Poker Fun Facts
At first glance, the silent souls found tapping away at video poker machines seem to fall on the same branch of gambling’s family tree as slot spinners.
Video Poker For Fun
Poker is a game for all types of people, with a long, rich history full of weird anecdotes. Because the game has so many variations – and so many quirks – there’s no shortage of fun facts to learn. These can be great conversation starters the next time you play poker with friends or family! Poker Is as American as Gumbo. Like jazz music and cocktails, poker got its start in.
Poker Face Fun Facts
- Poker has been around for a good 200 odd years, but there are some poker facts which may still blow your mind and give you a little something to think about. FACT #1: Poker originated from the USA If the name Texas Hold em' hadn't already given it away, we are here to tell you that the birth place of poker was America, specifically, New Orleans.
- Poker Originated in New Orleans. Although the most popular form of Poker is called.
Like slot enthusiasts, video poker players do battle against a machine rather than a house dealer. Their game of choice is tucked away from the table game pit, stashed alongside the slots with their bells and whistles. And both gambling subsets simply stare at a screen while waiting for the flash of pixels to reveal their fate.
But when you dive deeper than the mere surface, video poker and slots couldn’t be more different.
For one thing, video poker is a skill-based game, as opposed to the ultimate game of chance known as slots. The machine’s random number generator (RNG) still reigns supreme on the initial deal and the draw, but players are granted the crucial right to choose which cards (if any) to ditch on the discard round.
For that reason alone, video poker is much more aligned with other skill games like blackjack, right down to the use of a tried and true basic strategy. Given the 52-card deck’s known quantities — five cards dealt out at random and a rigid hierarchy of hand strength creating an escalating pay table — video poker players can always use logic and deductive reasoning to make the most mathematically optimal decision.
In other words, thinking players can scan the screen and immediately deduce which discard/draw decision gives them the best odds to make a hand and collect a payout.
That’s just one fun fact about the great game of video poker, and if you’d like to learn more, read on to discover just how many dimensions automated five-card draw really has to offer.
1 – The First Video Poker Machine Was Invented by a Casino Owner
Back in 1979, William “Si” Redd found himself pulling double duty.
Redd worked as a distributor for Bally Manufacturing by day, selling jukeboxes and arcade machines in Reno, Nevada. But by night, Redd supervised the gaming floor at the Oasis, a casino he owned and operated.
After tinkering with a prototype that blended his two passions, Redd founded the SIRCOMA company, which was short for Si Redd’s Coin Operated Machines. The first in a long line of SIRCOMA innovations was a machine outfitted with a small TV screen that allowed players to enjoy five-card draw poker without needing cards, a table, or a dealer.
Casinos obviously loved the addition of a game that required minimal overhead expenses. Players, meanwhile, were slow to come around, until Redd decided to make a tweak that transformed the gambling landscape forever.
Initially, Redd’s draw poker machine required players to hold two pair or better in order to collect a payout. This threshold proved to be too difficult, though, prompting Redd to lower the minimum hand strength needed to one pair of jacks or higher.
Just like that, Jacks or Better video poker was born, and the rest was history. Video poker became a staple casino offering over the 1980s, attracting both skill players and gamblers alike.
2 – SIRCOMA Turned Into IGT – One of the World’s Leading Casino Game Designers
By 1981, the success of Jacks or Better made Redd and SIRCOMA rich, and that year, he changed the company’s name to International Game Technology (IGT).
Redd sold his stake in IGT off in 1986, but more than three decades later, IGT has grown into one of the world’s largest casino game and equipment manufacturers. Three out of every four slot machines in the country are produced by IGT, as David G. Schwartz of the UNLV Gaming Studies Research Center pointed out while memorializing Redd in the latter’s obituary.
“He was tremendously important.
He parlayed the selling of jukeboxes into investments in coin-operated gaming machines that he sold through his Bally’s Distributing Co.
He got the rights to video poker and founded and built IGT into the company that today controls three-quarters of the American slot market. He was a visionary.”
3 – A Few Variants (and Pay Tables) Make the Elusive Player Edge Possible
For gamblers who enjoy beating the house at its own game, one of the most fun facts about video poker is how the game can create one of the rarest sights in any casino — a player edge.
If you’ve spent any amount of time perusing gambling strategy material, you probably know all about the house’s inherent edge. But just in case, here’s a quick crash course on the subject.
By comparing the win probability for any given wager to its corresponding payout, you can calculate the advantage held by the house. In double-zero American roulette, for example, the 38 spaces (1-36 + 0 and 00) on the wheel give even money bets (Red or Black, Odd or Even, Low or High) a 38/2 chance of disaster.
In other words, even if you bet on both Red and Black to guarantee yourself a win, those pesky green 0 and 00 spaces will crop up 1 in 19 spins on average.
And when you divide 38/2 (or 19/1 when factored down), you get 5.26%, which just so happens to be the house edge on double-zero roulette. This figure means that, for every $100 you wager over the long run, the house expects to collect a return of $5.26 on average.
Thankfully, house edge rates within the world of video poker are much more reasonable, with the standard variant Jacks or Better offering basic strategy players a hole of only 0.46% to dig out of. Video poker enthusiasts prefer to flip the house edge metric, though, subtracting it from 100 to arrive at their payback percentage (99.54% on Jacks or Better).
