What is video poker?
Video poker is a computerised game based on five-card draw poker. It is played on a machine similar to a typical poker machine and usually appears in casinos rather than in pubs or hotels.
Video poker games began appearing in the mid 1097s, at around the same as the first basic personal computers. They were obviously quite basic by today’s standards but the premise was the same. The game evolved through the 1970s and 1980s, and video poker became increasingly popular. It features prominently today in Law Vegas and in casinos around the world.
The game mirrors a regular poker game: it begins with the placing of a bet – putting money into the machine. The machine then “deals” the cards, and the player can either keep the cards from the initial draw or discard one or more cards and replace them with new cards drawn from the same (virtual) deck. After the deal, the player may wine a payout if the machine assesses that the player’s hand matches on of the winning hands in the pay table.
Payouts typically commence with a pair of jacks as the minimum hand. The pay table sets out the payout for hands based upon how rare they are, as well as the total theoretical return offered by the particular game you are playing. Some machines offer progressive jackpots for particular hands, usually for a royal flush.
There are variants on the basic five card draw that can be found in some newer poker machines. There are a wide range of these, but typical variations include the following:
“Multi-Play Poker” – the player begins with the base five card hand. Each additional played hand draws from a different set of cards from which the base hand has been removed.
“Deuces Wild” – a two serves as a ‘wild card’ and the jackpot is hit for four deuces.
“Pay Schedule Modification” (usually include ‘bonus’ or double/triple’ in the game name) – four aces with a kicker card of five or smaller pays a special larger amount.
In classic video poker, here is the typical pay table according to credits wagered and hands drawn. The theoretical return is based upon playing the game with perfect strategy.
| Hand | 1 credit | 2 credits | 3 credits | 4 credits | 5 credits |
| Royal Flush | 250 | 500 | 750 | 1000 | 4000 |
| Straight Flush | 50 | 100 | 150 | 200 | 250 |
| Four of a kind | 25 | 50 | 75 | 100 | 125 |
| Full House | 9 | 18 | 27 | 36 | 45 |
| Flush | 6 | 12 | 18 | 24 | 30 |
| Straight | 4 | 8 | 12 | 16 | 20 |
| Three of a kind | 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 15 |
| Two Pair | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 |
| Jacks or Better | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Theoretical Return | 98.4% | 98.4% | 98.4% | 98.4% | 99.5% |
What is the legal age to play pokies?
The legal age to play pokies varies according to which country, and often which state, you are in. Generally speaking, it is the same as the legal age to participate in any form of gambling, although some countries do have different legal ages for casino gambling, sports betting, lottery ticket purchase etc. This is generally the standard “age of majority”. In Australia, the age of majority is eighteen, and this is also the legal gambling age. Although every country is different (and in some countries gambling is illegal regardless of age) and we cannot give an exhaustive list here, following are the legal gambling ages for a number of countries/states to give you an idea of the situation internationally:
- New Zealand: 20
- United Kingdom: 18
- France: 18
- Germany: 18
- The Netherlands: 16
- Ireland: 18
United States of America
America is a federal government system, and many matters, involving gambling age, is the power of the states to regulate, meaning different rules apply depending on which state you are in. It is also worth noting that many states in USA have casinos run by Native Americans on their traditional lands. These tribes are generally permitted to set their own legal gambling age without reference to state legislation.
| State | Minimum age |
| Alaska | 18 |
| Arizona | 21 |
| California | 21 |
| Colorado | 21 |
| Connecticut | 21 |
| Delaware | 21 |
| District of Columbia | 18 |
| Illinois | 21 |
| Indiana | 21 |
| Iowa | 21 |
| Louisiana | 21 |
| Maine | 16 |
| Maryland | 21 |
| Michigan | 21 |
| Minnesota | 18 |
| Mississippi | 21 |
| Missouri | 21 |
| Montana | 18 |
| Nevada | 21 |
| New Jersey | 21 |
| New Mexico | 21 |
| New York | 18 |
| North Dakota | 21 |
| Oregon | 21 |
| Pennsylvania | 18 |
| Puerto Rico | 18 |
| Rhode Island | 18 |
| South Carolina | 21 |
| South Dakota | 21 |
| Virgin Islands | 21 |
| Washington | 18 |
| West Virginia | 21 |
| Wisconsin | 21 |
Gambling is illegal if you are under the age of consent, both for you and for the venue that admits you. Heavy penalties apply.
