Who invented pai gow poker?

I was reading a help file for pai gow poker the other day and it said:

Quote:

Pai Gow originated in the 1800's during the construction of the railroad when the Chinese domino game Gai Gow was combined with American poker.

Your can find this sentence copied and pasted at lots of affiliate sites, but I have no idea who was the original source. Here are some of them:

http://www.yopig.ag/?p=/online_casino/guide_pai_gow/
http://hrwager.com/online-casino/pai-gow-poker/
http://www.horseracingbetting.com/casino/fortuna/pai-gow-poker.php
https://www.acesportsbook.com/vegas-casino/how-to-play/
http://www.bookmaker.eu/casino-rules

This took me quite by surprise as I thought it was invented in Los Angeles in the 1980's.

Here is what Wikipedia says:

Quote: Wikpedia

In addition to being a games inventor, Fred Wolf was the casino manager of the Commerce Casino in the early 1980s. Fred Wolf decided to sublet a third of the casino floor space of the Bell Club, in the city of Bell, California, to introduce his new Super Pan-9 game. Fred Wolf needed to innovate new gaming structures in order to overcome the competition of the larger Los Angeles area card casinos, such as the Bicycle Club and Commerce Casino. The games of Pai Gow Poker and Super Pan-9 became immediate crowd favorites, quickly spreading to the entire Californian gaming market, and then, worldwide.

My understanding was similar, but it wasn't Fred Wolf but Sam Torosian who invented it. This version is what I've said on my Pai Gow Poker page for years, using this article as a source: Casino Boss Can't Cash In on Game He Developed (Nov 3, 2002 Los Angeles Times).

Can anybody provide any evidence to help clear up the muddy waters surrounding this game?

The question for the poll is who do you think invented Pai Gow Poker?

It was Sam Torosian, who invented it for his Los Angeles card club, The Bell Club in the mid 1980's. He tried to patent it, but was given horrible legal advice that card games were not patentable then. Actually, this was in the Golden period for patenting casino card games, before Bilsky, when card games were easily patentable. Bad legal advice is alleged to have cost him him about $90M if he HAD patented Pai Gow Poker.

About ten years later, perhaps a little less, a Casino executive named William "Billy Woo" Walsh came up with a house-banked version with a 5% commission, where he also incredulously left in occasional player banking as a legacy feature. THIS became the Casino Pai Gow Poker game, which Shuffle Master "proprietized" with a side bet and a 7-card packet shuffler machine deal, and Galaxy offered with a Pai Gow insurance bet.


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I think I took your version (Torosian) as the correct one (think I read it there first) in looking at my gaming literature, and have seen it that way at least 2 other places. I thought Eliot's CCTGDesign was one, but he gives joint credit (with no patent) to Wolf and Torosian. There's a detailed version featuring Torosian as the sad center of the story somewhere, but haven't found it yet. Maybe I'm recalling the LATimes article, but I don't think so; might be archives of Casino Gaming or Casino Journal mags.

It seems to me that the first example refers to pg tiles.

No, all examples and discussion here in this thread refer to Pai Gow poker, played with cards using poker-based hands. There may have been early versions of card based PGP. I doubt American poker players in the American West were playing Asian tiles with domino like tiles,

Quote: beachbumbabs

I thought Eliot's CCTGDesign was one, but he gives joint credit (with no patent) to Wolf and Torosian.

What did Wolf have to do with it?

Maybe some of the confusion is with the history of Chinese poker. I am not clear on that but I always assumed that Pai Gow Poker was a derivative of Chinese poker. Obviously standard Chinese poker is not practical for card rooms due to the max of four players. Dropping the hands to 7 cards solves that problem. Then the addition of a commission makes it practical as a house-banked game.

My guess is it is probably a combination of the above depending on how you wish to view the term invented. I am sure Chinese immigrants who worked with Americans on the railroad, found a way to combine favorite games from their geographic areas, Pai Gow from China and Poker from America. However, the version you and I play which is designed for casino play probably was invented and patented in the 1980s like you stated above. Perhaps the game invented on the railroad provided the inspiration for the casino game, but I doubt it was played in the same fashion as the game today is played

I give credit to Sam Torosian for the 7-card Card room version of Pai Gow Poker,

and to Billy Walsh for the standard house banked 5% commission + house way version.

For the record, standard craps was invented/codified by a John H. Winn (an East coast gambling hall equipment supplier) around 1910 to replace Hazard, according to John Scarne.

Quote: Paigowdan

For the record, standard craps was invented/codified by a John H. Winn

Any relation to Steve Wynn?

Actually, no relation. Stephen Alan Weinberg (Steve Wynn) of New Haven, Connecticut is a different bird from a different family.

Here are Sam Torosian photos
http://www.gettyimages.ca/pictures/former-casino-boss-sam-torosian-plays-pai-gow-at-his-news-photo-563535383

http://www.gettyimages.ca/pictures/former-casino-boss-sam-torosian-created-the-poker-game-pai-news-photo-563540315#former-casino-boss-sam-torosian-created-the-poker-game-pai-gow-that-picture-id563540315

Former Casino Boss Sam Torosian plays Pai Gow at his daughters house in South Pasadena with family members. L to R Sam's grandaughter Cambria Piersol (back to camera), grandaughter Tatiana Kendinian, Sam Torosian, and Sam's brother in law Hayik Kendinian.

Also his sad story details link
http://www.playpaigowpoker.org/pai-gow-poker-rules-and-history/

About Sam and The Creation of Pai Gow Poker
Sam Torosian was a business man. He bought his casino in 1984-54 for $750,000. The purchase came with dozens of gaming tables, and more than 750 employees. But most nights he had only enough customers to keep a few tables running.
So his challenge during that time, like many other California casinos, was to bring in enough customers to save his casino.
Part of the problem, though, was that the laws at the time only permitted 3 games; draw poker, low ball and panguingue.
One day Torosian chatted with a Filipino poker player. The player told him about a game called puy soy. The idea behind puy soy is that players are dealt 13 cards with the objective of creating 3 poker hands. Those hands play against the dealer’s.
The game sounded too slow to Torosian. But it sparked an idea; what if players made 2 hands instead, one with 5 cards and the second with 2?
He ran the game against several people, including now deceased Chief Frank Fording, a local police offer. The chief liked the game, which encouraged Torosian to try it out in his casino, despite the current laws.
Torosian decided to gamble, and launched a pai gow poker game the following Friday night on 2 tables. It was packed. The following Friday 30 days were running.
The game took off, and it wasn’t long before it made it’s way onto the Las Vegas strip, and then the rest of the world.
The Sad Part…
What makes this story sad is that Sam Torosian had the opportunity to patent the game. However, he received advice from poker player and author, Mike ‘Mad Genius’ Caro, that anything done with a deck of cards was public domain. He received similar advice from a lawyer.
Both were wrong.
Unfortunately, there is a 1-year window for new games to be patented before being entering public domain territory, which is what happened with pai gow poker.
It’s estimated that this poor advice / choice cost Sam regular monthly royalty checks from all casinos that offer it, in the range of $70,000, or more, per month.