But when you can find specific pay tables found in a trio of popular video poker variants, the house edge is eradicated entirely — and players actually derive a small edge over the house.
The most famous example of player edges in video poker occurs on the Deuces Wild machines. When you play Deuces Wild using the following “full pay” table shown below — in conjunction with basic strategy, of course — your payback percentage climbs to 100.76%.
Deuces Wild Video Poker Full Pay Table
| HAND | PAYOUT |
|---|---|
| Natural Royal Flush | 800 |
| Four Deuces | 200 |
| Wild Royal Flush | 25 |
| Five of a Kind | 15 |
| Straight Flush | 9 |
| Four of a Kind | 5 |
| Full House | 3 |
| Straight | 2 |
| Three of a Kind | 1 |
| Anything Else | 0 |
Here’s the rub, though. That 100.76 payback percentage (good for a player edge of 0.76%) can only be obtained using the exact pay table configuration shown above.
And wouldn’t you know it? Modern corporate-owned casinos are increasingly hesitant to spread full pay Deuces Wild on their floors. Instead, you’ll typically find the game played using a modified pay table known as “Not So Ugly Ducks” among hardcore video poker fans.
Your payback rate on Not So Ugly Ducks — which decreases the payout on four of a kind to 4 — is still quite high at 99.72%, but that doesn’t create the coveted player edge.
You can also score player edges on Double Bonus Poker (100.17% payback) and Double Double Bonus Poker (100.07% payback), but only when you locate the games’ full pay tables.
To make that task as easy as possible, check out the free video poker location database provided by vpFREE2.com. The link is set to full pay Deuces Wild, but don’t forget to use the database to find full pay Double Bonus Poker and Double Double Bonus Poker machines in your region.
4 – The Fastest Video Poker Player on the Planet Puts in More Than One Hand Per Second
Every so often, you’ll see a video poker player looking something like a whirling dervish.
Their fingers fly across the buttons like a hummingbird’s wings, inputting decisions so quickly as to appear almost robotic in both form and function. These players are “speed-runners,” experts who try to press their edge by completing as many hands as possible as quickly as they can.
And the king of the speed runners is an anonymous pro known only as “Mr. Antonius.”
In 2017, Mr. Antonius put on a speed running clinic, completing 10 minutes of perfect play in Jacks or Better which extrapolated out to a pace of 2,262 hands per hour. Below you can watch that world record setting session, with Mr. Antonius playing 37.7 hands per minute and an astounding 1.59 hands per second.
5 – Video Poker Can Be Played From the Comfort of Your Couch
When you visit a reputable online casino, be sure to check out the site’s video poker menu.
The best online casinos today spread a wide range of video poker variants, including Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, Double Double Bonus Poker, and a dozen other fan favorites. The only thing better than finally landing that elusive royal flush for a jackpot payout — a 1 in 40,000 lightning strike — is celebrating at home with your loved ones instead of envious strangers at the casino.
Conclusion
Between the frenetic pace of play and lucrative progressive jackpots, video poker is one of the more fun casino games on the floor. Knowing this, it’s no surprise to learn about the fun facts surrounding this innovative fusion of old-school cards and modern technology.
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The Deck Has Changed
In the early days, the first versions of poker were played with a 20-card deck: 4 suits of 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace. As the game gained popularity, more and more people started using the English 52-card deck to allow for more possible hand combinations.
Poker Facts And Statistics
In the late 1930s, there was even a fifth suit added – but this quickly fell by the wayside, as people used to the game didn’t want to buy new cards!
The Game is American… Kind Of
Gambling Fun Facts
The earliest accounts of poker as we know it – five-card hands and the name we use today – come from Louisiana in the early 1800s. The French settlers of that region would have been familiar with a game known as “poque” – which likely lead to the American version (and the name).
Still, even the history of those games is contested. Scholars also compare poker to a Persian game called As-Nas, as well as the French game brelan and the Italian game primero.
The Longest Game
The Birdcage Theater in Tombstone, Arizona (yes, like the movie!) held the longest running poker game in history – or so the story goes. They claim the game ran continuously, day and night, for 8 years, 5 months, and 3 days. Supposedly, more than $10 million exchanged hands, and famous people like Doc Holiday took part!
First TV Appearance
3 years after its debut, the World Series of Poker was first televised on CBS in 1973. Walter “Puggy” Pearson won the main event for $130,000! In fact, you can watch the tournament coverage on YouTube!
A Game of Stats
Master poker players can calculate their odds of winning based on a variety of factors, especially when playing Texas Hold ‘Em (where all players can see “the flop”). The probabilities can be misleading, with hundreds of millions of possible combinations among just 5 cards.
Here are a couple examples that can lead novice players astray:
- If you need two exact cards on the turn and the river (the 4th and 5th card turned over), your odds of getting both are just 0.3%
- Top starting hands like pocket Aces, Kings, A/K, or “picture pairs” only happen about 2.1%of the time
- Having two suited cards only improves your hand by about 2.5%
This is just a small look at all the things there are to know about poker. You can learn different games, betting strategies, and the huge list of terms experienced players use to describe their hands, their bets, and other parts of the game. The best way to learn is to start playing!
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