History of Slots
Slots’ history is a century old and the game has developed a lot over the years. Charles Fey, an American mechanic from the state of California, is widely credited for the development of the first ever slot machine. The slot machine developed by him was three-reeled with five symbols on each reel. These symbols were spades, hearts, horseshoes, diamonds and a Liberty Bell. The highest payout came for a combination of liberty bells on each of the three reels, so the machine was called the Liberty Bell.
Soon afterwards, more and more slot machines came up in the scene but it was not until 1887 that the first five-reeled, fifty-card slot machine was developed by Sittman and Pitt from New York. It had variety of poker combinations which yielded payouts for players.
In 1963, a manufacturing company by the name of Bally introduced a slot machine called Money-Honey. This was the first every fully mechanical and automatic slot machine. It did not require the service of any attendant to get the payout; rather it could pay out around 500 coins itself. This made it a great choice for owners who wanted to stock multiple machines.
In 1976, yet another modification arrived in slot machine games, wherein video slots were introduced. The most significant feature of video slots was their being tamper-proof to a great extent; this made them popular in Las Vegas and rest of America.
The number of paylines in conventional slot machines were originally 1 or 2, but technology made it possible for developers to increase the number of paylines from 9 to over 50. Some slot machines these days do not have built in paylines, rather they work on different ways to increase a players chances of winning. These ways can be several hundred or over a thousand.
Slot machines are so famous and in demand that they take up most of the space in casinos and the income they generate makes them an owner’s favorite as well. Moving of slot games online has led to shedding off the problem of space and more and more diverse themes are now introduced in these online games to keep the interest of the players intact.
These days, technology has led to the development of movie-based slot machines to increase the interest of the players. Software developers are therefore expected to introduce rich graphics that depict the true soul of the movie incorporated in the theme.