Online Casino Games: The New Wave We Now Can All Ride
Online casino games can credit video poker for their birth, proliferation, and accessibility to people around the world. Because of video poker, anyone who has a computer and access to the internet can play online casino games-and maybe even win big. Before online casino games hit the mainstream, coin-operated gaming was played in bars, saloons, and cigar shops in the late 1800's. By 1891-according to writes at online-casino-two Brooklyn, New York residents developed and manufactured what were known as poker card machines, which they placed in 3,117 shops with liquor licenses. For a single nickel a patron could play a hand of poker, and keep playing till the nickels ran out or the establishment closed for the night. By the time World War I came about, the excitement of the simple game waned…but was returned with the precursor to online casino games, the 1980's Video Poker game. An ancestor to the first and last poker models, the earliest was the "drop-card" machine, a system that had five drums that spun 50 of 52 cards (leaving out the Jack of Hearts and Ten of Spades to lessen the chances of a player hitting a Royal Flush by 50%). Unlike the online casino games of today-which pay out appliances, apparel, trips, and cold cash-the first drop-card poker machines paid in the saloon favorites-cigars and booze. For a nickel a hand, a player could win anywhere from one cigar or one drink to 100 cigars or 100 drinks. And similar to but slightly more challenging than the net and casino poker games of today, the smallest win had to be gained on not Jacks or better but Kings or better. The advancements continued through history-with the Monarch Brownie (which displayed the coins in a transparent front window) of 1896's Monarch Card Machine Company and the three-reel Liberty