The house edge in Face Up Pai Gow Poker is 1.81%. This refers to the statistical advantage that the casino has against the player. A lower house edge means the player has a better chance of winning.
Face Up Pai Gow Poker is slightly more profitable for the player when you compare the house edge to that of conventional Pai Gow Poker (which is about 2.82% if you don’t act as the banker). In this variation of Pai Gow Poker, the dealer’s cards are exposed, which gives the player a slight edge. Additionally, the casino does not get a 5% commission on the player’s wins. These factors contribute to the slightly lower edge of this Pai Gow Poker variant.
The only catch in Face Up Pai Gow Poker is that the game ends in an automatic push if the dealer’s best 5-card hand is an ace-high. In regular Pai Gow Poker, a hand like this would have resulted in an automatic win for the player. This slight difference in the game mechanics accounts for the Face-Up Pai Gow Poker odds.
Additionally, there’s no option to act as the banker in Face Up Pai Gow Poker. This is one of the features of regular Pai Gow Poker that gives the player an advantage. By acting as a banker, you can reduce the house edge to 1.42% because the dealer always wins when the game ends in a draw. This feature is missing in Face Up Pai Gow, which means a draw will always favor the house.
