Table games guide
How do you set a Pai Gow Poker hand and rank Pai Gow Tiles?
The house way sets seven cards into a five-card back hand and a two-card front hand, and the back must outrank the front. A player wins only by beating the banker on both hands, one win and one loss is a push, and a copy goes to the banker.
By Jeff Quizon. Built by a dealer who’s dealt poker and table games in casinos and card rooms. Published October 29, 2026. Last reviewed October 29, 2026.
Want to drill these payouts? Practice free in the table games app →
| Seven cards | How to set them |
|---|---|
| Five aces | Pair of aces in front. With a pair of kings, kings in front and the five aces stay in back. |
| Four of a kind, 2s to 6s | Never split. Two highest singles in front. |
| Four of a kind, 7s to 10s | Split, one pair in front. With a single ace, keep all four in back and play the ace in front. |
| Four of a kind, jacks to aces | Always split, one pair in front. |
| Full house | The pair in front, the three in back. With 2s and a single ace and king, play A-K in front. |
| Three pair | The highest pair in front. |
| Straight or flush | Play it in back, choosing the one that puts the best two cards in front. |
| Three of a kind | Three aces: split, a pair of aces in back, ace and next card in front. Any other three stay in back, two highest singles in front. |
| Two pair with aces | Always split. The lower pair goes in front. |
| Two low pairs (2s to 6s) | Never split. Two highest singles in front. |
| Low and medium, low and high, or two medium pairs | Split, lower pair in front. With a single ace, both pairs stay in back and the ace plays in front. |
| Medium and high, or two high pairs | Always split. The lower pair goes in front. |
| One pair | Pair in back. Two highest singles in front. |
| No pair | Highest card in back. Next two in front. |
Practice it
Drill these payouts free in the app →Low, medium and high pairs
Low pairs are 2s to 6s, medium pairs are 7s to 10s, and high pairs are jacks to aces. The joker counts as an ace for pairs and as a single ace, and it completes a straight or flush only.
Set the hand so the front never outranks the back. A hand set the other way is a foul, and a fouled hand loses.
Both hands must win
The player must beat the banker on both hands. Win one and lose one, and the bet pushes. Lose both and it loses. A copy, an identical hand, goes to the banker.
The app’s default table pays wins 1 to 1 with no commission. With a 5% commission, a winning $25 bet pays $23.75.
Fortune and Envy
Fortune pays on the best hand in the player’s own seven cards, however they set it and whatever the banker holds. Paid to 1: straight 2, three of a kind 3, flush 4, full house 5, four of a kind 25, straight flush 50, royal flush 150, five aces 400, and the seven-card straight flush 1,000 with the joker or 8,000 without.
A Fortune bet of $5 or more gets an Envy button. Envy pays a fixed amount for every other player’s hand of four of a kind or better: $5 for four of a kind, $20 for a straight flush, $50 for a royal flush and $250 for five aces. It never pays on the player’s own hand or the dealer’s.
Pai Gow Tiles: the 16 pairs
There are 32 tiles in 16 pairs. Best to worst: Jee Goon (the 1-2 and the 2-4, the supreme pair), then the matched pairs Teen (6-6), Dey (1-1), Yun (4-4), Gor (1-3), Mooy (5-5), Chong (3-3), Bon (2-2), Foo (5-6), Ping (4-6), Tit (1-6) and Look (1-5).
Next come the four mixed pairs: Chop Gow (the 9s: 4-5 and 3-6), Chop Bot (the 8s: 3-5 and 2-6), Chop Chit (the 7s: 3-4 and 2-5) and Chop Ng (the 5s: 1-4 and 2-3).
Pai Gow Tiles: Wong, Gong and totals
Below the pairs, a Teen or Dey with a 9 is Wong, and a Teen or Dey with an 8 is Gong. Wong beats Gong, and Gong beats every total.
Any other hand is the pips added up with the tens dropped: 6 and 8 make 14, which is 4. A Jee Goon tile played alone counts as 3 or 6, whichever is better. A tie on the total goes to the higher single tile. A copy goes to the player-dealer, and so does a 0 against a 0.
House rules vary
- The house way. Casinos set a few hands differently, mostly two pair and the straight or flush hands. The table above is the one the app uses.
- Commission and the Queen-high push. We default to no commission and no push. Some tables take 5%, and some push every bet when the banker’s seven cards are a Queen-high pai gow.
- Fortune and Envy pay tables. Casinos print their own. The figures here are the app’s defaults.
- Who banks. In a California cardroom a player-dealer banks the game, and the house collects a fee per hand.
- Dice count. We default to counting the dice clockwise. Some cardrooms count counterclockwise.
Practice it
Pai Gow and Pai Gow Tiles drills
Pai Gow and Pai Gow Tiles are part of the Table Games Track. Levels 1 and 2 of blackjack Payout Speed are free. It’s a one-time purchase with a 5-day refund.
Open the table games appAll guides