Banking a Pai Gow Poker Game

A player may choose to deal or bank a pai gow poker game. To bank a game, a player must have enough chips on the table to cover all the other players’ wagers if they were all to win their bets. How often a player is allowed to bank a game varies from casino to casino. It’s to the player’s advantage to bank as often as possible, since the rules are in favor of the house or dealer. The disadvantage to banking a game is it may require a large amount of money to start banking a game.

When a player banks a game, that reduces the house advantage because that player pockets wagers in the case of ties or copy hands. However, the casino takes a 5 percent commission on every winning wager. This is how the casino still makes money when a player chooses to bank a hand. The casino also limits the number of times a player may bank. Usually it’s once every seven hands.

This would give each player an opportunity to bank a hand every rotation on a full table, including the casino dealer.