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Casinos and gambling are a huge part of Asian culture and have been for centuries. In fact, Vegas is no longer considered the gambling capital of the world. That title has been taken over by the tiny nation of Macau, which is off the coast of China.
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You’ll notice many good luck charms in Chinese restaurants or even just spending some time watching other Asian television programming. That’s because luck, chance, and fortune are tied into the culture.
The casinos in Macau cater largely to Asians, so paying attention to which games are available there can be helpful if you want to know which Asian casino games are worth trying.
Featured Asian Table Games Pai Gow, Mini-Baccarat, Pai Gow Poker, Sic Bo. Spend the night enjoying your favorite Asian table games at Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City. Choose from Pai Gow Tiles.
In this post, I list some of the most popular Asian casino games along with notes about how to excel at each of them.
1 – Sic Bo
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One of the first games I ever played in a casino was called sic bo, which is played with three 6-sided dice.
“Sic bo” means “dice pair” in Chinese.
I was familiar with the probabilities when rolling three dice because I played Dungeons and Dragons as a teenager.
Besides baccarat, sic bo is probably the most popular game in any Asian casino. It’s also popular in Atlantic City, which has a devoted Asian clientele.
Many Las Vegas casinos no longer offer sic bo, although many of them might have a single table available.
The game of sic bo reminds me a little bit of roulette, because you have a table full of betting options. The payoffs for all the bets are always at a rate lower than the odds of winning.
Unlike roulette, though, sic bo doesn’t offer a host of bets that all have the same house edge. The casino’s edge varies based on which bet you take in sic bo. The best thing to do, mathematically, is to always take the bet with the lowest house edge.
Betting on small (or betting on big) is your best bet. The house edge is 2.78% for either of those bets. A bet on small wins if the total of the three dice is less than 11, but you lose if there’s a 3. A bet on big wins if the total of the three dice is more than 10, but you lose if it’s a total of 18. In fact, on either of these bets, if you get three of a kind, you lose.
Most of the other bets at sic bo have a house edge greater than 10%. Those bets just aren’t worth making, although you’ll see people placing those bets all the time.
2 – Baccarat
Baccarat isn’t specifically an Asian game, but it’s the most popular game in Macau. In American casinos, slot machines dominate the gambling floor. In Asian casinos, baccarat tables do.
Baccarat seems complex, but that’s mostly because the rules are complicated. There’s no strategy to winning at baccarat, and the odds are almost as good as betting on a coin toss with your buddy, which is close to a 50/50 proposition.
You can find plenty of descriptions of baccarat, how to play, and its variants, but here’s the essential thing to know about the game.
Always bet on the banker, as that’s the bet with the lowest house edge (1.06%). You CAN bet on the player, but you face a slightly higher house edge (1.24%).
But never, under any circumstances, bet on a tie. The house edge for that bet is 14.36%.
Those percentages vary slightly based on how many decks and which other rules conditions are in effect at your table, but they’re not too far afield at all.
3 – Fan Tan
Fan tan uses a cup and a wand along with a stack of white buttons to play. You play on a large table, and the middle of that table is covered with a plastic dome. The edges of the table are where the players make their bets.
The game begins when the dealer puts the cup over a random number of buttons. You can then choose from any of the bets on the table. After that, the dealer uses the wand to count how many buttons he had in the cup.
These buttons are counted off in groups of four, and the outcome is determined by the last set of buttons, which always consists of one, two, three, or four buttons.
The payout odds for all of the bets are the same as the odds of winning, but the casino takes a 5% commission. This makes the house edge in fan tan 5%, regardless of which bet you place.
4 – Pachinko
Pachinko reminds me of a pinball machine, only instead of being oriented horizontally, it’s oriented vertically. It’s basically the Japanese answer to slot machines.
In fact, instead of casinos, Japan has pachinko parlors, some of which also offer slot machine games.
