History of Slots

The person who first invented the slot machine was a California man named Charles Fey. In 1887 he built the first slot machine; it had three reels and on each reel was a symbol of Hearts, spades, diamonds, a horseshoe and a bell. There was just one symbol of each on each reel making 5 symbols on each reel. The reels on this slot machine would spin and when they stopped spinning, if any of the symbols matched across the three reels, you would win. At that time it was illegal to gamble in California but as the slot machine appeared to be popular, Fey had no problem selling however many he made across the state line. The popularity of the slot machine continued to grow across America which prompted, in 1891, the New York manufacturers Sittman and Pitts to produce their own version of the slot machine.

This new version of the slot machine varied greatly from the original. Firstly there were five reels with each reel having ten symbols each making there a total of 50 symbols on the reels. The New Yorkers decided to use playing cards as the symbols on the reels and wins would be for any poker hand that was formed.

The next major change in slot machines didn’t happen until when, in 1963, Bally manufacturing introduced the first fully electromagnetic slot machine. The advances in this machine at last made it possible for payouts of less than 500 coins, to be made automatically without the need of any assistance from an attendant.

When later, in 1976, the first video slot machine was invented; it became an instant success on the Las Vegas Strip. The popularity that it then gained in the Las Vegas casinos, still exists to day and there is now said to be eight slot machines for every person in Las Vegas.

Although the introduction of video slots heralded a vast number of different themes to be used for slot machines, the recent introduction of slot machines to the world wide web has inspired even more themes for them.