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The History of Video Poker is widely disputed. There are as many possible birthplaces as there are variations of the game. The most popular belief is that it was invented by the Chinese around 900 A.D., possibly derived from the Chinese dominoes. On New Year's Eve, 969, the Emperor Mu-tsung is reported to have played "domino cards" with his wife. Fragments of cards have been tentatively dated to 12th or 13th century in Egypt. Some propose that modern cards originated from the Indian card game of Ganjifa. We can see that narrowing down the exact origin becomes as difficult as pulling a royal straight flush. In 1910, Nevada made it a felony to run a betting game. The Attorney General of California declared that draw poker was based upon skill and therefore the antigambling laws could not stop it. But stud poker was illegal, as it was based solely on chance. This caused Nevada to reverse itself in 1931 and legalize casino gambling. Through all the varied theories on the origin of Poker, one thing comes shining through. This is a game which has stood the test of time and becomes more rich and full with each generation. That is the joy of "Dealer's Choice" poker. Each person who makes their own variation adds another piece to the vast and fascinating History of Video Poker. The poker machines maintained their enormous popularity until just before World War I. They would experience occasional resurgences in popularity until the 1980s when Video Poker mania struck. Most of the early Video poker models, called drop card machines, employed 50 cards on 5 drums, two cards short of a complete deck. Usually the cards missing were the Jack of Hearts and the Ten of Spades, cutting the possibility of a Royal Flush in half. Cards could also be rearranged on the reels to further reduce wins. Award cards were often printed on both sides with separate pay schedules for free drinks and cigars. Upon inserting a nickel and pushing the video poker handle lever, the drums would spin and flip the cards. As connection speeds and designing know-how progressed, so did the software packages that online casinos were able to put out. Back in the mid 1990's, the graphics were sometimes laughable; now it is like you are actually sitting in a Las Vegas casino, pressing the buttons and sipping on the free drinks. As using a credit card online became more secure, the growth of online casinos expanded even more. At this point, many online casinos started spending much more money on customer service, hiring people to answer questions and provide answers to technical questions 24/7. Retention of the customer became priority #1, and maybe casinos started to employ lucrative bonus programs, in order to persuade the customer to stay at their casino. The Monarch Brownie was the first machine to utilize a front bottom window to display all nickels played, and to hold the last one in sight. The latter feature was incorporated to discourage the use of counterfeit coins, a scourge that had menaced the video poker industry since it's inception. Pioneer slot manufacturer, inventor and operator, Charles August Fey, was an intimate participant in the first half-century of the poker machine industry. His three-reel Liberty Bell, built in 1899, was the forerunner of more than a million bell slot machines that would be manufactured over the next half century. Two of these 50-card poker machines were the 6 Way Paying Teller, using 5 rows of drop cards, and a companion model called The Duke, which had the cards mounted on 5 reels. While the ultimate poker machine would be one capable of paying awards automatically, this was not mechanically feasible with five-reel machines. The Superior Court decision in December 1897 decreeing slot machines to be legal devices, opened the door for a cash paying poker machine. The following year Fey introduced the three-reel Card Bell. This was the first "bell" machine, a term which for many years was the common trade parlance for the three-reel slot machines used in casinos today. The most difficult transitions from a five-reel poker machine to an automatic check-paying poker card machine was finding a method to read the reel symbols, creating the capability to accept both nickels and trade checks then separating them so that the former are diverted to the cash can and the tokens to the payout slide assembly. The automatic payouts on the Card Bell ranged from 2 to 20 coins, the highest being paid when the poker player was able to line up a simulated Royal Flush, Ace, King, and Queen in one suit. It is not known how many of these Card Bell's were manufactured, but the only surviving poker machine (bearing serial number 5), which Charlie Fey rescued from the 1906 earthquake and fire, is today enshrined in his grandsons' Liberty Belle Saloon and Restaurant in Reno, Nevada. Poker has been around since the 1830's, and video poker machines have been around since the 1970's. But when did online video poker get its start? Online casinos started appearing in the mid 1990's, when the Internet really started to take off. Online casinos just made sense it allowed people to gamble at any time of the day from the comfort of their own homes.