Is this Pai Gow Tiles game played for real money?

No. The table uses play chips that have no value, cannot be bought, and cannot be cashed out or exchanged for anything. If you run out, you are handed another stack for free. There is no account and nothing to download.

How should I set a Pai Gow Tiles hand?

Start from the house way. Two pairs stay as two pairs. One pair stays together unless the other two tiles make one of a short list of splits. With no pair, play a 12 or a 2 with a 7, 8 or 9 if you can. Otherwise make the low hand as good as you can, unless every low hand is hopeless and the high hand can reach 7 or more. That sets 79% of all hands as well as they can be set. For the rest, the coach shows which of the 3 settings was best and how many chips the difference is worth. It grades the setting, not the outcome: the best setting can still lose.

What is the house edge in Pai Gow Tiles?

At this table, 1.54% of each bet when every hand is set the best of its 3 ways, and 2.43% when every hand is set the house way. At best play 29.5% of hands win, 29.5% lose and 41.0% push. About 96% of the edge is the 5% commission taken from wins, and the rest is copies going to the dealer. These figures are an exact count for this table's rules and house way, not a simulation.

Why do so many hands push?

Because the bet is only settled when one side wins both hands. Four tiles rarely make two strong hands, so a good high hand usually leaves a weak low hand behind it, and the dealer's tiles are in the same position. 41.0% of hands push at best play and 40.3% set the house way. That makes the game slow and low in variance: chips move a little at a time in both directions. It does not make it free: a bet of 100 still costs about 1.54 on average.

Free Pai Gow Tiles

Four Chinese dominoes against the dealer, played for chips that are worth nothing, with every way to set them priced exactly.

Play chips

1,000

No real money, no prizes, nothing to buy.

32 tiles · shuffled every hand

Dealer

Low hand: Not set
High hand: Not set

You

Low hand: Not set
High hand: Not set

Pick a bet and deal.

No result yet

Session coach

Coach me as I play

Last round

Nothing played yet. After each of your hands the coach says what the round cost and what decided it.

Decide the cost before you start

Gambling is entertainment with a price, like a concert ticket. The useful question is not how much you might win but how much the evening is allowed to cost. Pick that number first, and treat reaching it as the end of the session. You can set one below and the coach will hold you to it.

Next bet

25 chips at a 1.54% house edge: an expected cost of 0.4 chips.

This table is for practice and entertainment only. How to keep gambling safe

Setting coach

Four tiles can only be set three ways. Once you have set yours, the coach prices all three against every one of the 20,475 hands the dealer could hold, says which was best and what your choice gave up, and notes separately whether you matched the house way. The tiles decide whether a hand wins. The setting is the part you control.

Cost of a 25 bet: −0.38; 1.54% a hand at the best setting
A win pays: 23.75; 25 less 5% commission
Hands that push: 41.0%; One hand each: the bet comes back
Win or lose: 29.5% / 29.5%; Copies go to the dealer

Setting every hand the house way instead costs 2.43% a hand. Either way this is a slow game: most of the edge is the commission, and it is only taken from the hands that win. Set the tiles edge beside other table games

This session

Hands played: 0
Best settings chosen: None yet; Of the hands you set yourself
Net chips: 0
Expected at the edge: 0; 0 bet at 1.54%
Pushes: None yet
Given up by your settings: 0; Against the best setting

Expected is the house edge taken on the chips you have bet, assuming every hand is set the best of its three ways. About 96% of that edge is the commission on wins and the rest is copies going to the dealer. Pushes are why this game moves slowly: a short session swings less than most table games, and still well away from the expected figure.

