The History of Casino Games - Video Poker
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The History of Video Poker
Video poker — the computerized version of the classic card game — became popular in the 1970's and can now be found in casinos the world over.
Video poker combines the excitement of a slot machine with the strategy needed
for a poker game, thus creating an unbeatable merger — the union of luck and skill.
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Way before there was Las Vegas and Atlantic City (and, the Internet, of course),
there was California on the West Coast of the United States. After the “gold rush” in the mid 1800s, there was a gambling rush and California became the gambling Mecca of the U.S. There wasn't a pub or a saloon that didn't feature a variety of slot machines, particularly in 19th- century San Francisco. The first coin-operated poker machine was developed in New York in the late 1800s and was manufactured by a well-known company called Sittman and Pitt. The machines quickly found their way to the West Coast and by the end of the 19th century they were found in just about every establishment that sported a liquor license. Drinking and gambling went together perfectly and the poker slot machine's popularity soared.
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In 1896, the New York-based company and a cigar dealer by the name of Charles
Leonhardt, Jr., formed the Monarch Card Machine Company and their machines were
innovative. The Monarch “Brownie” was the first machine to sport a transparent front window on the bottom of the machine to display all the coins inside. This feature managed to both discourage the use of counterfeit coins and to build up the excitement by displaying the potential jackpot.
No history of the video poker machine would be complete
without mentioning Charles August Fey, whose Liberty Bell slot machine, built in
1899, was the first of over a million slots that would be manufactured over the
next half century. In 1896 Fey had opened a factory where he produced slot machines — which he invented - including the poker slot machine. Fey produced two types of poker slots - the “6 Way Paying Teller,” using 5 rows of cards, and “The Duke,” which had the cards shown on 5 reels. At first, these machines were unable to independently pay out cash to the winner but by 1898 Fey invented a machine — the Card Bell — that did.
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But Charles Fey was never one to rest on his laurels and in 1901 he introduced the “draw” feature to his poker slot machines. On the first pull, all five drums of cards began to spin. When they stopped, the player had the option of improving his hand by holding onto certain cards or drawing new ones. A second pull would spin the remaining cards and the final hand would appear. This type of poker slot machine became a huge moneymaker for Fey and the machine's manufacturers. Slot-machine legend has it that a later adaptation, Skill-Draw, became so successful between 1935 and 1941 that Fey gave his top Skill-Draw salesman a new car as a bonus.
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The situation remained the same until advances in technology — a mere 40-odd years ago — heralded the era of video poker. The first video poker machines used only 50 cards, leaving out the ten of spades and Jack of hearts. These early video poker machines were called “drop card” machines (because of the 2 missing cards). The odds with these machines were not entirely in the player's favor — the chances of getting a royal flush without the two “dropped” cards were significantly lower. The most successful electronic poker machine of that era was Dale Electronics' Poker-Matic, which could be found in most Nevada casinos. By 1990, color, animated video poker machines became one of the hottest sensations of modern-day casinos. Ten years later, video poker is equally popular in online casinos over all the World Wide Web.
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For more information, please visit:
- The History of Video Poker
- Video Poker Strategies
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Tips to Win at Video Poker
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Online Video Poker Vs Land Based Video Poker
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For more poker games, please visit:
- 3 Card Poker
- Bonus Pai Gow Poker
- Poker Pursuit
- Poker Ride
- Video Poker
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