The History of Slot Machine
In 1891 Sittman and Pitt of Brooklyn, New York developed a gambling machine that could be considered as a precursor to the modern slot machine. Based on poker, it contained 5 drums holding a total of 50 card faces. This machine became extremely famous and soon a lot of bars in the city had one or more of the machines beside the bars.
The player hoping for a good poker hand would insert a nickel and pulla lever, which would spin the drums and the cards they held. There were no direct payout mechanism then. The prizes were dependent on what the local establishment offered then. For example, if a player got a pair of kings he or she could have a free beer, or if the players got a Royal Flush he or she could have cigars or drinks.
Typically two cards were removed from the "deck" to make the odds better for the house. These were the Ten of Spades and the Jack of Hearts, which cut the odds of winning a Royal Flush by half. To extend the player's streak of winning be reduced the drums could also be modified. Charles Fey of San Francisco, California invented the first "one-armed bandit" in 1887. He devised a simpler automatic mechanism. Because of the huge number of possible wins with the original poker card-based game, it seemed practically impossible to come up with a way to make the machine capable of making an automatic pay-out for all possible combinations.
Including five total symbols, these were the diamonds, spades, horseshoes, Liberty Bell and a heart, it is Charles Fey who made the machine attached with three reels. This also gave the machine its name. He replaced ten cards with five symbols and used three reels instead of five drums. Through this the complexity of reading a win was considerably reduced, alllowing Fey to make an effective automatic pay-out mechanism.
With ten nickels, the biggest payoff was produced by three bells in a row. Because of its huge success, Liberty Bell created a growing mechanical gaming device industry. After a few years these machines were banned from homes in the state. Even if these happened Fey still could not hold on with the great demand for the slot machine somewhere else.
One of the early machines gave out winnings usually it is a chewing gums with a fruit flavored and attached with pictures of the fruits as seen on the symbols on the reels. Derived from this machine were the popular cherry and melon symbols. The first fully electromechanical slot machine called Money Honey was developed by Bally in 1964.