What are jackpots, How big can they get, How often do they go off?
Jackpots are what lures players to poker machines – the promise of winning big for a small outlay.
The details of jackpots – how big they are, how often they go off and so on, really varies hugely and depends on the particular machine in question. It depends basically on what the payout rate of the machine has been set out (there is no way for you to be able to find this out short of speaking to someone who has inside knowledge of the machine).
The payout rate of the machine depends on other factors such as the size of the jackpot. You can obviously find this information out, but be aware of the fact that the amount you win if you hit the jackpot depends on the amount you bet. If you didn’t bet the maximum, you won’t win the maximum – and the different could be big.
Multi million dollar jackpots will only pay out ten or twenty thousand dollars if you didn’t bet the maximum amount, even if the amount you bet was only a dollar or two less than the maximum. Sure – winning ten or twenty thousand dollars is great, but compared to a million or more? It can be a little disappointing knowing what was so close. Another thing that the payout rate depends on is the weighting of the machine. That is, how often the jackpot will come up as a percentage of spins recorded. This is another thing that you can’t easily figure out.
You probably remember if you’ve played poker machines in Australia, the stickers on every machine that read “Your chances of winning the jackpot on this machine are generally no better than one in one million.” Although machines to vary and some will have slightly better odds than this, this is a pretty safe rule of thumb.
The good news is that online machines have better jackpot odds than regular machines found in casinos and pubs. Do keep in mind though, that although the odds may be better, odds can get a lot better than one in one million and still leave your chances of winning the jackpot pretty remote. As always, we say keep in mind your real chances of winning. Play for fun, but don’t bet more than you can afford aiming for the jackpot. Winning it is, all things considered, a very unlikely event.
How has the smoking ban affected poker machines?
In the lead up to the smoking ban, there were all sorts of complaints, mostly from venue owners, that the smoking ban would hit revenues hard and was too onerous for many small venues. Many of these complaints concerned pokies. As you probably know, pokie machines represent a huge percentage of the income for many pubs and bars, and as you also probably know – they’re often the smokiest rooms in the bar (or at least they used to be). These complaints were largely borne out in the immediate period following the implementation of the ban. Revenues dropped, and stayed low for quite a long period of time.
In March 2008, the NSW Office of Kliquor, Gaming and Racing showed poker machine turnover fell almost 20% in hotels, and 11% in clubs compared with March 2007. This was the worst month in the year since the ban was implemented. This percentage fall represented a fall in revenue for clubs from almost $300 million in March of 2007 to $230 million in March 2008. In terms of total turnover from gaming machines in the entire state, the fall was from $3.6 billion to $2.9 billion over the same period.
Clubs NSW and similar organisations were warning of “catastrophic consequences for the industry”. Essentially the same effects were mirrored in other states.
The NSW government refused to reconsider the ban despite the revenue loss, but did offer a tax deferral scheme to clubs and pubs experiences a downturn of greater than 15% in poker machine revenue as compared to the 12 months preceding the implementation of the ban.
However, In July of 2008, only three months after these reports, David Costello, chief executive of Clubs NSW reported that there had been a steady rise in monthly revenues from poker machines since July of 2007, and that growth had been reported in five out of the prior six months. Mid 2008 saw the feeling that the worst o the impact of the smoking ban was behind the hospitality industry. Overall we can say that although there may have been difficulties adjusting to the smoking ban, the industry has largely recovered and it can look forward to continued growth as the popularity of poker machines continues to increase.
How many poker machines are there?
The Australian Productivity Commission reported in 1999 that there were 180,000 poker machines in Australia. It also estimated that this number amounted to 21% of all the gambling machines in the world, meaning there are approximately 860,000 machines in the world (or were in 1999).
Considering Australia’s relatively small population size, this is quite a staggering statistic. Assessing on a per capita basis, Australia has more than five times as many pokie and other gaming machines than the United States. In terms of how many kinds of slot machines out there, this is hard to give an exact answer to. We estimate that there are over 1000 different games available, and this number will just keep rising with the proliferation of online poker machines.
Does the amount you bet impact the chances of winning?
The short answer to this question is no – the amount of money that you bet does not impact your chances of winning, either small or big. But it’s a little more complicated than this.
For starters, the amount of rows you bet on does impact your chances of winning. This is pretty obvious when you think about it. If you only have one row activated, then it is only the symbols that appear on that row that count when tallying your winnings (if any). In order to win any amount, you need a certain combination to appear on all three (or five, or another number depending on the machines you’re playing on) reels in a row.
