Pai Gow Poker is a popular card game in many areas of the world, although some people might also know it as Chinese Poker. There are many different games that have been given that name, but Chinese Poker in general in the United States usually refers to the game with points that people play against each other rather than Pai Gow Poker which is a game that is played against the house by different players in the same mould as a game like blackjack or casino war. To that end, Pai Gow Poker has received a lot of popularity from people that are Chinese Poker fans and like being able to match their wits against the house in an effort to reduce the house edge that is built into the game as much as possible.
In Las Vegas , Pai Gow Poker is a relatively popular game as well. Exact statistics are not available, but if you go into a casino that has the game and hang out at one of the tables, you will see people playing and enjoying the game quite a bit. However, the trick is to find a casino where Pai Gow Poker is available as for the first time in the discussion of the series of games that you will find in Las Vegas , we come to a game that is not universally available in all of the major casinos in the city. All of the previous games have been available at least at the major casinos, but Pai Gow Poker is not a universal major casino game. You need to be somewhat careful about the casinos you visit if you want to play this game, as there are a small minority of major casinos on the Strip that do not have this game available around the clock. The best thing to do is to call ahead and check with the casinos before you leave your hotel room, or even better would be to stay at a casino resort that has Pai Gow Poker, allowing you to research the matter online before you ever set foot in Las Vegas .
As for the minor casinos, the situation is even more speculative with them. Many of the minor casinos flat out never have Pai Gow Poker available and in addition to that there are also many minor casinos that might not even have dealers on staff that know how to deal the game, making the situation that much worse. If you are a Pai Gow Poker fan and that is really the only game you enjoy playing, it is better to avoid the smaller minor casinos completely rather than take a chance on one of them having the game availability that you want.
Pai Gow Poker is not a variant game, which does make the situation a little bit easier for fans of the game that would like to play it. There is really just one version of the game played around the world and while there might be minor odds tweaks that favour the house slightly in some corners of Las Vegas, on the whole they are nowhere near enough to be considered a wholly separate variant.
