The Casino Queen in East St. Louis, IL has installed seven 25-cent VP games which offer an interesting twist. Called 'Triple Play Poker' and made by IGT, these are worth a look, but not a lot of time or $$$, at least until the pay schedules on them improve. These games are, in spite of the relatively poor pay schedules, very popular because they are new and, undoubtedly, because the players see how long their money lasts, even while betting $3.75 a hand. The 'twist' I mentioned earlier is why you can have a good session on these machines. This game has 3 rows of cards and, if you play 15 coins, all 3 rows are activated. Five cards are dealt to the lower row and, if you hold any of them, they are duplicated on the two rows above. Each then receives an independent draw, so you have a myriad of possible outcomes. For example, let's say you were dealt a hand of 9h, 9s, 2c, Jd, Ah. If you chose to hold the pair of 9s, you'd have a screen that looks like this:

Now, when you hit 'deal', each row will be dealt cards from its own deck. In other words, they won't get the same cards; it might come out like this:

On the top row, you ended with three 9s and that's a winner; on the second row, you ended with two pair and that's a winner and on the third row, you only have the pair of 9s and that doesn't pay. But, on the Jacks or Better version of this game, you'd get 15 for the trips and 10 for the two-pair, a total of 25 for the 15 bet. The appeal here is if you are dealt a really good hand like four-of-a-kind, you'll be paid for it 3 times. And, if you are dealt a 4-card Royal (it'll happen about once every 3000 hands), you get 3 shots at making it.

If and when the payouts improve, you'll have the ideal 'bridge' between a quarter and dollar game. While a 5-coin bet totals $3.75, because of the nature of the game, the risk is more like that of betting $1.60 at a 'normal' game with the same pay schedule. That's another feature of these machines; they have a variety of games, like Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, Double Bonus, etc. For the brief time I looked at the machines, it seemed they were all 'short-pay', but time may rectify that. While the Queen isn't famous for giving away $$$, the competitive nature of this market may have an effect down the road, particularly if other casinos in this area install these machines. I don't think that will make the Queen pay more on their machines, but you can bet the competition will pay better on theirs.

One final tip: Don't change the way you play when you sit down at one of these machines, the proper playing strategy still applies. By the way, there are five located in the back of the second deck and two by the east exit of the third deck.