Casino Games in Cambodia

Casino games you will find in Cambodia

Walk into a casino anywhere in Cambodia and you will see the same core lineup: baccarat tables with the most floor space, Dragon Tiger and Niu Niu for players who want speed, a few roulette wheels, blackjack, poker and Sic Bo, and rows of slot machines around the edges¹. At Ha Tien Vegas in Kampot, for example, the table games are baccarat, Dragon Tiger, Niu Niu, BaiBuu and roulette, with slots making up the rest⁴.

Baccarat is the center of gravity. It is the game Asian players, and especially high rollers, prefer, and in VIP rooms it is typically the only game offered at all⁵. That is a pattern Cambodia inherited from Macau, where baccarat has long been the backbone of the gaming industry. If you learn one game before your first visit, make it baccarat; we cover the full rules in our baccarat in Cambodia guide.

The table games are deliberately simple. Dragon Tiger is one card against one card. Niu Niu is a five-card hand you split into two. Roulette is a bet on where a ball lands. None of them require the decision-making of poker or the strategy of blackjack, which is exactly why they suit a floor serving players from many countries with many languages.

Alongside the physical tables, live dealer studios stream the same games online: live blackjack, baccarat, roulette, Dragon Tiger and Sic Bo, plus game-show style products like Crazy Time⁶. Some online lobbies carry more than ten thousand titles in total³.

One point on who may play: the regulated venues in Cambodia are open to foreigners and tourists, while Cambodian nationals are not permitted to gamble in them³. We cover the details on our gambling in Cambodia as a visitor page.

Where the casinos are: Poipet, Sihanoukville and beyond

Cambodia's casino industry is concentrated in a handful of border and coastal towns, each serving a different flow of visitors¹.

• Poipet, on the Thai border, is the largest cluster, drawing Thai visitors crossing for the day. See our casinos in Poipet page.
• Sihanoukville, on the coast, is the other main center, built largely around Chinese and regional tourism. Our casinos in Sihanoukville guide covers it.
• Bavet, opposite Vietnam on the Moc Bai border, serves Vietnamese visitors; see casinos in Bavet.
• Phnom Penh has the flagship NagaWorld complex; see casinos in Phnom Penh and our NagaWorld page.
• Kampot, near the Vietnamese border in the south, has Ha Tien Vegas, which describes itself as the largest casino and entertainment complex in the province⁷.

The game mix is broadly similar everywhere, with baccarat taking the most tables and the highest limits. For the venues themselves, see the main casinos in Cambodia guide.

Baccarat: rules, payouts and house edge

Baccarat, also known as punto banco, is one of the oldest and most widely played casino games in the world, and it is especially popular among high rollers and Asian players⁹. You do not play the cards yourself; you bet on one of three outcomes: the Player hand wins, the Banker hand wins, or the two hands tie¹⁰.

Card values. Aces count as 1, cards 2 through 9 count at face value, and 10s, Jacks, Queens and Kings count as 0¹⁰. Only the units digit of a hand's total matters: a 7 and an 8 make 15, which counts as 5. The highest possible total is 9, and the hand closest to 9 wins¹¹.

How a round works. All bets must be placed before any cards are dealt². The dealer then slides two cards face up to the Player side and two to the Banker side¹⁰. If either hand totals 8 or 9 on those first two cards, that is a natural: both hands stand automatically, no exceptions, and the bets are settled at once¹⁰. Otherwise a third card may be drawn for one or both hands under a fixed set of rules called the tableau, which the dealer applies automatically, so you never have to decide anything¹⁰.

The tableau works like this:

• Player totals 0 to 5: the Player draws a third card. Player totals 6 or 7: the Player stands¹¹.
• Banker totals 0 to 2: the Banker draws against any Player third card. Banker 3: draws unless the Player's third card was an 8. Banker 4: draws against a Player third card of 2 to 7. Banker 5: draws against 4 to 7. Banker 6: draws against 6 or 7. Banker 7 to 9: the Banker stands¹².
• A third card is never dealt to a hand that already totals 7 or higher¹².

