Note that with your 2-card front hand, you either have a Pair or you don’t. Otherwise, the usual hand rankings apply. In Pai Gow Poker, the wheel is the second-highest Straight, behind only the Broadway Straight (Ace-King-Queen-Jack-Ten). One other twist with the hand rankings: In regular poker, the lowest Straight you can make is the wheel: Five-Four-Three-Deuce-Ace. This is the highest-ranking hand in the game – it even beats a Royal Flush.

If the Joker is used for any other purpose, it’s considered an Ace that means you can get Five of a Kind in Pai Gow Poker, but only if you have four Aces and the Joker. The Joker in question is a “semi-wild” card that you can use to complete Straights or Flushes. Pai Gow Poker uses the standard hand rankings for poker, with a few exceptions. Any ties with the front or rear hands go to the Dealer. If you have one strong hand and the Dealer has the other, it’s a push, and your original bet is returned to you. If both the Dealer’s hands are stronger, you lose the bet.

If both your hands are stronger, you win the bet and get paid out at even money, minus a 5% commission. Your front hand is compared to the Dealer’s front hand, and your rear hand to their rear hand. The object of Pai Gow Poker is to make stronger hands than the Dealer’s. You then divide those cards into two hands: Your front hand gets two cards, and your rear hand gets five cards. When you play Pai Gow Poker, you place your bet, then receive seven cards from the standard 52-card deck, plus a Joker. Torosian thought something similar would work with playing cards. Then the hands are compared to the Dealer’s to see who wins. The thing about pai gow that inspired Torosian was the way the players split their dominoes into two hands: the front hand, and the rear hand. But at least his casino was busy – for a while. He didn’t, so when Pai Gow Poker quickly became a big hit across the United States, Torosian missed out on what could have been $100 million in royalties. Unfortunately for Torosian, he got some bad advice (apparently from poker legend Mike Caro) about whether he could patent the game he invented. He took the basic principles of pai gow, adapted them for use with playing cards, and just like that, Pai Gow Poker was born. There used to be a card room in east Los Angeles called the California Bell Casino Sam Torosian bought the Bell club in 1984, and one year later, decided to invent a new game to drum up some business. You may have heard of the ancient Chinese dominoes game called pai gow, which you can also play at card rooms in California, and at casinos in Las Vegas and around the world.

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