Poker Machine

Australian term for a slot machine.

Return to the slot machine terms main page.

Australians tend to call their slot machines poker machines or pokies."Poker machine" stands for any gambling machine which uses three or more reels to determine prizes.

Australian poker machines are slightly different than many American slot machines. Australian pokies tend to follow the 5-reel format, and tend to have slightly more complicated payout structures. Poker machines utilize the multiple coin/larger percentage jackpot format.

Aristocrat Gaming is the largest producer of slot machines in Australia. Aristocrat Games produces over 90% of the poker machines in Australia.

Actually, there are other gaming machines which could be called poker machines. The obvious one is the video poker machine, which offers poker game mechanics in machine quite similar to slot machines. Video poker machines deal the player a 5-card hand and often a draw, and the player must build a hand of a certain value to win money. In the original and most popular of these, a video poker player must build a hand with a pair of jacks or better.

There were poker machines before there were slot machines. In the 1890's, there were mechanical boxes which simulated card poker. These were called coin machines or poker machines, for the obvious reason that people placed coins in them and then were dealt cards like in a poker game. These coin machines were probably the inspiration for Charles Fey's slot machine design, but were eventually surpassed in popularity by slot machines.