Slots now anchor almost every casino lobby, on the gaming floor and online, yet they began life as a novelty in bars and cigar shops. The word “slot machine” once described almost any coin-operated vending device. Tracing how the game changed over more than a century explains a lot about why modern slots look and play the way they do, and hints at where they are heading next.
1891: a poker game on drums
The story usually starts with a machine built by Sittman and Pitt in 1891. It held 50 playing cards on five drums, and the aim was to finish with the strongest possible poker hand. In other words, the ancestor of every modern slot was a poker machine. Prizes were not paid by the machine itself; the venue handed them out.
Charles Fey and the Liberty Bell
A few years later, in the mid-1890s, Charles Fey produced the Liberty Bell, widely regarded as the first true slot machine. It replaced the card drums with three spinning reels and just five symbols: horseshoes, spades, diamonds, hearts and a cracked Liberty Bell. Because the reels were simpler, the machine could pay out automatically, and players loved it. Fey did not sell his machines; he leased them to venues and kept 50% of the takings.
The next big change came in 1907, when fruit symbols joined the original card suits. Cherries, lemons and plums have been part of slot imagery ever since, which is why players still call them fruit machines in some countries.
1963: Bally goes electromechanical
The first electromechanical slot came from Bally, a name that remains well known in casino gaming. Released in 1963, Money Honey was a three-reel game that still used a pull lever. Levers like it gave slots the nickname “one-armed bandit”, which survives today for the whole category even though buttons and touchscreens replaced the handle long ago.
1976: the screen replaces the reels
Advances in audio and video technology in the early 1970s opened the way to video slots. In 1976 the Fortune Coin Company introduced Fortune Coin, a slot that showed its symbols on a modified Sony television instead of mechanical reels. It made its debut at the Las Vegas Hilton. Two years later, in 1978, IGT bought the company.
1986: progressive jackpots go networked
IGT delivered the next leap as well. In 1986 it launched Megabucks, the first networked progressive jackpot slot. Instead of a fixed top prize, machines in different casinos fed one shared pool that kept growing until someone won it. Linked over telephone lines, the network meant IGT guaranteed the starting jackpot of up to $1 million, while anything above that depended on how much was played. In 1987 a player in Reno landed the first Megabucks jackpot, worth close to $5 million.
The bonus round arrives
For several years after that, slots changed little. Then WMS released Reel ’Em In, the first slot to send players to a second screen for a bonus round. Triggering it opened an entirely separate mini-game with its own extra payouts. The idea of a bonus feature with its own presentation is now standard in almost every video slot.
The online era
Online slots took off in the late 1990s, alongside the first online casinos. Simple three-reel games gave way to detailed themes, bonus rounds and grids with many more reels and paylines. Compared with machines on a casino floor, online titles could offer more flexible and higher RTP settings and much lower minimum stakes. Australian developer Eyecon’s Temple of Isis is often credited as the first online slot.
Today’s games go much further. Megaways mechanics change the number of ways to win on every spin, up to 117,649 in the standard format. Networked progressive jackpots such as those in Microgaming’s Mega Moolah series regularly pay out millions. Slots now run on phones as smoothly as on desktops, with themes and payout structures that would have been hard to imagine in the early days of online gambling.
What comes next
Faster mobile networks such as 5G, together with virtual and augmented reality, point to slots that are more immersive still. NetEnt has already shown one direction with a VR version of Gonzo’s Quest: wearing a headset, the player stands in a 3D world with a full 360-degree view while the reels spin. How widely studios adopt such formats remains to be seen, but the slot has reinvented itself every few decades and there is little reason to think that will stop.
Building a slots offer today
For operators, the lesson of this history is that players follow innovation. A lobby needs classic three-reel games, feature-rich video slots and jackpot titles side by side. Our games catalogue lists 3,600+ titles from the studios behind those trends, and our Slots Bundle brings many of them together through one integration. New to the terms? Our glossary explains classic slots, the bonus feature and the progressive slot.
Written and reviewed by the iGaming Software Solutions Editorial Team.