Casino Hold'em: The First Hold'em Game Played Against the House

Gambling games and poker have two things in common: real-money stakes and playing cards. Still, since many casinos have poker-inspired games, and usually host poker tables as well as gaming tables, people usually mix up the two. To add to the confusion, casinos have games that are inspired by or based on poker. Despite not being "real" poker games, these have a raison d'être - they are entertaining variants of an otherwise multiplayer game that can be played individually by a single player.

Single-player poker is not a new idea. Actually, it predates the slot machine by a few years - the first gambling simulator was a poker machine similar to video poker, one of the casino world's best poker games available at Royal Vegas casino online. The game was popular but forgotten after the slot machine stole the show - it resurfaced in the 1970s in the form of an electronic poker machine enclosed in a game cabinet. Video poker, a single-player poker game based on Five Card Draw, has spread to all corners of the globe ever since, becoming one of the most popular gambling machines in the world.

Casino Hold'em Poker is a different matter, though. It is a proprietary game built by Stephen Au-Yeung, a former advantage player, and poker pro, winner of the 1992 British No Limit Texas Hold'Em Championship. Apparently, he devised the game as a tool to assist the training of his partner at the time to play Texas Hold'em. He developed this training tool into a casino game and launched it in 2000. Casino Hold'em was a considerable success - today it is played in over 100 Las Vegas casinos and hundreds of online gambling venues, too.

The form of the game is almost identical to Texas Hold'em, with a few differences that make it fit to be played against the house. Just like in the standard Hold'em, players express their intention to play by placing an Ante bet (and they have the option to place a bonus side bet). Next, the players and the house is dealt two hole cards each, and three community cards are dealt on the table. After checking their cards, players can decide to fold (and lose the Ante bet) or play on, in which case they have to place a Call bet that's twice the size of the Ante bet. Then the rest of the community cards are dealt, the hands are formed just like in a proper Hold'em game, the cards revealed, and the hands compared.

To qualify, the dealer has to have at least a pair of fours - if he doesn't, the Ante bets win (according to a paytable) and the Call bets are a push. If the dealer qualifies, the hands are compared - if the player's hand beats the house's hand, the Ante bet pays out according to the above-mentioned paytable, and the Call bet pays 1 to 1. If the two hands are equal, all bets are a push. And if the dealer's hand is stronger, the player loses all bets.