Slot Machine History

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The history of slot machines is a story of pioneers who altered the way people have gambled over the past century and a bit. You can still see evidence of the early slot machines in new video slots made today. Let's take a trip down memory lane and explore the fast-changing history of the most popular gambling game in the world. Liberty Bell Slot Machine History Charles Fey, Automatic Pay-Outs and the Bell Variants Up until 1898, card machines like the 3 for 1 were by far the most popular slot games, despite the lack of any pay-out system Difficulties lay in the endless winning combinations which could arise from the five drum, ten-card format being used.

Where the history begins

Slots History

One of the first designs of slot machines.

It is really easy to trace back the slots origins as they are the 'youngest' casino entertainments. The first slot machine has been developed in 1891 in New York. Sittman and Pitt Company have designed a gambling machine which is now called by many people the predecessor of the contemporary version. The poker game has served as a basis for the machine that has been contained of 5 drums that held 50 card faces. The combinations of those cards determined an amount of payout. If a player places a coin in this slot and pulls a lever the wheels spin and different symbols appear on 5 drums.

However, those slots didn`t make the real cash payouts. Instead of it the prize implemented a kind of food or goods from an establishment where the slot machine was located. Those machines were very popular and every bar in a city wanted to obtain at least one.

The first predecessor of a slot machine was created in 1891 by Sittman and Pitt Company.
Playing cards were used as symbols and the machine paid out according to poker hand ranks.
No money payouts were made, instead the machine paid goods or food from the place they were in.

Slots` father

Charles Fey was actually the first who invented a slot machine. He was an immigrant from Germany, who moved to the US and lived in New Jersey and later in California. High noon free online. The man in his twenties had the diagnose of tuberculosis and doctors gave him only one more year for living. In his turn Fey proved they were totally wrong and moreover he became a legend in a whole gambling world as all slots innovations would appear to be impossible without him.

Fey`s invention

In the 1880's owing to Fey`s efforts the machine that was really close to modern variant that we know appeared on the scene. He developed the first machine that had a name of Liberty Bell that came from inventor`s workshop in San Francisco. Speaking of its size Liberty Bell was a bit smaller compared to nowaday's slots and it actually had basically the same content: reel type slot, to be more precisely - 3 reels combining with 20 symbols that working process was similar to our current version.

The original slot machine was made by Charles Fey.
The first machine close to the modern version was called Liberty Bell.

Liberty Bell gained an extreme popularity and spread very fast all over the world. Thus, Charles Fey had to produce mass of the machines and work overtime in the workshop to perform the innumerable orders. The symbols that featured each machine include horseshoes, bells, stars, hearts, spades, diamonds and clubs. The mechanism of the machine was programmed to accept five cent coins; it determined a payout according the results which appeared on the reels - 10 cents for hitting 2 horseshoes & up to as much as twenty coins to hit three bells. The quantity of such variations was really large.

Fey had not only wonderful creative mind but also the disposition of good entrepreneur. He capitalized success of his own creation and decided to let on lease the machines for fifty percents commission rate to gambling venues. Fey also refused to sell his invention mechanism and distribution rights to some gambling manufacturers.

Most important dates to remember:

Slot Machine Names List

* 1891

List Of Casino Slot Machines

- The invention of a 5-reel slot poker machine by Sittman and Pitt
* 1894 - The invention of One-armed Bandit slot machine by Charles Fey
Slot Machine History

* 1898 - Fey's Liberty Bell slot machines were introduced
* 1907 - Herbert Mills produced the first Operator Bell slot machine

Pace Slot Machine History


Before the 19th century drew to a close, inventors came up with a great number of mechanical gadgets to test players' luck and skill. Among there was a pistol-like device intended to shoot coins into a hole forming the bulls-eye of a target, a punching bag that rewarded strong blows, and a coin-based poker-playing machine manufactured in Brooklyn. The latter would flip cards randomly in five windows. Depending on the strength of hands dealt, winnings were paid out.

