Ultimate X Poker by IGT: The OG of Advantage Play Machines

IGT’s Ultimate X Poker is a video poker machine that has been around for well over a decade. It’s one of, if not the most popular video poker title of all-time. You’d be hard pressed to find any major casino that doesn’t have at least a few of these machines & it isn’t surprising to see casinos that have dozens of them. Best of all for us hustlers Ultimate X is also a machine that can present advantage play opportunities with amazing results.

While there are some that come in a single line version, the vast majority of Ultimate X video poker machines that you’ll encounter will have the option of 3, 5 & 10-play with a variety of different poker variants such as “Jacks or Better” & “Triple Double Bonus.” On your typical video poker machines a player can bet up to five credits per line. Ultimate X offers players the option to increase the bet to 10 credits per line which activates the multiplier feature. When activated, multipliers are awarded on any winning hands which will be used on that particular hand on the next draw. Multipliers range from 2-12x and are dependent upon the kind of winning hand & poker variant.

What to look for and how do I advantage play Ultimate X Poker?

Go through each game at every denomination & look for “next hand” attached to any multipliers on the screen. Here you have the opportunity to get the benefits of the multipliers without paying the premium price of ten credits per hand. Your best bet is to bet five credits per hand on the next draw to play-off the multiplier & you’re done.

It’s a straightforward advantage play & you know going in when you bet how much money you’re going to be putting on the line. Most of the time your wins will be hitting small stuff like pairs or three of a kinds. But every now & then you’ll hit something big with a multiplier that you didn’t have to pay for & that’s an awesome feeling.

Scavenging for leftover multipliers can be a tedious process that could take as much as a few hours if you were to check in a place that has many Ultimate Xs. Your success in finding multipliers is largely dependent on how active the machines are & how many other hustlers are scavenging as well. For example, I knew an advantage player several years ago who claimed he made a third of his profit just from Ultimate X. This was at a major casino that had over 50 Ultimate Xs & he was committed to regularly checking the machines every few hours. I believed that was overkill but he justified it as a way to discourage competition.

Many casinos don’t give a damn, however some do & checking for leftover multipliers on Ultimate X has gotten more advantage players directly 86’d than any slot machine that I’m aware of. The AP I just mentioned, yup he’s one of them. I think this is largely due to the fact that it’s a well known target of advantage players & has been out for so long that casinos know what the deal is. Ultimate X is also one of the few machines that many non-advantage players are fully aware of what you are doing when they see someone bouncing from machine to machine. Most will ignore you and carry on with their video poker play. However, some may be annoyed & flash a dirty look or may even have something rude to say. Only a dumb hustler would engage. Yet, I’ve witnessed on a couple of occasions altercations where security had to be called. Just a word of caution to those of you who plan on regularly searching for multipliers.