How To Play Pokies

Playing a pokie machine or any slot machine for that matter is a very simple case of inserting some money via the coin chute or the note acceptor. You then interact with the game via a range of buttons which are found in most cases on a level section just below the game screen. There are no tricks or secret combination that will give you a better chance of winning.

Below we have a simple diagram of one of the most common button layouts. While not all games will have the buttons in exactly the same order or have the same buttons they tend to all be very similar. Below we outline what all the buttons do and show you how to use them.

Top Row
Press the collect button to take your money out of the machine. This will either activate the coin drop from the hopper or display a call attendant message in which case the win will be paid by a gaming employee.

The next five buttons all relate to the amount of credits bet per line. Once pressed they remain active until another choice is made. Four of the buttons also have a role in the gamble feature. The card suits on displayed above indicate which button should be pressed to select that suit.

Bottom Row
The first button on the bottom row has two features. The first is the Take Win feature. Press this to take your win from the gamble feature or to stop the win amount accumulating and display the final win total. The second feature is Reserve. Pressing this button reserves the machine for a total of three minutes. This feature is only found in pubs and clubs.

The next five buttons all relate to the amount of lines per spin. It is important to note that pressing any of the five buttons will start the reels spinning - there is no special spin button on pokies. The first and last button of the five are also used in the gamble feature and can choose red or black.

Next up we have the Gamble button and the Start Feature button. At the end of any winning spin you can press the gamble button to be taken to the double up bonus game. In some cases pressing the Gamble button subsequent times will offer a half gamble option. The Start Feature button only becomes active when the bonus feature is won and starts the game.

Now you know what the buttons do you have to know how to use them. Once you have money in the machine you have to select your bet per line before you select the amount of lines you will bet on. This is because all of the line bet buttons will activate the game and spin the reels.

There is one bet on the pokies that actually has no house edge at all. This is the double up bonus. After a win you can play up to five double up rounds. There are two types of double ups, the red / black or the suit.

Picking red or black will double your win. Get five doubles in a row and you initial win will be multiplied by 64 times. Picking a suit will quadruple your win. Get five suits in a row and your initial win will be multiplied by 1024.
Both types of bets have natural odds. This means that the red / black bet is a 50/50 proposition while the suite is a 25/25/25/25 proposition.

There are some game manufactured by Aristocrat that have a different style of double up. They have a second set of reels with multipliers listed on each reel and lose symbols. You can choose to try to gamble your win by X2, X3, X5, X10 and X100. Once you pick a multiplier the reels spin and if your multiplier lands on the center line you win that multiple

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