Online Poker | Texas Holdem Poker | Video Poker | Slot Machine
Since video poker is a combination of slot machine and poker play, you can say it’s history really starts with those two games. Poker became big in the States during the mid 1800’s and the first slot machine was created by Charles Fry in the late 19th century. It had spinning reels of either hearts, diamonds, or spades, and of course, the traditional cracked liberty bell. With time, slot machines became more advanced and in the 1970’s, the first video poker machines came into existence. It was also at this time that Texas Holdem Poker became popular because of televised poker play.
It was at that time that computers were being developed. The technology to create the CPU’s or brain of the computer was used to create the video poker machine. The prototypes were quite large and not overly efficient for casinos. Dale Electronics introduced the Poker-Matic video poker machine in 1970, but it wasn’t a big success in Vegas. In 1975, Walt Fraley introduced the first video slot. It also wasn’t popular as players didn’t trust its payouts. They stuck to playing regular slots and Texas Holdem Poker.
The video poker break came in 1979 when Draw Poker was introduced into the market. With this machine, spinning wheels were no longer used. Online casino gambling Players trusted the machines more and people starting playing video poker in larger numbers. The game became a true combination of slot machines and draw poker.
With the improvement in technology since the 1980’s, and especially the explosion of the online poker and casino room industry, the popularity of video poker games has skyrocketed. Today, there are tons of online video poker games to choose from as well as free online bingo games and slots. The online poker and casino rooms offer several different variants of video poker games to choose from such as Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, Jokers Wild, and Multi-Hand Video. Online rooms even offer progressive video poker games where a progressive jackpot can be shared with an entire network of online rooms. That means massive amounts of players competing for a large jackpot. The future for video poker play seems endless.