Pai Gow has its roots in ancient China where it, back in the days, was played with dominoes instead of playing cards. We don't know exactly how old the game is, but at least a couple of hundred years.

Pai Gow is, alongside Keno , China's biggest contribution to the casino industry.

A Military Game

In the old version of the game, the domino tiles were separated into different groups, which symbolized military and civilian units. This in itself reminds of China's history of being a highly militarized country.

The dealer then rolled a dice that decided which tiles were going to what player. In its early form, Pai Gow was a quite complicated game to say the least.

Pai Gow Becomes a Card Game

If we go forward in time to the modern days, Pai Gow took different forms in different parts of the world. In the late 20th century, the game mated with poker and the offspring was Pai Gow Poker .

One can say that Pai Gow Poker is a new game but has roots leading hundreds of years back in time.

In the middle of the 1980s, Fred Wolf introduced Pai Gow Poker, or double-handed poker, in California. The game became an instant hit and it didn't take long before it was introduced to Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

Nowadays, you can play Pai Gow Poker in casinos all over the world and it's also quite popular in online casinos.