The House Edge in Pai Gow Poker

The house edge is a measure of how favorable, or unfavorable, a game is to play, expressed as a percentage. For example, a house edge of 3% means that you can expect to lose 3% of all the money you wager. If you wager a total of $100, you can expect to lose about $3. In pai gow poker, the house edge changes depending on whether you play as banker, how many players there are, and how skillful you are in setting your hand.

As a player, your disadvantage at pai gow poker stems from two sources:

Adding up these house edges gives the average player a disadvantage of about 2.84%. This means that for every $1,000 wagered, the average player can expect to lose about $28.40.

If you follow the hand setting strategies recommended in How to Set Your Hand in Pai Gow Poker, you can reduce the house edge to about 2.54%. This means that for every $1,000 you wager, you can expect to lose about $25.40—a savings of about $3.00 compared to an average player.

The best way to play pai gow poker is as the banker. As the banker, rather than give up a 1.27% disadvantage because of losing on copies, you actually get a 1.27% advantage because you win copies. You still have to pay a 5% commission on your net win, however, which will cut into your winnings.

The more players there are, the better it is to play as banker. Here’s how your edge changes with different numbers of players. The table assumes that you follow the strategy in this guide, that the other players are average, and that the dealer follows the house way:

If you play heads-up (one on one) against the dealer and you get to be banker, it’s an even game. With other players, your advantage as banker varies from 0.22% to 0.41%, meaning that you can expect to win from $2.20 to $2.41 for every $1,000 you wager as banker. This is admittedly a small advantage, but it’s much better than the losing proposition presented by most other casino games.

Here’s how the house edge for pai gow poker stacks up to the house edge found in other common casino games. Note that a negative house edge means that you have the advantage.

Due to its relatively low house edge, pai gow poker can be a great game to play, especially if you’re able to play as banker. If you don’t bank, the house edge for pai gow poker is pretty typical for a casino game. In terms of how much money you can expect to lose per hour, pai gow poker is actually better than the table above suggests, since it‘s usually played at a slower pace than most other games and since ties are so frequent. A given amount of money can last much longer at a pai gow poker table than in other games.