Hand ranking

Every hand of two tiles, best first: the sixteen pairs, then Wong, Gong and points.
Rank	Hand	Made of
1	Gee Joon pairSupreme	1-2 + 2-4
2	Teen pairHeaven	6-6 + 6-6
3	Day pairEarth	1-1 + 1-1
4	Yun pairMan	4-4 + 4-4
5	Gor pairGoose	1-3 + 1-3
6	Mooy pairPlum flower	5-5 + 5-5
7	Chong pairLong	3-3 + 3-3
8	Bon pairBoard	2-2 + 2-2
9	Foo pairHatchet	5-6 + 5-6
10	Ping pairPartition	4-6 + 4-6
11	Tit pairLong leg seven	1-6 + 1-6
12	Look pairBig head six	1-5 + 1-5
13	Chop Gow pairMixed nines	3-6 + 4-5
14	Chop Bot pairMixed eights	2-6 + 3-5
15	Chop Chit pairMixed sevens	2-5 + 3-4
16	Chop Ng pairMixed fives	1-4 + 2-3
17	Wong	A 12 (Teen) or a 2 (Day) with any 9
18	Gong	A 12 (Teen) or a 2 (Day) with any 8
19	9 down to 0 points	The pips of both tiles added, last digit only. A high nine (a 12 or a 2 with a 7) is the best 9.

Ties on a Wong, a Gong or points go to the hand holding the single highest tile, in the pair order above. The two Gee Joon tiles are the best pair together and the lowest tiles apart, where each counts as 3 or 6, whichever makes more points. If the high tiles match, or both hands are 0, it is a copy and the dealer takes it.

Built by Alexander Korsager · last updated October 3, 2026 · corrections

House edge when every hand is set the best of its 3 ways: 1.54%
Hands that push, even at best play: 41.0%
Ways to set 4 tiles into a high hand and a low hand: 3
Dealer hands every setting is priced against: 20,475

01 / 03

A table that prices every setting

Pai Gow Tiles is played with 32 Chinese dominoes. You get 4 of them and one decision: how to set them into a high hand and a low hand of two tiles each.

There are only 3 ways to do it. Both of your hands have to beat the dealer's for the bet to be paid, and both have to lose for it to be lost. Everything else is a push, and 41.0% of hands end that way even when every hand is set as well as it can be. That makes this one of the slowest, lowest-variance games in a casino.

4 tiles from a set of 32

12975

Each tile counts its pips. These four can be set 3 ways.

Both hands win: the bet is paid: 29.5%
One of each: a push: 41.0%
Both hands lose: the bet is lost: 29.5%

Shares of every possible deal, with each hand set the best of its 3 ways.

The hard part is the ranking, which looks like nothing else on the floor, so the table names every hand for you and keeps a ranking reference under the tiles.

After each hand the coach prices all 3 settings against every one of the 20,475 hands the dealer could have held, says which was best and what your choice gave up, and notes separately whether you matched the house way the dealer sets by. Set as well as possible, the game still costs 1.54% of every bet.

The same four tiles, set all 3 ways

High
Wong, Teen high
Low
2 points, Tit high
−8.19
chips on a bet of 100
Against every dealer hand it wins 8%, pushes 75%, loses 16%. The best of the 3.
High
High nine, Teen high
Low
4 points, Chop Gow high
−11.63
chips on a bet of 100
Against every dealer hand it wins 14%, pushes 61%, loses 25%. The house way.
High
7 points, Teen high
Low
6 points, Tit high
−11.70
chips on a bet of 100
Against every dealer hand it wins 26%, pushes 37%, loses 37%.

Each figure is what the setting returns on average. The coach shows this for your tiles after every hand.

02 / 03

Rules at this table

Rank 1
Pairs
Shown: Gee Joon pair
The highest of the 16 pairs. Every pair outranks every other hand.
Rank 2
Wong
A 12 with a 9.
Rank 3
Gong
A 12 with an 8.
Rank 4
Points
Shown: High nine
A 12 with a 7: 9 points, the last digit of 19. Other hands count their points the same way.

One set of 32 tiles, shuffled before every hand. They make 16 pairs: some are two identical tiles, and some are two different tiles that pair with each other.
You and the dealer get 4 tiles each. The dealer's stay face down until you have set your hand.
Set your tiles into two hands of two. The better one is your high hand and the other is your low hand, so a setting can never foul.
Pairs rank above everything else, in a fixed order with Gee Joon (the 1-2 and the 2-4) on top.
Next is a Wong (a 12 or a 2 with any 9), then a Gong (a 12 or a 2 with any 8).
Every other hand is worth its points: the pips of both tiles added up, last digit only, from 9 down to 0. A 12 or a 2 with a 7 is a high nine, the best 9 there is.
Apart from each other, the two Gee Joon tiles each count as 3 or 6, whichever makes more points.
A tie on a Wong, a Gong or points goes to the hand with the single highest-ranking tile. The Gee Joon tiles rank lowest on their own. If the high tiles match, or both hands are 0, it is a copy, and a copy goes to the dealer.
The dealer sets by the house way. High hand is compared with high hand and low with low. Win both and the bet is paid, lose both and it is lost, and one of each is a push.
A winning bet pays 1 to 1 less a 5% commission, so a bet of 100 wins 95.
There are no side bets and no option to bank at this table.
Bets run from 5 to 500 chips a hand.
1 to 4
Choose a tile
Enter
Deal or set the hand

