Discount Gambling

Last week I went to Vegas, and I mostly played $25 Pai-Gow Tiles. Over my 3 day trip, I played two hands of $5 UTH, two hands of $5 Crazy 4 Poker, one hand of $5 Texas Hold’Em Bonus, and maybe two dozen hands of $10 blackjack. Otherwise, I just played Pai-Gow tiles. It was the first time I played with a strategy, which I practiced on my trainer before the trip.

There were only a few other people that played the game. Often I was there by myself. The game isn’t hard to play, but there’s not a lot of beginner instruction out there, so it remains very mysterious to most people. So I made some video tutorials, to give people that jump-start to understanding the game. (Look for all my YouTube videos on Pai-Gow tiles.)

There’s a few reasons you should learn Pai-Gow tiles. First, it’s a lot of fun if you like games that require a little thought. Secondly, it’s a very cheap game. If you alternate hands as player and banker (e.g., when you’re heads up), the house edge is less than 1%. It even gets cheaper if the house doesn’t use quarters, and charges only $1 commission on a $25 win (4% commission). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you get tons of degen “cred” by knowing this game well (especially if you’re lo-fan).

I played about 20 hours of $25 Pai-Gow Tiles at the MGM Grand, and got comp’ed for one night hotel stay (all I needed; my friend got comp’ed the other two nights), and I received $67 in cash comps towards our meals. Other than tokes, the average house vig came out to (20 hours)(30 hands/hour)($25/hand)(1%) = $150, which is about the value of my comps. I call that fair. Plus, I ended up winning on the trip, and came back with more money in my pocket than when I left.