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Pai Gow History
Pai Gow is a centuries old game that originated in ancient China. It was a bit complex and played with tiles that closely resemble dominoes (in fact, many times they were called dominoes, even though they are not). The tiles were split into four groups by a dealer, who then rolled dice to determine which player got which set of tiles. The game was then played from there according to the rules.
Variations of the popular game started appearing in China in the 1800s. Not a whole lot is known about who exactly invented the variations or when each one came into existence. What we do know, though is that the game known as Pai Gow Poker has its roots in the original Pai Gow tile game, but is not exactly the same. It is a fusion of both Pai Gow and traditional Poker, thus the name.
Pai Gow Poker first started appearing Stateside in California around 1986. Within a year, some Vegas casinos were picking it up and offering a table or two in their casinos that offered Pai Gow Poker. However, it took several years after that for Atlantic City and other jurisdictional casinos to really catch on and start offering Pai Gow Poker as a regular feature. Most recently, online casinos have started offering this unique Poker variation, and the demand seems to be growing as casual gamblers who would rather not be bothered with traveling to gamble have turned to the internet to get their betting fix.
