Ultimate X Poker Bonus Streak

By John Grochowski on Tuesday December 13, 2016

bonus, casino-games, poker, video-poker

If you’re a video poker player, chances are you know Ultimate X Poker from International Game Technology. It’s the most successful multiline video poker game with an extra bet for bonus features.

In Ultimate X, the extra features are multipliers that come with any winning hand. If you then win on the next hand, winners are multiplied from two to 12 times, depending on the previous winner.

IGT, naturally enough, would like to build on the success with Ultimate X Bonus Streak, which is available in Triple Play, Five Play and Ten Play formats. Each has a 10 credit per hand maximum bet – five credits for basic play plus five credits to buy the bonus feature.

As in Ultimate X, winning hands bring multiplier for subsequent hands. There are exceptions: The smallest-paying hands, Jacks or Better and two pairs, do not bring multipliers on Bonus Streak.

Here’s the part players will love. You don’t just get a multiplier for the next hand. You get a streak of multipliers. On non-wild card games, three of a kind, flushes and straights bring multipliers on the next three hands. If it’s a full house or better, you get a five-hand streak.

Not only that, the multiplier increases for each hand on the streak. When you have the maximum streak, multipliers are 2x, 3x, 4x, 8x and 12x – that is, payoffs on a winning hand are doubled on the next play, tripled on the one after and so on.

If you have a winner during the streak, it increases payoffs for the remainder of the streak to 12x.

“This is really ingenious by our math department,” IGT video poker product manager Trevor Lynch said of the multiplier increase. “They say it’s the hardest problem that they’ve worked on in several years.”

Lynch thinks Bonus Streak, like original Ultimate X, will have its biggest appeal at low coin denominations.

 “We feel Ten Play nickels is the sweet spot,” he said. “Of course if people want to set it up higher, that’s up to them. Players will be really invested in earning these multipliers. It’s going to be hard to walk away because you’re constantly triggering a streak.”