Online Slots History

River Belle Online Casino prides itself on its online slots games, but the history of slots machines predates the internet by nearly 100 years...

The Origins of Slots

The first slot machine ever built was developed in 1891 by the American Company Sittman & Pitt (from New York) and was based on an earlier slots machine design by Charles Fey of San Francisco. The Sittman & Pitt slot machine consisted of five drums holding a total of fifty cards and was based on the game of poker. It proved to be a highly popular form of gambling entertainment and soon many bars had one or more of these early slot machines on the premises.

Another early slots machine, that dispensed fruit flavoured gum instead of money, had pictures of the different “fruit” flavours available on the reels. This gave us the modern day Cherry and Melon symbols so often seen in slots games. The now common BAR symbol was also originally found in this game and stood for the Bell-Fruit Gum Company.

Today Online Slots games are the direct descendents of these “old style” slots machines. In fact it is estimated that there are over 30 million slots players worldwide. This makes slots games one of the most popular forms of casino entertainment available today.

Slots History Facts

Did you know?

• The payment of food prizes from slot machines was a commonly used technique to avoid anti-gambling laws in America
• The first fully electronic slot machine was called Money Honey and was developed by Bally Technologies in 1963
• Slots are also known as one-armed bandits because slot machines were originally operated by a lever on the side of the machine instead of a button on the front panel. Many modern slots machines still have a "legacy lever" in addition to the button
• Slot machines are one of the most popular forms of gambling and constitute about 70 percent of most casino's income
• All modern online slot machine are designed using Random Number Generators, which are constantly generating random number sequences.
• Modern slots machines are programmed to pay out as winnings 82–98% of the money that is wagered by players
• Slots are also known as one-armed bandits because slot machines were originally operated by a lever on the side of the machine instead of a button on the front panel. Many modern slots machines still have a "legacy lever" in addition to the button