When you think of the most iconic game of any casino – whether it’s a brick and mortar establishment or an online casino, you’re most likely thinking of slot machines.
Known as “Legal Slots” up until the 20th century, slot machines are often called one-armed bandits, fruit-machines but are still mostly referred to as just “slots”, except in Australia and New Zealand where to this day they’re called online pokies.
Ever since the days of the poorly designed (in today’s standards) mechanical machines about a century ago, slot games have only increased in popularity. It does not come as a surprise as traditional physical machines, which are designed much better now, are still fun to play and online casinos offer creative variations for people to enjoy from the comfort of wherever they are located.
In this article we’ll have a look on the major milestones of the evolution of this fun game.
Charles Fey & Liberty Bell
The Liberty Bell was the first slot machine invented by a car mechanic Charles Fahy in 1895. The Liberty Bell had several spinning reels to it. The spade, diamond, and heart symbols were all put on each reel. The machine featured a cracked liberty image. Suppose you got a spin with three liberty bells that equaled a row you were given the biggest amount of money. This was a large amount of ten nickels or fifty cents. The machine can be viewed at the Liberty Belle Saloon in Nevada.
Demand For More Continues To Grow
Slot machines from Liberty Bell were very popular. Despite his small workshop, Fey couldn’t produce them fast enough. Charles Fey refused to sell the distribution and manufacturing rights of the liberty machine to gambling supply manufacturers. Henry Mills began manufacturing Fey’s Liberty Bell, a recreation by Herbert Mills, a manufacturer of Chicago arcade machines, in 1907. The fruits he placed on machines were cherries, plums, and lemons. Mills became the first person to do this.
How Did The Original Version Work?
The slots had three metal hoops called reels inside each cast iron construction. The reels were each painted with ten symbols. The reels were spun by pulling a lever. Three or more symbols of the same kind lined up on the reels to entitle the player to a jackpot. Coins were dispensed from the machine as the payoff.
The First Mechanical Slots
Bally, the company that invented the first mechanical slot machine, made the biggest advancement to slot machines in 1963.
The spring and lever system was used in traditional slot machines. By pulling a lever, you would set the reels spinning. Each reel would then be clamped down by a series of gears, similar to the brake on a car.
Simple machines operated those slot machines. The first electric slot machines began being tested in the 1940s, but levers were still used for operating them.
The first electromechanical slot machine was introduced by Bally, reversing all of that. Money Honey was its name. Even though there were levers involved, they were mostly to look good.
Most customers used the levers on slot machines to activate them, and they believed that pulling the levers in the right direction and speed would affect the outcome of the game.
Moving on to Digital Slots
In the next video slot machine innovation, a new brand emerged not long after the mechanical slot machine was introduced. Since then, video slot machines have had a slight revamp.
Fortune Coin Company slot machines were equipped with color television, one of the best inventions of the 1960s. With a 19-inch Sony TV, they replaced the physical reels used since 1891.
In 1976, Fortune Coin Company’s video slot machines were offered for the very first time at the Hilton Hotel. Three paylines and four reels were on Fortune Coin’s slot machine.
Modern slot games like Reel EmIn and Cleopatra became available in commercial casinos.
Online casinos have now become a direct competitor of land-based casinos.
Companies licensed to conduct betting operations on the Internet can do so due to the 1994 Free Trade and Processing Act of Antigua and Barbuda.
Microgaming and Cryptologic are among the first companies to offer online casinos. Several companies claim to be the first, but all of them began around the same time.It didn’t matter which company developed the first web-based casino experience; they all took different approaches.
The companies made it possible for online casinos to operate and to process financial transactions. Microgaming created the Interactive Gaming Council to control other online casinos.
Compared to today’s online casinos, the first generation had far fewer features. A variety of slot machines were available at that time but the selection is nowhere near as big as it is today.
The technology was started by them, however. These companies brought casino experiences online and that prompted other game developers to develop new games.
Online slots can be found in the thousands and there is no doubt that they will only rise in popularity.
Common symbols & functions of slots
As mentioned before, the most popular slot genres are fruits, animals and magic (15%, 14% and 13% of slot machines are equipped with such genres). Asian artifacts are confidently among the leaders (10.5%), breaking away from the closest competitors of the 777 characters and the adventure genre, which appear on 5% of the slots.
Of the additional functions, the most common is the wild, 24% of the machines have it. More than 21% of the slots are equipped with a scatter or free spins. The number of devices with a folded symbol is increasing — appear on about 12% of the machines. The distribution of other additional functions is as follows: the bonus game is available for 7.8% of slot machines, the risk game is available for 6.6%, and the wrestling games account for 6.1%. At the same time, manufacturers are constantly working on increasing the additional functions of slots.
The impact of the coronavirus
The pandemic that covered the world affected the industry. Casino owners have suffered huge losses due to the inability of customers to visit their establishments. Even the rapid transition to the online format did not completely correct the situation. Prolonged quarantine measures reduced the level of income of the population all over the world. People began to play less. The global loss statistics for 2020 shows that the Asian region (-29% of gross income), the European region (-20%), and North America (-21%) suffered the most losses. The decrease in gross income for the regions C/S America, Oceania, and Africa is not so significant (-6%, -3, and -1%, respectively).
Current and future perspectives
The number of slot machines produced is growing annually. So, in New Zealand, people spent 880 million New Zealand dollars on slot machines in 2016. In the UK, people spent about 3.5 billion pounds, and in Australia – 60 billion Australian dollars.
In recent years, the multiplayer format has become popular, when several players can play on the same slot machine at once, choosing their own, separate lines aboard. Players assign a rating to slots, choose the most “lucky” ones, and even leave recommendations to developers about improving the gameplay and slot design.
An analysis of trends in the industry shows that the Asia-Pacific region and Africa annually increase 8% of turnover in slot machine games.
The latest slot machines offer customers an exciting story based on popular movies and cartoons.
In recent decades, such a concept as a slot club has appeared. Membership in such a club allows players to receive bonuses depending on their lost amount. Bonuses can be expressed in the form of free food, drinks, gifts, even accommodation in hotel rooms of the casino. Sometimes bonuses are paid even in cash. Just like in other clubs, bonuses depend on the time and amount of money that the player spends on slots.
Another trend in the development of the industry is the transition to mobile platforms. 56% of such mobile applications run on the Android platform. The remaining 44% are running on the iOS operating system. Though some mobile slots are cross-platform apps, which means they can work on both types of operating systems.
Mobile is turning to be the most popular way to play online slots.
In 2015, mobile app users made 20% of all bets. The year before (2014) this number was 14%. At the same time, the estimated revenue from betting on mobile devices worldwide amounted to 11.4 billion US dollars in 2015. In 2019, the revenue is indicated for a total of 53.73 billion US dollars, and by 2025, 85% of the slots’ profit will come from the mobile application market.
Visa and MasterCard remain the most popular payment systems used by players, covering 31% of transactions for slot machine services. The remaining part is shared by other payment systems, with cryptocurrency payments gaining popularity. Cryptocurrencies cover about 13% of the total amount of payments in 2020.
At the same time, experts predict that the introduction of VR and AR technologies will give a huge boost to the development of the industry. These technologies are changing the face of all types of human activities. So major market players invest in VR and AR projects including the development of new slots.
The slot machine industry is remarkably affordable and profitable for operators and some users. So there is no doubt that it will keep on developing, attracting new engineering and information technologies.