However, the very first 'coin-in-the-slot' wheel mechanism was born in San Francisco. It was called 'Horseshoes,' the brainchild of a trio of German mechanics working together in an electrical shop. Bookmacster 2 3 0 download free. They created a game that paid out two nickels any time one of ten horseshoes out of 25 possible symbols appeared on a specially marked horizontal line.

By 1898, one of the three inventors, Charles Fey, had retooled the device. He lined up three separate wheels side by side. In place of horseshoes, he applied card suits and a cracked bell to trigger payouts when the spinning 'reels' came to staggered stops in a winning combination. He called this invention the 'Card Bell.'

Then, in 1899, stars and horseshoes were added to the three reels as winning symbols. The resulting version was renamed the 'Liberty Bell,' and this is the 'slot machine' widely recognized today as the forefather of all slot games.

An American Odyssey

By the time of the Great Earthquake of 1906, San Francisco had established itself as the center of the burgeoning machine gaming industry. Some 3,200 slot games had been installed around the city, which depended on them for taxes on slot revenues to the tune of six figures annually. Soon, these slot machines were a mainstay of gambling halls all across America.

Unfortunately, San Francisco's heyday as the country's slot capital was short-lived. In 1909, anti-gambling legislation was passed in California. That's when production shifted to Chicago, where a slot game manufacturer named Herbert Mills replaced the symbols on the reels with cherries, oranges, plums, and lemons, which represented the various flavors of chewing gum that could be won. Ranch rush 1 free full version no time limit. Exports of these reached England, where slots would be known as 'fruit machines' ever after.

During America's Prohibition years, slot machines survived in private clubs—so-called 'speakeasies'—that offering gambling along with bootleg liquor. Developers of the machines hid their activities by masquerading as arcade game and vending machine makers under the banner of the National Association of Coin Operated Machine Manufacturers.

One estimate put the number of illegal machines in New York City alone at over 25,000 by 1931. That year, Nevada became the first and only state to legalize slot machines and other forms of gambling. Play slots online for free with bonus games. It didn't take long for the small southwestern railroad town of Las Vegas to adopt 'one-armed bandits' and transform itself into the slot capital of the world. Bally Gaming, founded in 1931, was one of the first Las Vegas manufacturers of slot games. Its inaugural product—The Ballyhoo—offered seven plays for only a penny.

The Modern Era

By the late 1960s, Bally slots were all the rage. Their 1964 'Money Honey' game was the first to combine mechanical play with electric circuitry. To alert everyone of a jackpot, bells would ring and loud noises would be heard, drawing plenty of attention. Bally later developed the first computerized system for data control, aimed at preventing players from cheating the machines. By the 1970s, Bally ranked as the world's leading slot manufacturer.

Meanwhile in Chicago, WMS Gaming graduated from its pinball business established in 1943 to video lotteries and then slots. Its contribution to the industry was a series of multi-line, multi-coin secondary bonus video slots, starting in 1996 with a fishing themed game called 'Reel ‘Em In.' This success was followed by Jackpot Party, Boom, and Filthy Rich, all games still seen on casino floors today.

Slot machine games

* 1898 - Fey's Liberty Bell slot machines were introduced
* 1907 - Herbert Mills produced the first Operator Bell slot machine

Pace Slot Machine History


Before the 19th century drew to a close, inventors came up with a great number of mechanical gadgets to test players' luck and skill. Among there was a pistol-like device intended to shoot coins into a hole forming the bulls-eye of a target, a punching bag that rewarded strong blows, and a coin-based poker-playing machine manufactured in Brooklyn. The latter would flip cards randomly in five windows. Depending on the strength of hands dealt, winnings were paid out.

