How to Play Video Poker
Video poker is a casino game which is based loosely on five-card draw poker. It is played on a computerized console which is a similar size to a slot machine.
Video poker first became commercially viable once it was economical to combine a television-like monitor with a solid state central processing unit. The earliest models appeared at the same time as the first personal computers were produced, in the mid-1970s, although they were rather primitive by today's standards.
Video poker became more firmly established when IGT (now a market-leading provider of gaming devices) brought out Draw Poker in 1979.
Throughout the 1980s, video poker became increasingly popular, as people found the devices less intimidating than playing at the tables.
Today, video poker enjoys a prominent place on the gaming floors of many casinos, and the game is especially popular with Las Vegas locals, who tend to patronize off-Strip properties for the better odds offered by those establishments.
Playing the Game
Game play begins by placing a bet of one or more credits, by inserting money (or in newer machines, a barcoded paper ticket with credit) into the machine, and then pressing a "Deal" button to draw cards. The player is then given an opportunity to keep or discard one or more of the cards in exchange for a new card drawn from the same virtual deck, after which the machine evaluates the hand and offers a payout if the hand matches one of the winning hands in the posted pay schedule.
On a typical video poker machine, payouts start with a minimum hand of a pair of jacks. Pay schedules allocate the payout for hands based partially upon how rare they are, and also based upon the total theoretical return the game operator chooses to offer.
Some machines offer progressive jackpots for the royal flush, (and sometimes for other rare hands as well), thereby spurring players to both play more coins and to play more frequently.
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