played in the US, China (specifically Macau) and Australia. Once Online Casinos came around, they started offering everyone around the world a chance to play Pai Gow. Whether you are in the UK or New Zealand you will have access to it.

An image of the tiles used in Pai Gow

Top Casinos that Offer Pai Gow

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  • Hippodrome Casino: You can find Pai Gow at both their Online and Land Based Casino.
  • 32Red Casino: 32Red have such a wide range of Online Casino Games to choose from, that’s why it made sense for them to offer players the chance to play Pai Gow
  • Intercasino: InterCasino offers all the Microgaming games, which include titles such as Pai Gow, Sic Bo and many other unique games
  • Ladbrokes Casino covers all types of gaming, one of which is Pai Gow. If you would like a wide selection of unique games, they are a great casino to find what you are looking for.

How to Play Pai Gow

Pai Gow Tiles are packed into 8 stacks of four tiles and are shuffled and players can make their bets. Obviously, according to its name, scoring a nine is the best hand one can have. The way you know if you are close to nine is by adding up the dots on the dominoes.

If you get a 5 and 5 tile or a 4 and six tile for example you will have a 10 which actually means you have zero.

Teen and Day Tiles

The only way you can actually reach a ten or eleven is by having a day or teen tile. This is how it works:

  • A Gong: A gong is made by a day or teen tile combined with an eight, its value is then equivalent to 10
  • A Wong: A wong is made by a day or teen tile combined with nine, which is equivalent to 11

Gee Joon Tiles

You can also use Gee Joon tiles which are 1-2 or 2-4. These tiles can be used as a type of joker for example, 1-2 tile can be used as a 5-6.

Paired Pai Gow Tiles

In Pai Gow there are 11 pairs of identical tiles, with the other 5 pairs being un-identical. The identical tiles have five pairs that equal the same but look different. Pairs are always ranked higher than the other tiles, with the highest ranks being Gee Joon, Day,Teen and Red Eights.

Ties in Pai Gow

It is possible that you and the banker can wind up with the same score, how to solve this is by determining which tile in each hand has a higher value or if one of you have the Gee Joon Tile or if you both have a 0-0 tie you will then lose.

Pai Gow Poker

An image of pai gow poker

This is an American version of Pai Gow by playing with cards instead of dominoes. The game is a 52 card deck game and has one joker. Six players are allowed to play at a time and the aim is to defeat the banker. The wheel (A2345) is known as the second highest hand and ranks higher than a king-high straight. This game is mainly played in the US but can be found at Online Casinos in the UK.

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