However, the very first 'coin-in-the-slot' wheel mechanism was born in San Francisco. It was called 'Horseshoes,' the brainchild of a trio of German mechanics working together in an electrical shop. Bookmacster 2 3 0 download free. They created a game that paid out two nickels any time one of ten horseshoes out of 25 possible symbols appeared on a specially marked horizontal line.

By 1898, one of the three inventors, Charles Fey, had retooled the device. He lined up three separate wheels side by side. In place of horseshoes, he applied card suits and a cracked bell to trigger payouts when the spinning 'reels' came to staggered stops in a winning combination. He called this invention the 'Card Bell.'

Then, in 1899, stars and horseshoes were added to the three reels as winning symbols. The resulting version was renamed the 'Liberty Bell,' and this is the 'slot machine' widely recognized today as the forefather of all slot games.

An American Odyssey

By the time of the Great Earthquake of 1906, San Francisco had established itself as the center of the burgeoning machine gaming industry. Some 3,200 slot games had been installed around the city, which depended on them for taxes on slot revenues to the tune of six figures annually. Soon, these slot machines were a mainstay of gambling halls all across America.

Unfortunately, San Francisco's heyday as the country's slot capital was short-lived. In 1909, anti-gambling legislation was passed in California. That's when production shifted to Chicago, where a slot game manufacturer named Herbert Mills replaced the symbols on the reels with cherries, oranges, plums, and lemons, which represented the various flavors of chewing gum that could be won. Ranch rush 1 free full version no time limit. Exports of these reached England, where slots would be known as 'fruit machines' ever after.

During America's Prohibition years, slot machines survived in private clubs—so-called 'speakeasies'—that offering gambling along with bootleg liquor. Developers of the machines hid their activities by masquerading as arcade game and vending machine makers under the banner of the National Association of Coin Operated Machine Manufacturers.

One estimate put the number of illegal machines in New York City alone at over 25,000 by 1931. That year, Nevada became the first and only state to legalize slot machines and other forms of gambling. Play slots online for free with bonus games. It didn't take long for the small southwestern railroad town of Las Vegas to adopt 'one-armed bandits' and transform itself into the slot capital of the world. Bally Gaming, founded in 1931, was one of the first Las Vegas manufacturers of slot games. Its inaugural product—The Ballyhoo—offered seven plays for only a penny.

The Modern Era

By the late 1960s, Bally slots were all the rage. Their 1964 'Money Honey' game was the first to combine mechanical play with electric circuitry. To alert everyone of a jackpot, bells would ring and loud noises would be heard, drawing plenty of attention. Bally later developed the first computerized system for data control, aimed at preventing players from cheating the machines. By the 1970s, Bally ranked as the world's leading slot manufacturer.

Meanwhile in Chicago, WMS Gaming graduated from its pinball business established in 1943 to video lotteries and then slots. Its contribution to the industry was a series of multi-line, multi-coin secondary bonus video slots, starting in 1996 with a fishing themed game called 'Reel ‘Em In.' This success was followed by Jackpot Party, Boom, and Filthy Rich, all games still seen on casino floors today.

Elsewhere in the world, game manufacturers began developing slots for the markets in their own regions. Worthy of note are Australia's Aristocrat Slots (1953), Konami Slots of Japan (1969), and Germany's Atronic Slots (1993). Soon their exports began showing up in American casinos as well.

The world's most successful of all slot makers, however, is International Game Technology (IGT). The company was founded in the 1950s, but didn't dominate the markets until it went public in 1981 to introduce the most important component in any modern electronic slot machine—the 'random number generator' (RNG). This technology is what allowed electronics to replace mechanics, linking computers and a video screens to simulate spinning reels.

IGT's first major game was not actually a slot machine, however. It was something radically new—the game known today as 'Video Poker.' Then, IGT rocked the industry again by introducing the world's first progressive slot machine—Megabucks. And by acquiring Electronic Data Technologies in 1984, IGT added yet another milestone to slot history with computerized tracking of players' actions, the foundation of all slot customer loyalty clubs.

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