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It’s illegal to bet real money in Japan, so pachinko is played for balls, which are later exchanged for money or other prizes.
For an end run around legal gambling, the pachinko market is huge. Revenue from pachinko parlors is more than that of gambling in Las Vegas, Macau, and Singapore.
5 – Pai Gow (and Pai Gow Poker)
Pai gow is basically an Asian version of dominoes. The tiles are put into stacks of four. There are eight of these. Then, players make bets.
When the bets are all placed, players each get a stack of tiles and have to use those four tiles to create two hands of two tiles each. One of these is the “front hand,” and the other is the “rear hand.”
The player wins if both his hands beat both of the dealer’s hands. The player loses if both his hands are beaten by both the dealer’s hands.
If one hand wins, and the other hand loses, it’s treated as a push. A push is what happens in casino gambling when there’s a tie. The player doesn’t lose his bet, but he doesn’t get any winnings either.
Pai Gow Poker is an Americanized version of pai gow that’s played with playing cards instead of tiles. Both land based and online Pai Gow Poker use poker hand rankings, but the gameplay is similar.
Pai Gow Poker is a great casino poker game to play, by the way, because it’s relatively slow and results in a push a lot of the time. This results in a lower than usual hourly loss rate when compared with other casino table games.
6 – Niu Niu
You won’t see niu niu in many (or any) American casinos, but visit some of the gambling halls in southeast Asia, and it’s ubiquitous. You can also find versions online in casinos catering to Asian gamblers.
Niu niu is a card game where the playing cards have the same values they would have in baccarat:
- Aces are worth one point.
- Numbered cards are worth their ranking (e.g. the two card is worth two points).
- The jack, queen, and king are worth zero points.
Any time the total becomes 10 or greater, the number is converted to a single digit. A total of 11 becomes a one, a total of 13 becomes a three, etc. The 10 is just dropped.
You can bet on either or both of the following:
- Double
- Equal
Each player gets five cards, and so does the dealer. The cards get sorted into whichever hand would be best. Here are the possible hands, from best to worst.
- A niu niu is a three-card hand worth zero points and a two-card hand worth zero points.
- A three-card hand worth zero points combined with a two-card hand worth more than zero points is the second best hand. The higher the number of points in the two-card hand, the better the hand is.
- Any hand where you can’t make a three-card hand with zero points.
If there’s a tie, you compare the highest ranked card in each hand to determine the winner. Aces always count low for this purpose.
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If there’s still a tie, the suit of the highest ranked card breaks the tie. See the suits from high to low.
- Spades
- Hearts
- Clubs
- Diamonds
If you placed an “equal” bet, you win even money if you chose the winning side. But you have to pay a 5% commission.
If you placed a “Double” bet, you win a prize based on a pay table, but you still pay a 5% commission.
7 – Yee Hah Hi
If you ever wanted to play sic bo but without all the counting, you could try Yee Hah Hi. The game is a variation of sic bo. But instead of numbered pips on the dice, each side has a picture on it.
Yee Hah Hi dice have six different symbols in three different colors.
- The Coin
- The Crab
- The Fish
- The Gourd
- The Rooster
- The Scorpion
The symbols come in the following colors.
- Blue
- Green
- Red
You can bet on things like “all are the same color” or “two of the dice are the same color.” The house edge for this game is actually surprisingly good at just 1.11%. Online casino tricks.
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Conclusion
That’s my list of seven Asian gambling games worth trying. But it’s not even close to a comprehensive list. You probably have some favorite casino games that are also popular in Asia.
Which games would you add to this list?
If you must play, decide upon three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes and the quitting time” – Chinese proverb
That one Chinese proverb probably sums up casino gaming in one easy sweep. The best of casino games can only be enjoyed right, if you know the stakes and when to quit. Over time, the world of gambling has grown and gained a lot more glamour and spunk. Today, any casino enthusiast will have a plethora of mind-engaging and thrilling games to choose from out of which, some are rather often played and popular. In general almost all casino games are great to indulge in and gives the player a sense of refined fun along with the stellar service that casinos offer. Here are some of the most popular casino games and how you can have fun ‘right’ with them.
