Slots and pokies are some of the oldest gambling games in the modern world. They saw their beginnings in the beginning of the 20th century, and also have attracted a vast audience since. Here is an overview of slot machine game history and how they will have developed over the years.
The first ever version of the slot machine was observed in 1891. Pittman and Sachs created a machine with five drums, each showing poker hand symbols. When players would win at these games, the machine would not pay out; rather, the bar housing them would provide players with drinks.
It will be four more years before Charles Fey would create the version of the slot machine game with which we are most acquainted today. The machine provided players with cash payouts when it revealed matching symbols. The popularity of these games caught on rapidly, until anti-gambling groups enacted a ban on slot machines in the first 20th century.
The ban only lasted a couple of years, and it wasn’t long before slots became popular again in casinos. It was during the 1950s that slot machines started to become popular around the world. In 1953, Australian gaming company Aristocrat took note of the new trend and decided to manufacture its own brand of electronic gaming machines called pokies. The business’s first machine was called the ‘Clubman’.
Although it would be quite some time before we’d see online slots, casinos in NEVADA started making electronic slot machines, moving away from the typical, mechanical slot games that had become popular over the years. These machines were better than mechanical slots and managed to get more difficult for folks to cheat casinos. During this time period, electronic slots also saw the invention of the random number generator which made playing slots a lot more unpredictable.
On the next few decades, slots would remain the same. It wouldn’t be until the turn of the Century that people begin seeing the advent of online slots. The first online slots games were seen around 2001, once the first internet casinos went live. Companies like Microgaming got on the floor floor, creating a number of the first online slot machines open to the public.
For the past a decade, slots have become probably the most popular games at online casinos, in addition to creating over 80% of land-based casino revenue. In the internet, players can find a huge selection of different online slots games, a lot of which feature fun and inventive themes. Players are also able to find a wide variety of branded and themed slots games, featuring innovative gaming technology.
