Have you ever wondered what the real facts were surrounding what as arguably become the most popular adult game available today? This short but informative article about the most popular game in Australia will hopefully shed some light on the fastest growing, home grown, number one Australian pastime known with affection to its devoted supporters as ‘pokies’. This game is strictly for grown ups and can be found all over Australia and its close neighbor New Zealand. There are strict regulations that have been put in place by the Australian government with regards to where and how this game can be played; however, these laws and restrictions vary from state to state.
Pokie Roots
The roots of pokies can be traced back to the latter part of the eighteenth century and the early nineteen hundreds. It was around this time that the first gambling machine was invented in Australia. It is officially still known as a gambling machine but around the time of its inception or invention, in order to market it successfully to potential punters, a clever, catchy name was needed.
The first gambling machines used three wooden reels lined up alongside each other; in order to make the concept of this machine more accessible to potential players the symbols used on the reels were simply pictures of different playing cards. The use of playing card pictures as symbols led naturally to the first machines being named after the most popular card game at the time, the game was called poker and the name ‘poker machine’ stuck. The punters who popularized this game soon started to simply shorten the name to just ‘pokies’, it has been called this ever since.
How Pokies Work
Pokies consist of three or more reels aligned next to each in a row, depending on the theme of the pokie machine the type of symbols will be dictated by this. There are in addition a number of lines on the screen that run vertically, horizontally or diagonally, these are what is known as the paylines. The object of the game is to spin the reels at speed and then upon stopping, seeing where the symbols on the reels line up to. In other words, the manner or place in which the symbols find themselves once the reels have stopped spinning will determine whether or not anything has been won (or lost).
There are thousands of combinations depending on the machine being played, vertical, horizontal and across reels (diagonal) combinations, also, the type of symbol, each symbol has a different value assigned to it and various combinations together will make up various wins. The game of pokies is exceptional fun and enormously popular, not just in Australia and New Zealand, but in more recent times to play pokies is a popular thing to do.