Baccarat
Baccarat is considered to be an “elegant” casino game and was in the past played by the creme de la creme of the social circles. It was also coincidentally the game of choice of the fictional character James Bond. The game is rather dramatic and involves placing blind bets on two different outcomes. One is that the Banker has the higher hand, the second that the Player does. It has often been said that given the odds, it takes an astounding level of courage to take on this game, but if you manage to learn the rules, you can easily “rule”.
Blackjack
Blackjack has a reputation for being the toughest game to win at the casino. It is also known as twenty-one and can be described as a comparing card game that happens between a player and a dealer. This means that you, the player, will compete against the dealer. Not against fellow players. It uses one or more decks of 52 cards each and can be called as the most widely played casino banking game around the world. Your target here, will be to defeat the dealer in any one of the following ways;
- By getting the 21 points on the your first 2 cards, also known as a natural or blackjack, without a dealer blackjack.
- Get to a score higher than that of the dealer without exceeding a total of 21
- Let the dealer keep drawing additional cards until they exceed 21 at their hand
Roulette
This is by far, one of the easiest games to lay at the casino as it is to understand. As with any other game that is easy to get, the house has a bigger edge on Roulette as well. If you want to enjoy a slow game, do not mind the house edge and want to play something you can understand without getting a migraine, Roulette is just about perfect for you. The biggest difference between Roulette and other table games is that the Roulette chips have no value denomination indicated on them. The table is made with 6 to 8 differently coloured chip sets and each set has 300 chips. When you buy your chips, you get your own colour and the value of every chip is the buy-in divided by the number of total chips you get. The dealer will place a tag or token on top of their stack to indicate this total value.
Poker
Poker is the name given to a family of card games. Some that come under this category are Texas Hold’em Poker and Three Card Poker. The game is one that combines gambling, skill and strategy and all variants of the game revolve around placing bets and determining the winner of each hand played as per the combinations of the player’s cards. Some of these cards will stay hidden until the game is over. The main difference between various Poker games comes from the betting methods, number of cards shared known as community cards, number of dealt cards and the number of hidden cards. It is, overall a fun and prudent game to play that will keep any player really engaged in the game.
Teen Patti: three cards… all the way from India
Teen Patti is a very popular gambling game that originated in India. Also known as Three Cards or Flush, the game usually involves three to six individuals, uses a deck of 52 cards and has no jokers. The rules of the game
- You can play either blind (cards face-down) or seen (Chaal, Pack/Fold, or Ask for Sideshow).
- If the player who placed the bet before you is a seen player, you must make sure to bet half that stake or the current stake amount.
- If the individual before you is a blind player you must bet the full current stake amount or double it.
Tips:
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- Before the dealt, the ‘boot amount’ is decided upon and collected from each individual. This is the minimum stake in the pot. With the game, the stake amount grows and the winner of each hand will be winning that amount.
- The win usually goes to the player who stays in the game until the very end and has the best or highest hand based upon the ranking of cards.
Read more about Teen Patti on our blog post
Slot machines: quick and easy and a load of fun
Easy-to-play, slot machines have quickly garnered popularity in the casino gaming environment. Ideal for first-timers, they are fun to play and not too hard to learn. With a variety of games to choose from, it’s a good idea to familiarise yourself with the different types of games and their rules. Tips:
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- Almost all the machines have currency acceptors. Slide in a bill to the slot and you will see that the right equivalent for the amount is indicated as credits on a meter.
- Use only one machine if the place is crowded, so that others can play too.
- Look out for chairs tipped against the slot machine, or a coat on the chair which indicates that the machines are in use.
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All set up? Our blog post takes a look at the more popular forms of games you can play on slot machines.