Payouts. A winning Player bet pays 1 to 1. A winning Banker bet also pays 1 to 1, minus a 5 percent commission that the dealer collects, because the Banker's drawing rules give it a small probability edge¹¹. On a 20 dollar Banker bet you win 20 dollars minus the commission; on a Player bet you win the full 20². A tie pays 8 to 1 at most tables¹³. If the hands tie and you bet Player or Banker, your stake is normally returned and the round counts as neither a win nor a loss.

House edge. The Banker bet is about 1.06 percent, the Player bet about 1.26 percent, and the tie bet a steep 14.36 percent at the standard 8 to 1 payout¹¹. That is why experienced players stick to Banker and Player and leave the tie alone.

Decks. Live tables typically use eight decks of 52 cards without jokers, 416 cards in total, with cutting cards inserted into the shoe¹³. Some tables use six decks or a single deck, and the number of decks slightly shifts the return tables⁹.

Side bets. Depending on the table you may find Player Pair, Banker Pair, Either Pair and Perfect Pair, plus other bonus bets. Some tables require a main bet before you can place a side bet, and you can bet Banker or Player but not both, though you can add a tie bet at any time².

Dragon Tiger: the fast two-card game

Dragon Tiger is essentially baccarat stripped to its bones, and it is one of the most popular card games in Asian casinos¹⁴. There are two betting spots on the table, Dragon and Tiger. After bets are placed, the dealer deals one card to the Dragon position and one to the Tiger position, and the higher card wins¹⁴. That is the whole game.

You have three betting options: Dragon, Tiger or Tie⁶. A correct Dragon or Tiger bet pays 1 to 1, and your chances are close to 50 percent⁸. The tie bet pays 8 to 1, but ties are rare, so it is a long shot.

Card ranking is simple: King is the highest card and Ace is the lowest¹³. Suits do not matter for determining the winner. Most rounds are completed within a few minutes, and in practice a round takes seconds, which is the game's main appeal for players who want constant action¹⁴.

Some tables add extras. At Ha Tien Vegas, for instance, there are special cards that can pay up to 11 times your bet⁷, and the game's overall return to player is around 96.7 percent at online tables⁶. For a deeper look, see our Dragon Tiger page.

Niu Niu: how the five-card hand works

Niu Niu (also written Niuniu or Bull Bull) is a five-card comparison game you will see on Cambodian floors, particularly those serving Chinese and Vietnamese players. Hoiana, the resort just across the border in Vietnam, runs it, and Ha Tien Vegas in Kampot lists it among its main table games¹⁵.

Each player and the dealer receive five cards¹⁵. Your job is to split your five cards into a three-card hand and a two-card hand, then beat the dealer's equivalent hands¹⁵.

The rules for the split:

• The three cards must add up to a multiple of 10¹⁶.
• The two-card hand's value is the units digit of the sum of the two cards¹⁶.

Hand rankings run from the bottom up:

• Niu 5: three cards make a multiple of 10 and the other two add up to 5 or 15¹⁵
• Niu 6: the two cards add up to 6 or 16
• Niu 7: the two cards add up to 7 or 17
• Niu 8: the two cards add up to 8 or 18
• Niu 9: the two cards add up to 9 or 19
• Niu Niu: three cards make a multiple of 10 and the other two add up to 10 or 20, the top ranking¹⁵
• Ultimate Niu Niu: all five cards are Jacks, Queens or Kings¹⁵

If both sides have Niu Niu, the higher two-card hand value wins; if those are equal, the higher single card in the two-card hand breaks the tie¹⁶.

Because you set your own cards, there is a small element of skill in arranging your hand well, though the dealer's hand is set by fixed rules. At Ha Tien Vegas, a royal flush in Niu Niu wins a jackpot of up to 7,777 dollars⁷.

