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History of Slots
The history of Slots actually happened in the United States back during the 1880's in the eastern US, but actually became popular in San Francisco. These first slot machines use cards by placing fifty cards on five drums. These machines became quite popular in saloons and cigar shops and by 1890 San Francisco had 3,117 licensed establishments with these card machines.
The modern slots machines as we know today were invented in 1899 in San Francisco by a Bavarian immigrant named Charles Fey. This first slot machine was named the Liberty Bell and was shaped the same as the slot machines we have today. The Liberty Bell came with three reels, a payout schedule, a coin acceptor and a large handle on the right side of the machine. Liberty Bell became an instant hit and the Holtz and Fey Electric Works became the major producer of slot machines in the United States. Unfortunately for the Holtz and Fey Electric Works it all came to a sudden end on April 18, 1906 when the San Francisco earthquake flattened their factory.
Another important person in the history of slot machines is Herbert Stephen Mill from Chicago who in 1909 modified the Fey machine. Mills added ten more symbols to each reel and made the machine more mobile and space saving. This new machine was named the Mills Liberty Bell and it wasn't long before the Mills Liberty Bell began to grow their share of the market after Fey's Liberty Bell went down. The next important change in the history of slots is the birth of the electronic machines. Changing over from mechanical to electronic games had its advantage as it was very easy to cheat the mechanical machines. There were definite advantages to using the electronic slot games over the mechanical slots. The most important that players couldn't cheat on these new electronic games as they were able to on the mechanical machines.
Also with the electronic games the operators were able to offer bigger jackpots. With the mechanical slots they had limitations to their prizes having the physical limitation to make stops on the reels. With the new improved electronic slots the operators could make stops as much as they wanted. The Video Slots were the next break through in the history of slots with the first machine introduced in 1975 in Las Vegas. This first video slot machine was quite simple as it had only three components consisting of a solid state logic assembly, a television set and a hopper. The popularity of these machines really never caught on until the introduction of the first video poker machines. Along with the popularity of the video poker machines grew the popularity of the video slots. The next break through in the history of slots was the introduction is the Megabucks a 3 coin dollar progressive slot from International Games Technology. They started out with 125 machines in 9 casinos located around Nevada. The advantage with the Megabucks slots were they were all linked together and kept the same progressive meters. Today we see in Las Vegas the popularity of the nickel machines which are coming from Australia. They are all video based machines that have multi-betting lines on them. Also there is the ticket-in ticket out systems which is one of the latest technologies that is gaining attention from the industry. This is a great system allowing the players to move from machine to machine with a ticket instead of having to carry a heavy bucket full of coins. This system also saves the casinos by reducing labor costs and promising a more secure slot machine operation.
Return to Best Online Casinos and Gambling Bonuses From History of Slots 
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