Las Vegas: Video poker
The only video game to win widespread acceptance in Las Vegas casinos is video poker , a cross between "five-card draw" poker and a conventional slot machine. Each time you play, five cards are "dealt" onto the screen. You can then, once only, be dealt replacements for as many of those five as you choose not to "hold." While it is a game of skill, you're not required to know the rules of poker; the odds paid for all possible winning hands are listed on the body of the machine.Apart from sparing you the embarrassment of having to cope with a real live dealer or other players, the appeal of video poker is that the odds can be very good indeed. You can assess just how good a machine is by what it pays for a full house and a flush. There are "progressive" and "non-progressive" video poker machines, just like ordinary slot machines; "loose" progressive machines generally offer eight coins for a full house and five for a flush, while loose non-progressives tend to pay nine and six respectively. On a "nine/six" machine the house edge is a mere half percent or so, but several casinos now offer "ten/six" or "nine/seven" machines on which the advantage is technically slightly in the gambler's favor. The snag is that to have that edge, and win consistently, you have to play perfectly.
Entire books have been written on what constitutes perfect strategy in video poker. It's not the same as in ordinary poker, and it depends on whether the machine you're playing features "wild" cards or not. In brief, because the highest rewards are paid for royal flushes , you should almost always play for that at the expense of any other possible - or even certain - win.
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