The original Pai Gow is a cryptic and symbolic game, very difficult to learn, and was originally played with dominos. Pai Gow Poker on the other hand is quite straightforward and based on standard poker hands. In Pai Gow Poker, a 53-card deck is used. The additional card is a designated wild card. It is played on a blackjack table, and six players can play at a time. Considering the game's relativelyrecent' arrival, and its clear relationship with the ancient Chinese game ofPai Gow', the history of Pai Gow Poker is relatively limited and devoid of much dispute.The best-known gambling game with roots in China is probably Keno, but Pai Gow runs a close second.  Pai Gow - the ancient predecessor of what is now known as Pai Gow poker - is hundreds of years old and is thought of as the first gambling game that utilized domino-like playing pieces. In the ancient version of the game, the dealer separated the tiles into four groups and rolled the dice to determine which group went to which player.  Pai Gow (which means "make nine") was a complicated game, military in nature, where the groups of dominoes were then divided into army units (represented by numbers) and civilian units (represented by pictures), symbolizing Chinese reality at the time. In the 1800s, the game started spawning numerous variations the history and specifics of which are not well known.  Fast forward to the late 20 th century and the game finally transforms into the current form of Pai Gow poker, which is a combination of ancient Pai Gow and modern, traditional poker.

The game of Pai Gow poker (also known as double-hand poker) was created by the team of Sam Torosian and Fred Wolf in the late 1900s.  Wolf was a a casino owner and he featured the game of Pai Gow poker in his California casino, giving it the exposure it needed to become an instant hit.  Within a few years of Pai Gow poker's first appearance in the U.S. in 1986, it was being featured in Las Vegas casinos and, subsequently, Atlantic City casinos, as well.  Most recently, online casinos have started offering this unique poker variation, and the demand seems to be growing as casual gamblers who don't want to bother with flights and hotels in Las Vegas or Atlantic City have turned to the Internet to get their betting fix. One of the major changes that occurred when the Chinese game of Pai Gow transitioned into the American game of Pai Gow poker was its transformation from a domino game to a card game (in China you can still find the domino game of Pai Gow played regularly).  In the American version of the game, the basic poker hand applies and one joker is added to the deck.  As in blackjack, the players play against the dealer, not against each other.  The maximum number of players at a Pai Gow poker table is six (plus the dealer).

The game is a unique version of poker in that the player uses all of his cards to create two separate hands, a high hand and a low hand.  Each player receives sevens cards, and from that he forms two separate hands - one hand must consist of 5 cards, while the other consists of 2.  The five-card hand must equal a total greater than the two-card hand and, in order to win, both hands must outscore the dealer's. The player is responsible for making sure that his high hand (five cards) is actually higher in value than the low hand (2 cards). If he mistakenly makes a better low hand, it is considered a foul, and the player automatically loses his bet. The explanation may sound complicated but the game of Pai Gow poker is actually easily learned and exciting to play, the main reason that it has turned into one of the most popular versions of poker in cyberspace today.