Video Poker made its first appearance in the year 1891 by the way of a gambling machine in Brooklyn, New York. This machine manufactured by Sittman and Pitt Company, had five drums, containing 10 cards each. The player was supposed to drop a coin into the machine and the drums would spin. Once the drums stopped spinning, the cards that the player had would be revealed. These machines were generally found in bars and the winners generally won drinks or cigars.

The next development in the Poker scene was the development of the slot machine in 1898, when Charles Fey developed a machine called the Liberty Bell. This machine was able to pay cash prizes to its winners. Fey brought a new invention in 1901 called the Skill draw machine, which possessed a hold feature. This new machine had five drums and the player could spin all the drums and observe his results. If he was not satisfied with the result he could hold one or more drum. This hold feature has become an important part of the online poker game in today's world.

Video Poker became popular and easy to market the day one could combine a television screen with a central processing unit. The first video poker machines made their appearance at the same time as the computers in 1970. Video Poker became much stronger in 1979 when Draw Poker was launched by International Game Technology.

In the 80s Video Poker became more popular with players playing in casinos as they found the video machines less frightening then the casino tables. The popularity of the game grew with the improvements of technologies and the introduction of better machines. In turn, resulting in new and better video poker games being introduced.

In the 90s with the introduction of the internet the popularity of the game further grew as now players could play in cities where there was no casino. Also, high speed internet has allowed players from different countries to explore various online casino games by playing it at their leisure and comfort. The introduction of video poker software since the early 90's has also added to the popularity of the game and today we find a number of companies that are offering such software at sites that allows players the liberty of trying new forms of video poker.