Electronic Poker is a popular game that is able to be enjoyed in casinos throughout the globe, or in your house on your personal computer, using a web connection. The rules are very straightforward and involve the player trying to get the best assemblage of cards possible in order to win cash. In this respect it is much the same as a normal game of poker, minus the line of contact with any other players. Of course, techniques used in a real-life game of poker, such as bluffing, will be irrelevant here.
The game of Video Poker begins when the player puts credits (either tokens, tickets or money) into the video poker machine and presses the deal button. A 5 card hand will be electronically ‘dealt’ on the video screen.
The Electronic Poker machine also has buttons with ‘hold’ printed on them, and bettors will need to now pick which cards to hold and which to discard. For the cards the player wishes to retain, the ‘hold’ buttons need to be pressed so that they light up. The player can choose to keep any number of cards they want, from all to none.
After the player has decided on which cards she wishes to retain, they should press ‘deal’, at which point any fresh cards are handed out if desired. The round is now completed, with the Electronic Poker machine scanning the hand to see if it matches any of the winning hands shown on the payment schedule.
Typically, the minimum succeeding hand on an Electronic Poker machine is a pair of jacks with the prize money increasing for each better hand. A common list of winning hands starts with jacks or better, moving on to 2 pairs, three of a kinds, straights, flushes, full houses, four of a kinds, straight flushes and finally royal flushes. It should be known that the payout schedule can change from machine to machine, so that discerning gamblers are agile enough to select the most money-making ones each time.
After the initial round has completed, the player can either decide to stay on in an attempt to maximize their winnings, or they can press the ‘collect’ button to cash out any credits that might been won. Further, several versions of the game allow the gambler a chance to double their wins, in which instance a further game is played. There are also variations between specific games, with some virtual decks including wild cards and other varying characteristics to increase playability.