Roulette: European and American wheels compared

Roulette needs no introduction: a croupier spins the wheel in one direction and sends a ball around the outer track in the opposite direction, and you simply bet on where the ball will land¹⁷. You can bet a single number, groupings of numbers, red or black, odd or even, or high or low¹⁷. A winning single number pays 35 to 1⁶.

The two wheel types you will encounter:

The European wheel runs numbers 0 to 36 with a single green zero⁸. The American wheel adds a second green pocket, the double zero, alongside the zero¹⁸. That one extra pocket nearly doubles the house edge, from 2.7 percent to 5.26 percent⁸. A red or black bet on a European wheel wins 48.6 percent of the time⁸. If you have a choice of wheels, the European one gives you better value; at Ha Tien Vegas the electronic roulette runs to the European standard²⁰.

When the ball lands on 0 (or 00 on an American wheel), every bet loses except a straight-up bet on that number itself. The table is then frozen until the croupier finishes paying all winners, and in most casinos you can only place new bets once the dolly marking the winning number is removed¹⁷.

French roulette, a third variant you may see online, uses the European wheel with additional rules on even-money bets. Online lobbies typically offer all three versions²¹.

Blackjack, Crazy Time and other live dealer options

Blackjack sits alongside poker and roulette among the traditional games in Cambodian casinos¹. It is the one game on the floor where your decisions genuinely change the odds, and basic strategy for a multi-deck shoe has been worked out in exhaustive tables. One thing to check before you sit down: some casinos pay 6 to 5 for a natural blackjack instead of the standard 3 to 2, which pushes the house edge up sharply²².

Beyond the classics, live dealer studios have brought game-show products to the region. Crazy Time is the best known: a money wheel with four bonus rounds, Cash Hunt, Pachinko, Coin Flip and Crazy Time, and a top bonus multiplier of up to 20,000 times your bet²³. Alongside it you will find live blackjack, roulette, Dragon Tiger and Sic Bo tables with real dealers, plus other game shows such as Monopoly Live²⁴.

The live dealer menu generally includes live blackjack, baccarat, roulette, Dragon Tiger and Sic Bo alongside the game shows⁶. Sic Bo, the three-dice game, is a staple of Asian floors and worth knowing; see our traditional gambling games in Cambodia page for it and other local favorites.

For poker rooms and tournaments, which operate separately from the main casino floor, see poker in Cambodia and poker tournaments in Cambodia.

Side bets and tie bets: what they pay and what they cost

Side bets are where casinos make their margin, and it helps to know the numbers before you put chips down.

Baccarat side bets. Player Pair, Banker Pair, Either Pair and Perfect Pair are the standard set, with additional bonus bets varying by table². Some tables require a main bet before you can place one². At Ha Tien Vegas, the Super 6 and Super 7 baccarat variants offer wins of up to 40 times your bet⁷.

Tie bets. The baccarat tie pays 8 to 1 at most tables, 9 to 1 at some¹². The chance of a tie is about 9.52 percent, so at 8 to 1 the house edge is 14.36 percent, and even at the better 9 to 1 it is still 4.85 percent¹². Compare that with 1.06 percent on Banker and the picture is clear: the tie is a lottery ticket, not a strategy. The Dragon Tiger tie at 8 to 1 is similarly poor value⁸.

Roulette side bets. Lightning Roulette, a live dealer variant, adds lucky-number multipliers of up to 500 times on straight-up bets⁶. The base game's European RTP of 97.3 percent is unchanged on ordinary spins⁶.

Local street games. Away from the casinos, informal games run at very different stakes. Near Koh Pich in Phnom Penh, tuk-tuk drivers have been documented playing kate, a card game, at 1,000 riel a game with a 3,000 riel payout²⁵. These games are unregulated and carry obvious risks; see our gambling scams in Cambodia page before getting involved with anything off the casino floor.

The pattern across every side bet is the same: bigger headline payouts, much bigger house edge. If you enjoy them as entertainment with a small stake, that is your call; just go in knowing the main bets, Banker and Player in baccarat, Dragon and Tiger in Dragon Tiger, and the outside bets on a European roulette wheel, are where your money lasts longest.