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If you already know everything there is to know on how to play pai gow, it may be time to choose the best casino to play it. Fortunately, our selection of casinos that are approved and legal to play in the Philippines offer pai gow online:
Table of Contents
Pai gow is an ancient Chinese chance game that is played with 32 dominoes, still played at physical casinos – especially Macau in China but also all around the world. Therefore, it is not played with cards but rather combining the values of dominoes, which is fairly different from what we find in online casinos, the pai gow poker.
Pai gow poker is like the original one in the sense that players play it with two hands, being a double-handled poker. Cards are used instead of dominoes, but the essence of the game, which is combining the hands, remains the same. The fact that it is an alternative version of poker makes it easier to understand if you are familiar with poker hand combinations.
Unlike games such as jueteng, which is illegal in the Philippines, there are no gambling laws that forbid you from playing pai gow in our country. That also applies to online pai gow and pai gow poker, but you must make sure that you are playing on a foreign casino website. After all, the online versions of local casinos cannot accept Filipinos.
There are not many versions of pai gow poker to play online. In fact, the few versions that we find playing on online casinos in the Philippines are close to identical. They only change part of the design – seriously, things that won’t impact our gameplay, like the table color – and that is rather common when it comes to simple table games.
Talking about simplicity, the online pai gow poker game achieves the advantage of being even easier than when playing locally. Two taps on the screen are enough, and, believe it or not, you may even profit without understanding the pai gow poker rules properly.
The best way to understand the rules applied to online pai gow poker is with a clear view of what can be found in online casinos. Some of the casinos we recommend will allow you to play them for free, and that is how you can develop your own pai gow poker strategy and follow the next steps without any worries:
Credit: 20Bet
Credit: 20Bet
Credit: 20Bet
Credit: 20Bet
Credit: 20Bet
While it is perfectly possible to let the hints of the game guide you through setting the highest card first and then the second highest, you might as well memorize the poker hands. It is according to them that the winning hands are set:
| Hand | Cards |
|---|---|
| Five Aces | Wild Card + 4 Aces |
| Royal Flush | A, K, Q, J, and 10 of the same suit. Ace chosen as the highest card. |
| Straight Flush | Five cards of the same suit and in the right order. |
| Four of a Kind | Four of the five cards are the same number. |
| Full House | A pair plus three of a kind. |
| Three of a kind | Three of the five cards are the same number. |
| Two Pairs | Two pairs of different numbers. |
| Pair | Two equal numbers. |
| High Card | If no hand is formed, you compete with your highest card against the dealer’s highest card. |
Unlike games such as blackjack, online roulette, and even sic bo, pai gow poker is not as popular online as it is in the Philippines. It only has the individual table game form, and the two games that we can find on the approved casinos are exactly the same format.
For now, providers such as Playtech, Pragmatic Live, and Evolution Gaming have not published live pai gow poker rooms. Therefore, stick to the how-to-play and pai gow poker rules above, and you will have everything you need.
It is important to understand that online pai gow poker is quite limited when it comes to payout. It does not matter if you have won with a perfect 5 Aces or if you only beat the dealer with the highest card. The payout is always 1:1, as shown below:
It should be clear by now that some casinos offer you the chance to play pai gow poker for free if you are willing to. Therefore, since it is our goal to prepare you for everything you will find in online casinos, compare the pros and cons of each alternative:
| Free Pai Gow Poker | Real Money Pai Gow Poker |
|---|---|
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While pai gow poker is a rather simple game, there is room for skill and doing your best to win. After all, the wrong selection of cards can actually make you lose all the rounds. It is not like online slots, as selecting cards at random will most probably result in losses at least most of the time.
Therefore, I’d like to introduce important variations of the best pai gow poker strategy and some extra tips for you to enjoy the game to the maximum.
If you are used to poker and similar games, you might be tempted to select the best possible hand with the cards you receive. However, if you make sure to optimize your highest hand and forget about the second highest, your chances of profiting are really low.
After all, you need to win both to actually profit from the online version. Therefore, if you have got pretty decent cards, make sure to have a high one in both hands. That way, the game will compare with the dealer’s and grant you winnings if you are successful.
This strategy is useless when you are playing pai gow online because the current versions won’t allow you to build hands by selecting cards separately. Even so, just in case a provider launches a complete pai gow poker game, or if you simply want to know the rules to play it physically with friends, it is important to know the right move for each combination of cards.
| Your Hand | Optimal Move |
|---|---|
| No Pair / Flush / Straight | Put the highest card in your first hand and the next two highest together in the second hand. |
| 2 Pairs With Aces | Always split. |
| 2 Pairs With Kings | Split unless the other pair is twos. |
| 2 Pairs With 6 or Lower | Split, except in the case that you have an Ace, which requires you to play the pair with the Ace. |
| 2 Pairs of 7 to 10 | Also split, except in the case that you have an Ace, which requires you to play the pair with the Ace. |
| 2 Pairs, Jacks to Aces | Highest pair should be in the first (highest) hand. |
| 3 Pairs | Highest pair in the second hand. |
| Three of a Kind | Only split Aces. |
| Full House | Move the highest pair to the second hand. |
| Straight and Flush | Keep the straight or flush in your largest hand. In the case of two pairs, split it. |
| Four of a Kind | If 6 or lower, keep them in the same hand. In the case of 7 or more, split it except if you have an Ace. Always split anything from Jacks and above – except in the presence of a pair to fill the second hand. |
| Five Aces | Always split unless you have a pair of Kings – in that case, put the pair in the second hand and the Aces filling the first. |
When you play pai gow online, more precisely, the pai gow poker version available to play alone, you might be able to use the casino bonus. However, table games tend to contribute only 5% to 10%, if they contribute at all, to the wagering requirements.
Therefore, if the casino requires you to wager 30 times the 5,000 PHP bonus, you would have to wager it 300 to 600 times if you only play pai gow poker. If you are willing to take that conservative direction, sure, you may use the bonus to play pai gow online.
Since the available games of pai gow poker are quite the same, you might look for similar games if you want some variation in your gaming life. You will find some categories that might interest you below.
The concept of combining poker hands without having to go through a game of poker is not an exclusivity of pai gow poker. Video poker games are even faster and instant, and they truly allow you to try and make the possible poker hands with a better payout for more difficult hands.
Every time you deal the cards, you decide if and which ones to hold for a second drawing within the same round. Then, you get the payout on the paytable if you manage to complete that hand.
Although usually more complex than the simple pai gow poker rules, the original poker game can be entertaining and allow much more room for skill instead of luck. Among the many possibilities, you may play Texas Hold’em, Omaha Hi-lo, and Caribbean Poker from your computer or mobile device.
Although quite different from poker versions in general, baccarat is quite similar in its format when compared to the online pai gow poker we have access to. You simply put a bet on one of the two possible hands representing the player and the banker. Then, according to what is drawn, you will either win or lose. Simple enough and quite fun when you want fast rounds.
There are words used in pai gow poker that you might not be familiar with. It is also a fact that you will most probably not need the majority of them when playing online, since the game is pretty much automatized. Still, I want to present you all the knowledge you may have about that popular game:
Pai gow poker is a popular game in the Philippines that still does not find a perfect match to be played online. While a couple of providers created table games to play individually, we do not have live pai gow poker or the possibility of getting high payouts from certain combinations of cards. Therefore, it is still pretty raw in terms of development, but it can be fun to play sometimes.
More importantly, it is entirely legal, and you can use our tips to try and make your bankroll grow with the next bets. Just make sure to pick the websites that we have tested and approved for that.
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