Online Poker » Dealers Choice Games » Slot Machine

Slot Machine is a unique poker variant that has some similarities to games that make use of community cards, such as Cincinnati or Criss Cross. Although the way the community cards are displayed and used may be confusing for some players, anyone with good knowledge of poker hand rankings should be able to learn and play Slot Machine fairly easily.

Rules for Playing Slot Machine

A Slot Machine hand begins with the dealer placing nine cards face down on the table in a 3x3 grid. These will constitute the community cards that can be used by all players. The dealer will reveal these cards in phases, flipping over one column between each betting round. Players can only use cards that fall into the same pay lines. The pay lines consist of the three horizontal rows or two diagonal rows. As a rule, a player can only use multiple cards on the board if he or she can draw a straight line through them, left to right. All 7s are wild including cards on the board and in a player's hand.

Once the dealer has placed the community cards face down on the table, four cards are distributed face down to each player. These are the players' hole cards, which will be used in combination with the community cards to make poker hands. Once all players have received their hole cards, an initial betting round begins. Once all players have either folded or called the current bet, the dealer flips the first column of three cards. A second betting round is held in which players again must either fold or call. The dealer flips the next vertical set of three cards and a third round of betting follows. Once betting is complete, the dealer flips the final group of community cards so that all nine are face up. A final betting round is held.

If more than one player has called the highest bet during this last betting round, each player flips their four hole cards and declares their poker hand. Again, a player's hand can be any combination of his or her hole cards and any one left-to-right pay line on the board. It is important to remember that all 7s are wild whether they are in a player's hand or on one of the pay lines. The player who can make the highest ranking poker hand using this method wins the pot.

Slot Machine is often played in a high-low split format, which means that the players who make the highest and lowest ranking poker hands split the pot evenly.