Question of the Day - 01 June 2017

[Editor’s Note: This QoD was written by Dan Lubin, the author of our recent book The Essentials of Casino Game Design and the inventor of commission-free Pai Gow Poker. As mentioned in a QoD earlier this week, Dan passed away suddenly a couple of weeks ago. This is the last answer Dan provided for us. He will be sorely missed.]

This is Galaxy Gaming’s take on commission-free Pai Gow Poker. On the matter of this whole thrust to get rid of vigorish (or “charging commissions against players”) on any game is just a huge plus. No gambler should ever get jabbed with a fee just for winning a hand

Galaxy’s method was originally developed by Derek Webb, the inventor of Three Card Poker (and many other patented game), who later had a close relationship with Galaxy Gaming. Webb’s original commission-free Pai Gow Poker design originally had a half-pay if the player won with the joker somewhere in his hand. This played a bit awkwardly, as a half-pay is an intermittent commission (of 50%!). Thus, it was changed to “no commission at any time,” but a player’s winning hand that had a joker anywhere in it has to have an ace-or-better low hand to pay on a win; otherwise it pushes. This is mathematically equivalent to an occasional half-pay method, but without the half-payout appearing on the game.

A note here: In Galaxy’s version, a player’s joker-containing hand must win, and with an A-x low-hand side or better, to collect on the win. The joker may be played anywhere (low or high side) in the hand.

This is much different that Scientific Game’s method, which pushes all players’ main bets if the dealer’s hand has a weak-hand trigger (such as a high-card hand) that otherwise would have lost. SG’s versions seem a little simpler to play and deal, and they are: The dealer’s hand only needs to contain the weak-hand trigger, then just push the players’ hands.

But there are some advantages to Galaxy’s commission-free thrust.

First, only one player (the one with a joker) is a risk of pushing a possibly won hand, as opposed to the full table in SG’s method, where the dealer’s hand has the weak-trigger push hand. Still, the dealer’s push method is so rare that this isn’t much of a game-play consequence and is simpler, and it beats the endless “wear-down” of the constant commission fee on every won hand.

Second, that player may still win regardless, if he can field a strong total hand, which he should be able to do holding the joker; in other words, with a good hand, he can never be “qualifier-out” of a paying win.

To remove any confusion and to simplify Galaxy’s method here, it is this: Every winning hand pays, except if a joker hand wins with a king-or-lower low hand, it becomes a push. That’s it.

Both methods are easy to play and are superior to always paying a commission on every win.