What is Video Poker?
Video poker is a popular casino game played on electronic consoles. It may be defined as a mixture of poker and slots, inheriting its format from slot machines and its rules from five-card draw poker.
Video poker machines accept casino chips, coins or paper tickets with barcode. Then, after pressing a Deal button, the machine deals a five-card hand. The player chooses what cards to discard and the machine replaces these cards with new ones. If the final hand matches one of the winning combinations, the player wins money. Payouts typically start with a pair of jacks and pay out the amount defined by the operator for the specific hand. The higher the hand ranks, the larger will be the payout. Some machines offer progressive jackpots for rare hands such as royal flush. These jackpots are accumulated until someone wins the required hand.
History:
The first models of video poker machines appeared in the mid-seventies at the same time as did the first personal computers. However, the game became more firmly established in 1979 with the appearance of the Draw Poker machine produced by IGT, now a leading provider of gaming devices. Many people found video poker machines less intimidating than playing at poker tables and therefore video poker machines quickly became very popular.
Older versions of video poker software displayed five initial cards, but at the same time it dealt and kept in memory 5 potential replacement cards. This algorithm was changed because players found a way to reverse-engineer the RNG cycle from sample hands and were able to predict the hidden cards in advance. All newer video poker machines deal 5 cards and generate the replacement cards only when after the request of the player.
Regulation:
In the United States, video poker machines are operated under the regulation of the state, which guarantees that the dealt cards are generated in totally manner equal to that of real poker, a series of cards is separately generated for each play and after receiving five initial cards the player can request to change all five of them or fewer. This regulation was first applied in the state of Nevada, and then was adopted by all other gambling states, except Indian reservations that are sovereign areas and hold their own gaming licenses.
Rules:
Although 5-card draw poker is the base for all video poker games, there are many versions with alternative rules and features. One of the most popular variations is Deuces Wild, where twos serve as wild cards and jackpot is paid on four deuces or a natural royal. Games with name that starts with bonus, double or triple pay special bonuses on four aces with a five or smaller kicker. Multi-play video poker machines allow players to play up to start with a base hand of five cards, and play more additional hands drawn from a different set of cards with the base hand removed. Up to 100 play video poker machines exist.
Most video poker machines, as all other casino games, have a house edge, which means that in the long run the casino will profit from the game, but there are certain machines with special pay schedule that allows players who use perfect or almost perfect strategy to obtain greater than a 100 percent payback in the long run. These machines are called Full Pay machines and can be found in many casinos. It is obvious that house edge of video poker machines is not indicated anywhere, so players must figure out themselves what machines are Full Pay and what are not. However, most Full Pay machines produce zero or negative house edge only in maximum bet mode.
