Pai Gow

Pai Gow Rules

Basic Rules
Pai gow is an ancient Chinese betting game played with Chinese dominoes also called tiles. It has been played throughout Asia for centuries. It can be found in many casinos throughout the United States.

Object
The object of the game is to beat the banker. The banker can be any player or the dealer. Any player who wishes to bank must accept responsibility for all wagers made during that round of play. The banking option will be offered to each player, in turn, rotating in a counterclockwise direction. The banking player must have enough chips to cover all wagers placed in that round and must have wagered in the previous round that the dealer acted as banker. No player will be required to accept the bank and the dealer will act as banker when all players decline.

Pai gow is played with a set of 32 Chinese tiles which form 16 permissible pairs. A hand with any permissible pair is ranked higher than a hand which does not contain a pair.

Hands
The highest ranking hand is the supreme pair, followed by matched pairs, and unmatched or mixed pairs. The next highest ranking hands are special combinations known as wongs and gongs. Hands consisting of wongs or gongs are ranked lower than pairs.

Wongs are formed with the highest ranking single tile, 12, and either 9 (teen wong) or the second highest tile, 2, and either 9.

Gongs are formed with the highest ranking single tile, 12, and any 8 (teen gong) or the second highest tile, 2, and any 8 (day gong).

The next highest ranking hands are numeric value hands, the highest of which is 9. Hands that do not contain pairs have numeric values. Each tile has a numeric value and a symbolic ranking.

To find the numeric value, add the spots on each tile. The total will never be higher than nine because only the last digit in the total number of spots is used.

Two tiles will combine to form a hand. Add the total number of spots contained on the two tiles.

If the numeric total of the spots is a two digit number, the left digit is discarded and the right digit is the value of the hand.

When two hands have the same numeric value, the ranking will determine the winner. To determine which hand is higher, find the highest ranked tile in each hand and compare them.

When two hands have the same numeric value and identical high tiles, it is called a "copy" hand. The bank wins all "copy" hands.

When two hands have the numeric value of zero, they are considered equally bad, regardless of the high tile and the bank will win all zero ties.