Video poker history comes from slots history…

Video poker history is relatively new but has a great history in casinos and gaming in it’s short life span. Stemming from Slot Machines & Poker origins, it is one of the most popular machines on the casino floor.

It was the mid 1970’s and the gaming industry was in full swing and growing strong. Slots machines and card tables were popular with gamblers around the world. A man by the name of Si Redd, who was an innovative figure when it came to slot machines, worked as a distributor and slot machine tech for the Bally Casino. Si Redd came upon some new technology which involved a television like monitor with a solid state central processing unit different from that of the regular slot machine and he pitched it to the Bally executives in Chicago. The game called Video poker, was rejected, the executives were uninterested for a number of reasons, namely – the executives were not willing to install a new game that was seemingly completely untested by the general public. Having no success with the executives regarding the new video poker game within Bally’s, Si Redd convinced the executives to allow him to keep the patent for the new game, which Bally’s would come to later regret.

It took only weeks before a company from Reno called the Fortune Coin Company struck a deal with Si Redd. Becoming partners the two formed a new company called Sircoma, which stands for, Si Redds Coin Machines. The new partners jumped right in and started to produce the video poker machines on a massive scale. In 1979, the Sircoma company had evolved into a company which most know today, the ITG (International Game Technology) introduced the game – Draw Poker. By the early 1980’s the new coin machine was in every casino, being it the most popular new gaming machine. Many gamblers favored the machines because it was less intimidating to sit at a machine versus sitting at a table with all your opponents right across from you, smelling them as they sat there, staring you down. The innovative machines allowed casinos to take money from otherwise tight players that would not ever sit down at a real table, this made the casinos happy and every casino wanted these new machines on their floor.

The video poker history & games paved the way for new slots games to be introduced into the casino world. Piggy backing on the success of the video poker game only a few short years later was the video slot machine. Then branching off of that came thousands of different video poker variations. You can sit at a progressive machine now and play 20 poker hands at a time or more. Spin poker and Multi-strike poker are some popular games, however, you can find regular video poker games in gas stations, airports, hospitality establishments and various other establishments.

Popular video poker games are:

• Jacks or Better
• Deuces Wild
• Double Bonus
• Double Double Bonus
• Joker Poker
• Deuces and Joker
• Aces and Eights
• Jokers Wild
• Tens or better
• Bonus Deuces Wild

 Video Poker is one of the only games where if you play optimally you can have an edge over the casino!