If you’re playing with more rows activated, then your chances increase as you need the same amount of symbols, but there are more places for them to appear. It costs more money to play with more rows, so in this sense, you could argue that the amount you play with in fact does increase your chances of winning.
There’s another factor involved in assessing whether the amount you bet impacts your chances of winning, and that’s jackpots. The amount you bet does not alter your chances of winning the jackpot. However, and this is a big however, if you do win the jackpot, the amount you bet greatly impacts on the amount you win. If you are betting the maximum and then you hit the jackpot, you will win the maximum jackpot – that is the amount advertised as the jackpot by the machine. This amount depends on the machine you are playing, but could be more than a million dollars. If you are not betting the maximum amount and you hit the jackpot, the amount you win will be greatly reduced. It could decrease from a million dollars to ten thousand dollars, even if you are betting only a dollar or two less than the maximum bet amount allowed. You’ll obviously still be pretty happy if you’re taking home ten or twenty thousand dollars. But knowing you could have been taking home a million dollars or more, and that you were only a dollar or two away – that’s going to take some of your excitement away, and that dollar or two is going to seem pretty insignificant.
Do keep in mind that although that dollar or two seems insignificant after you could have won a million dollars, that doesn’t make it insignificant, and if you’re betting the maximum all the time, your bankroll is going to diminish pretty rapidly – thereby limiting how many plays you can make and lowering your overall chances of getting the jackpot to begin with. It’s all a matter of balance!
How does a poker machine hit a jackpot?
A poker machine hits the jackpot the same way it hits any combination of symbols – winning or otherwise.
The Random Number Generator inside the machine which is controlling the spins chooses the number that represents the jackpot. It makes this choice completely randomly.
The poker machine does not hit the jackpot because it is “due” to hit the jackpot. It does not hit the jackpot because of any skill or strategy on the part of the player. The machine hits the jackpot purely and simply because of the numbers that were randomly generated by the machine.
How do slot machines work?
A random number generator is the key element in a pokie machine. The random number generator (RNG) picks random numbers which are linked to the symbols on the reels. On three reel machines, the reels are usually independent. This means that the RNG selects three different random numbers, one for each reel. Five reel pokie machines usually operate so that the reels are dependent. This means that the machines chooses one set of five random numbers at once.
The RNG selects the numbers after the player hits the button – this means that by the time the reels are spinning, their finishing positions have been chosen – the game is over. The reels are unnecessary and exist for two primary reasons – one to mimic the original level pull slot machines from the beginning on of the 20th century. And secondly, for entertainment –if the player just put money in and the machine informed him whether he won or lost, that would be pretty boring!
So the RNG is choosing random numbers, but this doesn’t mean you have equal chances of getting all the symbols, as you know from experience. This is because there is a large internal computerised reel of let’s say 128 numbers. The numbers correspond to different symbols. The reel is weighted, and you have greater or smaller chances of getting certain symbols, despite the fact that those symbols may appear the same number of times on the reels that you can see. Here is a hypothetical map for how the reel might correspond to the symbols:
| Selected | Symbol | Total no. of symbols |
| 1-73 | Blank | 73 |
| 74-78 | Banana | 5 |
| 79-94 | Cherry | 16 |
| 95-107 | Silver Coin | 13 |
| 108-118 | Gold Coin | 11 |
| 119-126 | Purple star | 8 |
| 127-128 | Jackpot | 2 |
As you can see, you have a much greater chance of spinning a blank than anything else (57%), and the smallest chance of getting the jackpot (only 1 in 64).Keep in mind that the chances of getting the jackpot remain the same for every spin. It does not matter if the machine has been played for months or even years without hitting the jackpot – the next time you spin, your chances remain exactly the same as the first time. No machine is ever “due” to hit the jackpot, it just doesn’t work like that. There’s another thing to keep in mind. The NRG chooses its random numbers every millisecond – even when the machine is not being played. This means that if you stop playing a machine, and someone else plays and wins the jackpot, you would not have won that jackpot if you had been playing the machine. You would have hit the play button a fraction of a second sooner or later and thus the numbers chosen would have been different.
The pokies you play online operate basically according to the same principles, just with all manual features removed. The same rules apply, including weighted reels, jackpot chances and multiple number sequences chosen every second by the RNG. This means that you cannot predict when the machine will pay out, no matter what you do.
