What is the house advantage in Pai Gow Poker?
Pai Gow Poker is no different from the Chinese domino game pai gow. The game is also known for its slow rate of play and many pushes, resulting in a low-risk game. While it’s a game of skill, most hands are obvious on how to play, and it is not hard to learn proper strategy for the rest of them.
Every player plays against the dealer’s hand, causing the table to often win and lose together, resulting in a most fun and social game.
If you want to play a slow table game with minimal volatility and no skills required, Face Up Pai Gow Poker is the perfect casino game for you. The house edge in this game is 1.81%, better than the higher 2.72% house edge in Pai Gow Poker.
Pai Gow Poker House Edge
The house advantage in the game of Pai Gow Poker depends not much on your skill setting hands. However, more on how much of the action you bank. The following tables will show the probability of every possible outcome and the expected value in four ways — whether you are using the house way or the optimal strategy and whether banking or the dealer is banking.
House way Strategy — Dealer Banker
| EVENT | PAYS | COMBINATIONS | PROBABILITY | RETURN |
| Win | 0.95 | 2,402,491,783,820,756 | 0.291195 | 0.276635 |
| Push | 0 | 3,341,087,256,920,524 | 0.404958 | 0.000000 |
| Loss | -1 | 2,506,879,990,473,120 | 0.303847 | -0.303847 |
| total | 8,250,459,031,214,390 | 1.000000 | -0.027212 |
House Way Strategy — Player Banker
| EVENT | PAYS | COMBINATIONS | PROBABILITY | RETURN |
| Win | 0.95 | 2,506,879,990,473,120 | 0.303847 | 0.288655 |
| Push | 0 | 3,341,087,256,920,524 | 0.404958 | 0.000000 |
| Loss | -1 | 2,402,491,783,820,756 | 0.291195 | -0.291195 |
| Total | 8,250,459,031,214,390 | -1.000000 | 0.002540 |
The Pai Gow Poker House Edge varies depending on both the player strategy and also the House Way rules applied by the casino. The House Way rules do not vary that much which allows for the application of an optimal gambler strategy. This strategy usually allows for a House Edge of between 2.5-2.6%.
It should also be noted that many casino gambling software’s allow an option for the gambler to deal with their hand the House Way. In general, this returns a House Edge higher than the optimum at around 2.7%.
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