How To Play Poker Machine
Playing a pokie machine or any slot machine for that matter is a very simple case of inserting some money via the coin or note acceptor and then interacting with the game via a range of buttons which are found in most cases on a level section just below the game screen.
There are no tricks or secret combinations that will give you a better chance of winning. Read our How Pokies Work article to find out what happens every time you spin the reels.
The pay tables for Joker Poker vary from machine to machine, so I should spend some time explaining Joker Poker pay tables. An Explanation of Joker Poker Pay Tables I’ll assume that you’re going to make the 5-coin max bet on any given game, and I’ll feature the payouts for each hand on an X for Y basis. When you play a slot machine, you know how much the payoffs are for the various symbol combinations. What you don't know are the odds of getting any particular symbol. This is what makes the math behind a slot machine opaque to anyone except the designers and the casinos. But a video poker game uses the same probabilities as a 52 card deck of. When a user presses the ‘spin’ button on a pokie machine, these technological parts spring to action. The EPROM is programmed to randomly select numbers and will display these numbers in a matter of seconds. Depending on the bet, the user will either win money or will need to spend more in order to play. Poker machines cannot think or remember. The machine accepts any credit bets. It then randomly determines the position of the symbols on the video display to produce an outcome, which is completely unrelated to the previous game's outcome. Aristocrat are the old man of poker machine – they are over 60 years old. They provide everything from Electronic Gaming Machines, Interactive Video Terminal Systems and of course, online games. They provide everything from Electronic Gaming Machines, Interactive Video Terminal Systems and of course, online games.
The Buttons
Below we have a simple diagram of one of the most common button layouts. While not all games will have the buttons in exactly the same order or have the same buttons they tend to all be very similar. Below the image we outline what all the buttons do and show you how to use them.
Top Row
Press the collect button to take your money out of the machine. This will either activate the coin drop from the hopper or display a call attendant message in which case the win will be paid by a gaming employee.
The next five buttons all relate to the amount of credits bet per line. Once pressed they remain active until another choice is made. Four of the buttons also have a role in the gamble feature. The card suits on displayed above indicate which button should be pressed to select that suit.
Bottom Row
The first button on the bottom row has two features. The first is the Take Win feature. Press this to take your win from the gamble feature or to stop the win amount accumulating and display the final win total.
The second feature is Reserve. Pressing this button reserves the machine for a total of three minutes. This feature is only found in pubs and clubs.
The next five buttons all relate to the amount of lines per spin. It is important to note that pressing any of the five buttons will start the reels spinning - there is no special spin button on pokies. The first and last button of the five are also used in the gamble feature and can choose red or black.
Next up we have the Gamble button and the Start Feature button. At the end of any winning spin you can press the gamble button to be taken to the double up bonus game.
In some cases pressing the Gamble button subsequent times will offer a half gamble option. The Start Feature button only becomes active when the bonus feature is won and starts the game.
Getting the Reels Spinning
Now you know what the buttons do you have to know how to use them. Once you have money in the machine you have to select your bet per line before you select the amount of lines you will bet on. This is because all of the line bet buttons will activate the game and start spinning the reels.
Playing Online
Online pokies tend to have a different set of buttons compared to offline pokies which can also vary from game to game and from casino to casino. The principals from the offline games are the same in the fact that you have to select a bet level and then start the reels spinning.
Buttons you will find on online games include the following,
- Credit Size - Changes the credit size. For example 1c to 2c.
- Credits Per Line - Adds or subtracts one credit per line.
- Spin - Starts the game with the current bet level and credit size.
- Max Bet - Bets the maximum amount of credits and starts a spin.
Some of the buttons only appear at certain times. For example often the Gamble button will not appear until you have a win that you can gamble and the Start Feature button might not show up until you win the feature.
Generally, there is nothing complicated when it comes to playing pokies, except just a few rules that are needed to be followed to get you track. In fact, this is one of the reasons pokies is very popular among Australian players because all that’s needed is put a coin in a pokie machine then pull the lever and off you go! So, if you are new to playing pokies and you are wondering what the rules are there, we hope today’s exclusive post will be of great help. But before we proceed, keep the following two things in mind;
✔ In every pokie machine, there is a limit to what amount of bet that you can place. If the pokie machine you are playing on has a number of coins set to be the, don’t exceed it
✔ There are other pokies, that have unique betting structures, thus, it’s vital that you first understand how to work the unique features before proceeding.
Are there special types of pokies that have higher chances of winning?
All pokies are produced with a slight house advantage, and that is how the casinos get their profits. So, collectively pokies tend to have almost equal winning or losing odds, but there’s a slight variance from one machine to another. For instance, pokie machines that accept deposits of $5 or more, usually have very high payouts.
Moreover, our recent research confirmed that single-payline pokies give the player better chances of winning as compared to multi-payline pokies.
Furthermore, pokies which have smaller jackpots are the ones that you are more likely to be won, compared to larger progressive jackpots pokies. So, if you are just looking for a few quick wins and not the mammoth sum in the jackpot reward, you are better off spinning the reels with much smaller jackpot rewards.
Above anything else, you should look at the RTP of the pokie machine that you are about to play; the higher the Return to Player rates (RPT), the higher the chances of winning in that particular machine. By taking Aztec’s Millions for instance, it has very high RTP percentage of 95%, and thanks to wild symbols, multipliers, free spin among other bonus features, you can get more bang out of your buck with every spin.
Return to Player Percentage (RTP)
In case you aren’t sure what RTP means, well, think of it this way; each time you play pokie machine, there is the percentage of money that you win and there’s the portion that you lose. So, the RTP percentage is this percentage of your money that you are likely to get back when you play. Take for instance a pokie that has an RTP of 97%; it means that for every $10 you spend on the reels, you are likely to get $9.7 of your money back. And thus, the higher the RTP, the better your payouts. You must however remember that RTP values are usually calculated over long periods of time on average; therefore, it’s never a guarantee that you will get a specific percentage of your money back. It could be much more, and it could also be much less!
How can you increase your chances of winning on any pokie game?
Even though pokies are considered games of luck, there are still some measures you can take increase your odds of winning. They are;
◼ To increase your chances of winning any progressive pokies, avoid the ones whose jackpots have just been hit in the recent past, like a month ago for example. This is because, the chances of the jackpot being won again anytime soon is pretty rare. The best pokies to try are the ones that have not been won for a long time they are more likely to offer very high payouts
◼ Another important factor to consider if you want to level up your winning chances is playing pokies that have higher payout percentages. The best payout percentage to consider is anything above 95%
◼ If you aren’t already familiar with the game you want to play, start by trying out the demo version before you head over to real money play
How To Play Poker Machines And Win Free Games
◼ In case you are hunting for a jackpot, play with the maximum bet available.
Video Poker Machines
◼ Spend sometime on the paytable of the machine so that you can understand exactly what you need to do to walk away with larger payouts
How To Play Poker Machine Games
- Fair Go Casino
- Uptown Pokies
- Joe Fortune Casino