History of Pokies

If you don’t live in the UK, Australia or New Zealand, you’re probably wondering just what on earth a “pokie” is right about now. Well, the answer to that is simple – a pokie is just another name for a slot machine, initially based on video poker. The name, as you may have guessed, comes from the “pok” in the word poker. Let’s learn a bit more about these entertaining machines.

The Beginning

The Sittman and Pitt Company was the first to take steps towards what would eventually become video poker or “pokies”. IN 1891, in Brooklyn, New York, the company invented an early kind of poker machine containing five drums, each of which held ten different playing cards. Players would insert a coin and pull the handle to start the machine: the drums would spin and eventually each would stop on a card which would become the player’s poker hand.

In 1901, Charles Fey, the inventor of the slot machine, also created a poker machine called Skill Draw, which had a “hold” feature that set it apart from the previous machine. After the initial spin, the player could choose to hold some cards and re-spin the others to try and improve the hand. Following that, in the early 1900s, Sittman and Pitt began making machines with the same feature that were available at liquor stores and smoke shops all across the US.

Today

Video poker machines began their life when the “Poker-Matic”, created by Dale Electronics, was released around 1970 or 1971. Though this machine was installed in a number of Las Vegas casinos, it wasn’t initially a big hit with players who preferred the old-school way of playing poker- at a table and with a real, live human dealer.

Though it took time, poker machines did begin to grow in popularity and by 1980, they had reached other parts of the world, specifically Australia, which is where the name “pokies” came from. Aussie slang is certainly unique, and they have a nickname for everything, so it only makes sense that poker machines quickly became the pokies. The 90s saw further growth and the machines being placed in more bars, stores and taking a greater place of prominence in casinos worldwide. They also adapted a lot of them to look a lot more like slot machines.

Video poker today is a game that’s beloved all over the world. You can play some pokies that only cost a penny, and others that have a buy-in of as much as $100 or even more. Games like Jacks or Better, Joker’s Wild and Deuce’s Wild are available to enjoy. There are also video “action” games like spin poker, which is a combination of video poker and a slot machine, multistrike poker in which a pinning hand leads to three extra hands which each offer double the payback of a previous inning hand. Believe it or not, there’s also a multiplayer version of that one!

Video poker machines or “pokies” still have an important place in the heart of both slot machine and poker players the world over and can be found most everywhere that gambling is legal.