Electronic Poker is a popular game that can be wagered on in casinos all over the globe, or in your house on your PC, using a web connection. The rules are absolutely straightforward and consist of the player attempting to achieve the greatest mixture of cards possible in order to win money. In this respect it is much the same as a regular game of poker, apart from the line of contact with competing players. Of course, methods employed during a physical game of poker, such as bluffing, will be useless here.
The game of Electronic Poker starts when the gambler puts credits (either tokens, credit slips or money) into the video poker machine and presses the draw button. A hand of 5 cards will be "given out" on the video screen.
The Electronic Poker game also has buttons with ‘hold’ printed on them, and players will need to now decide which cards to hold and which to throw away. For the cards the player wishes to retain, the ‘hold’ buttons should be pressed so that they light up. The player can decide to keep any number of cards they want, from all to none.
After the gambler has chosen which cards she wishes to keep, they should press ‘deal’, which will mean that any fresh cards are given out if desired. The game is now finished, with the Electronic Poker machine scanning the cards to see if it is the same as any of the winning hands shown on the payout schedule.
Normally, the lowest winning hand on a Video Poker machine is a pair of jacks with the award money growing for each and every better hand. A common list of winning hands starts with jacks or better, and moves on to 2 pairs, 3 of a kinds, straights, flushes, full houses, 4 of a kinds, straight flushes and finally royal flushes. It should be known that the payment schedule can range from machine to machine, so that knowledgeable bettors are agile enough to pick the most money-making machine every time.
Once the initial round has finished, the player can either decide to stay on in an attempt to maximize their winnings, or they can press the ‘collect’ button to retrieve any credits that they may have won. Further, a few versions of the game give the gambler a chance to increase their winnings, in which situation a further round is played. There are also variations among specific games, with some virtual decks including wild cards and other varying characteristics to increase playability.