Pai Gow poker is rapidly becoming one of the most popular games offered by online casinos. Players think they are playing a new game but the actual game of Pai Gow has been around for thousands of years. Pai Gow is actually an ancient Asian game of dominoes. By contrast the modern online casino game of. Pai Gow poker is played with a regular deck of cards, including the Joker. It’s very easy to learn how to play Pai Gow poker because the hand rankings are the same as those of traditional poker (with only a couple of exceptions.)  It is sometimes also called Two Hand Poker because you are betting on two hands during the game – yours and the dealer’s.

In Pai Gow there can be a banker that is a player, but in online casino games the banker is usually the house. The banker designates which hands go to which player by shaking a virtual dice cup with three dice; the banker's position is either 1, 8 or 15 and the hands are passed out counterclockwise. Otherwise dice or dominoes don’t really have that much to do with the online version of the game!

In a Pai Gow game, the Joker is wild. The joker can be used as an Ace or to complete a flush or straight. In an online casino game of Pai Gow you are dealt seven cards and are required to split your cards into two hands. One hand will have five cards and the other will have two. The two-card hand cannot outrank the five-card hand that is also sometimes called the “1st highest” or “the back”. The Joker is often used to make a pair, a straight flush or a flush in your five-card hand. However in this game there are two kinds of straights. There is the usual 10-J-Q-K-A straight but also the A-1-2-3-4.  The A-1-2-3-4 outranks all other types of straights.

Both you and the dealer will have two hands – both the five card and two card hands. To win the payout, BOTH of your hands must outrank the online casino dealer’s two hands. If the dealer beats both your hands then you lose If only one of your hands beats the online dealer’s hands then it is considered a push and your bet is refunded.

The trick is to remember that Pai Gow Poker is not like other games of Poker. Most players lose because they are used to playing blackjack where a Royal Flush beats practically everything. The thing to remember is that the low Ace progressing up to a numerical card of four beats all of those flushes.

Some online casinos sites allow you to split pairs during an online Pai Gow Poker game and others do not. Allowing a player to split pairs is a bit of an American conceit that has been added to online casino versions of the game but it is not really an option that is played out in the traditional card game of Pai Gow Poker.