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Casino (video game)
Encyclopedia
Casino is an Atari 2600
video game programmed by Bob Whitehead
and released in 1978. Supporting up to four players, the game was controlled by the Atari Paddle
s.
Displayed from an overhead perspective, there are three card games to choose from: blackjack
, five-card stud poker
, and poker solitaire
. Except for poker solitaire, each game always has the computer as the dealer, and bets are made by rotating the wheel on the controller and then pressing the button.
There are two different blackjack games: Game 1 allows for up to two players and hand splitting, and Game 2 allows for up to four players yet there is no hand splitting. There are variations in the game depending on the setting of the difficulty switches. If the left switch is set to "A", the computer will shuffle after 34 hands, and if set to "B", the computer will shuffle after every hand. If the right switch is set to "A", the dealer will stay (not draw anymore cards) after drawing a 17, and if set to "B", the computer will stay after drawing an 18 or better. Furthermore, the player will win if he draws the maximum amount of cards; in Game 1, that is three or eight hits, and in Game 2, three hits.
Stud poker, which comprises Game 3, allows for up to four players. The computer, as the dealer, issues a card to each of the players and itself. Before the first card is dealt, and after each subsequent hand, until five cards have been dealt, each player must either make a bet or fold. If the left difficulty switch is set to "A", the dealer's first card is dealt face down; otherwise, it is dealt face up; likewise for the right difficulty switch for each player.
Poker solitaire is different in that no bets are made and there is no dealer; rather, the goal is to arrange cards to create the best twelve poker hands in 25 cards, with five rows, five columns, and the two diagonals. Points are scored depending on the hands created, with a pair yielding 10 points and a royal flush yielding 500 points. The highest possible score is 3340 points. The difficulty switches have no effect in this game.
Game Room
service for its Xbox 360
console and for Windows-based
PC
s in June 2010.
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...
video game programmed by Bob Whitehead
Bob Whitehead
Bob Whitehead is a game designer and programmer. He is a renowned pioneer and entrepreneur of the video game industry, having been instrumental in forming two video game developers. One, Activision, was the first third-party video game developer.-Career:...
and released in 1978. Supporting up to four players, the game was controlled by the Atari Paddle
Paddle (game controller)
A paddle is a game controller with a round wheel and one or more fire buttons, where the wheel is typically used to control movement of the player object along one axis of the video screen...
s.
Gameplay
Blackjack
Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...
, five-card stud poker
Stud poker
Stud poker is any of a number of poker variants in which each player receives a mix of face-down and face-up cards dealt in multiple betting rounds. Stud games are also typically non-positional games, meaning that the player who bets first on each round may change from round to round...
, and poker solitaire
Poker Square
Poker Square is a Patience game with a very unusual objective: to build the best poker hand using just 25 cards from the deck.-Rules:The game starts with placing a card onto a space in a 5x5 grid...
. Except for poker solitaire, each game always has the computer as the dealer, and bets are made by rotating the wheel on the controller and then pressing the button.
There are two different blackjack games: Game 1 allows for up to two players and hand splitting, and Game 2 allows for up to four players yet there is no hand splitting. There are variations in the game depending on the setting of the difficulty switches. If the left switch is set to "A", the computer will shuffle after 34 hands, and if set to "B", the computer will shuffle after every hand. If the right switch is set to "A", the dealer will stay (not draw anymore cards) after drawing a 17, and if set to "B", the computer will stay after drawing an 18 or better. Furthermore, the player will win if he draws the maximum amount of cards; in Game 1, that is three or eight hits, and in Game 2, three hits.
Stud poker, which comprises Game 3, allows for up to four players. The computer, as the dealer, issues a card to each of the players and itself. Before the first card is dealt, and after each subsequent hand, until five cards have been dealt, each player must either make a bet or fold. If the left difficulty switch is set to "A", the dealer's first card is dealt face down; otherwise, it is dealt face up; likewise for the right difficulty switch for each player.
Poker solitaire is different in that no bets are made and there is no dealer; rather, the goal is to arrange cards to create the best twelve poker hands in 25 cards, with five rows, five columns, and the two diagonals. Points are scored depending on the hands created, with a pair yielding 10 points and a royal flush yielding 500 points. The highest possible score is 3340 points. The difficulty switches have no effect in this game.
Ports
Casino was made available on Microsoft'sMicrosoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
Game Room
Game Room
Game Room is a gaming service for the Xbox 360 video game system, Microsoft Windows PCs, and Windows Phone 7. Launched on March 24, 2010, Game Room lets players download classic video games and compete against each other for high scores...
service for its Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
console and for Windows-based
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s in June 2010.