History of Slots
It was 1887 that slot machines were first introduced, with Charles Fey generally credited as being the pioneer of slot machine development. He was a mechanic from California and devised a simple three-reeled slot machine with five symbols on each reel. These symbols were spades, horseshoes, diamonds, hearts and Liberty Bells. As the highest payout was for the combination of liberty bells, the slot machine was named the Liberty Bell, and it became so famous that even when gambling became illegal in California, Fey was still unable to fulfill the demand for it from other states.
The slot machine concept was then taken up by other developers to introduce more modified versions of slot machines. New York firm Sittman and Pitt developed the first five-reel, 50-cardface slot machine in 1891, in which number of poker combinations were to determine the payout. This slot machine became the pioneer of the forth coming slot machines.
By 1963, Money-Honey made waves in the industry, as it was the first fully automatic slot machine that needed no attendant to give pay out for even 500 coins. This machine was developed by Bally manufacturers.
In 1976, yet another modification arrived in the form of as video slots. Casino operators loved the fact that they were highly tamper-proof, and players loved the features possible on video slots. Both of these facts made them exceptionally popular in Las Vegas and rest of America.
Earlier slot machines had only one or two paylines, but with increasing technology and interest among players, more paylines were added, with the number increasing from 9 to 50. In many modern slot machines, more than 243 ways of winning have been developed, thereby giving up the idea of paylines completely.
As is obvious from their popularity among players, slot machines form a huge bloc of demand and take up most of the area in a casino as well. Moreover, they also form a large part of a casino’s profit, so it’s in everyone’s interest to keep the number of slot machines high. That being said, now that slots are available online, this has made it possible for many people who cannot visit casinos to play. Since an online casino doesn’t need to worry about stocking inventory, they can store hundreds of different types of games and players can enjoy them at the click of a mouse.