FAQ

Is this Pai Gow Tiles game played for real money?: No. The table uses play chips that have no value, cannot be bought, and cannot be cashed out or exchanged for anything. If you run out, you are handed another stack for free. There is no account and nothing to download.
How should I set a Pai Gow Tiles hand?: Start from the house way. Two pairs stay as two pairs. One pair stays together unless the other two tiles make one of a short list of splits. With no pair, play a 12 or a 2 with a 7, 8 or 9 if you can. Otherwise make the low hand as good as you can, unless every low hand is hopeless and the high hand can reach 7 or more. That sets 79% of all hands as well as they can be set. For the rest, the coach shows which of the 3 settings was best and how many chips the difference is worth. It grades the setting, not the outcome: the best setting can still lose.
What is the house edge in Pai Gow Tiles?: At this table, 1.54% of each bet when every hand is set the best of its 3 ways, and 2.43% when every hand is set the house way. At best play 29.5% of hands win, 29.5% lose and 41.0% push. About 96% of the edge is the 5% commission taken from wins, and the rest is copies going to the dealer. These figures are an exact count for this table's rules and house way, not a simulation.
Why do so many hands push?: Because the bet is only settled when one side wins both hands. Four tiles rarely make two strong hands, so a good high hand usually leaves a weak low hand behind it, and the dealer's tiles are in the same position. 41.0% of hands push at best play and 40.3% set the house way. That makes the game slow and low in variance: chips move a little at a time in both directions. It does not make it free: a bet of 100 still costs about 1.54 on average.

How this game works

Every hand is dealt from one set of 32 tiles, shuffled in your browser with a Fisher-Yates shuffle so that every ordering is equally likely. Nothing about the deal depends on your bet, your balance or your results. The dealer's hand is set by the house way before you act and never changes with what you do.

The house way here is built from a published casino house way: its rules for which pairs to split and when, its rules for playing a 12 or a 2 with a 7, 8 or 9, and its general rule for every other hand. It is written out in the game's code as one rule per kind of hand and tested rule by rule. That published house way also lists a few exceptions for single named hands, which this table does not apply, and house ways differ a little between casinos, so this is one coherent rule set and not every casino's.

The coach's prices are exact. Once your 4 tiles are out, 28 are left, which make 20,475 possible dealer hands, all equally likely. Each one is set the house way and each of your 3 settings is compared with it, so a setting's chance to win, push and lose is a count and its value is that count with the 5% commission applied.

The house edge is exact for the same reason. All 35,960 hands of 4 tiles were each played against all 20,475 dealer hands, 736,281,000 deals in all, once choosing the best setting every time and once setting the house way. The tallies are fixed in the game's code and a test re-runs the whole count and requires the same numbers. To see where that edge sits among other games, use the house edge comparison with the tiles figure in mind.

Limits

The edge is for this table's rules and this house way. A casino with a different house way, or different tie rules, has a slightly different edge.
Best play here means the best setting against a dealer who sets the house way with tiles you cannot see. It does not use other players' tiles, which a full table shows you.
Casinos let players take turns banking, which changes the edge because the banker wins copies. This table has the 5% commission and no banking.
Tile and pair names are romanized in more than one way. The spellings here are common ones, not the only ones.
Play chips do not feel like money. Decisions that are easy here are harder with a real stake on the table.

This is a practice game for adults. It has no real-money play and links to none. Pai Gow Tiles played for money has a house edge on every hand, however it is set, and no amount of practice removes it.

Gambling can cause serious harm. The National Problem Gambling Helpline is free, confidential and open 24/7, call or text 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738), or chat at ncpgambling.org/chat.

03 / 03

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