Slot Machines

Slot machines, and their variations such as the Fruit Machines popular in the UK, are ubiquitous features of gaming entertainment venues around the world. So popular are these gaming devices that research has shown that traditional casino slot machines and their more modern video slot machine brethren account for over two thirds of a typical licenced casino's income. That's an awful lot of coins being spent on casino slot machines!

The Birth Of Slot Machine Games

While the machines you find in modern land-based venues and given an online spin in Internet casinos are hi-tech wonders under computer control, the history of these modern slot machine games can be traced back to 1887. In this year, inventor Charles Fey demonstrated the first gaming machine to operate like a classic three-reel casino slot machine in the San Francsico, USA. This earliest incarnation of the slot machine had three-reels, with each reel featuring ten symbols from a choice of hearts, diamonds, spades, horseshoes and bells (each symbol being able to appear more than once on each reel). Various combinations were rewarded with particular payouts, with three bells winning the top prize and giving rise to this slot machine game's nickname as 'the bell machine'.

Charles Fey's invention proved a hit with players and there followed an explosion in the popularity of the 'penny slot machine' leading to rapid development of these mechanical slot machine games. To increase the numbers of possible combinations, more symbols were added to each slot machine reel and some manufacturers experimented with adding more reels to the traditional setup of three used by the typical penny slot machine of the era. By the early 70s, the physical limits of what was possible with a mechanical casino slot machine had been reached with slot machine games that had twenty-two symbols on each reel. To go further would need a new spin on the slot machine format.

Slot Machines Without Real Reels

This next jump in technology in casino slot machines arrived in 1984 when theoretical mathematician Inge Telnaes received the patent for the 'virtual stop'. This innovation heralded the arrival of the first video slot machines that replaced physical reels with virtual versions. The new video slot machine driven by random number generators was able to have near limitless numbers of symbols possible per reel. In reality the new breed of video slot machine games usually had somewhere between thirty and fifty symbol stops on each real, but this still created an absolutely humungous number of combinations, especially when compared to Charles Fey's humble bell machine. Interestingly the video slot machine didn't sound the death knell for the older electro-mechanical slot machines and both happily co-exist amongst the ranks of slot machine games in modern casinos.

The Rise Of The Online Slot Machine

The arrival of the Internet, or to be more accurate the development of the World Wide Web since the mid 1990s as a virtual space for the general public to play in, has seen the most recent development of the slot machine story - online slot machines. With wholly electronic video slot machines already a hit with gamblers in real-world casinos, it didn't take much leap of imagination (or re-engineering) to create entirely virtual slot machine games for players to enjoy in online casinos accessible on the Net. Online slot machines have opened up a whole new vista of slot machine gambling for the keen player and without the limitations of a physical space, online casinos can offer a selection of slots that is simply astonishing. Three-reel classics; Five reel multi-payline progressives; Fruit slot machines; Las Vegas slot machines; Roulette slot machines; even free slot machines - whatever preference you have the advent of online slots means you're often only a click away from the casino slot machines you're after. The online slot machine format has also made it possible for single games to offer huge flexibility in the real-money bet values that can be played through them - they can offer penny slot machine fun or high-rolling stakes of hundred of pounds without needing to switch games.

As a parallel with real-world casinos, Internet-based clubs have found the popularity of online slot machines accounts for a very significant proportion of their total income.

The Free Slot Machine Phenomenon

The online slot machine has proven a major contributor to the explosion of interest in online gaming, especially with the proliferation of free slot machine games on the Internet, giving players far more opportunities to play for fun as well as real-money. Without the overheads or running a real, physical casino slot machine, online gaming clubs can generously offer plenty of free slot machine games to players as tasters of the real-money versions. The free slot machine has proven itself an excellent marketing tool to win new players to online casinos, and so players are now spoiled for choice when it come to reputable clubs with software that includes several free slot machine games.

The Future For The Slot Machine?

All in all, from the simple 'Bell Machine' of 1887 to the free slot machine of the 21st Century's virtual networked world it's been a quite a journey for this classic gaming machine. Real-world casino slot machines and casino slot machine gaming remain as popular as ever, whilst the advent of online slot machines has brought a whole new realm of consumers to the reels. What's next? Who knows, but we're pretty sure the fundamental appeal of the slot machine will continue to endure, making the casino slot machine a familiar fixture in licenced gaming establishments for a very long while to come!