Jackpots Index

History of Slot Machine

But where these machines originated and how they came about is an interesting piece of knowledge for both gamblers and non-gamblers alike. It started in 1891 in Brooklyn, New York when Sittman and Pitt engineered a gambling machine that could have been the early descendant of the modern slot machine. The machine has five drums that hold fifty card faces based on poker. The machine became very popular in bars in the city.

The machine only requires a player to insert a nickel and press the lever, which spins the drums and the cards. The player who gets a good poker hand gets a variety of pay outs. In those days the pay out vary from bar to bar. A pair of kings could pay out a free beer; a royal flush could pay out cigars or free drinks. The pay outs are wholly dependent on what the establishment offers.

The house edge for the establishments during that time were very minimal, so in order to get better odds, they removed two cards from the deck; the ten of spades and jack of hearts, which reduced the odds of getting a royal flush by fifty percent. The drums were also re-arranged to further reduce a player's odds.

The one-armed bandit invented by Charles Fey in San Francisco in 1887 has a much simpler automated mechanism. It has a wide array of possible wins based on the original poker game, and there is certainly no way to make the machine capable of giving out an automatic prize for all possible combinations.

Charles Fey invented a machine with three revolving cylinders having five symbols that replaced then cards. Theses symbols are diamonds, horseshoes, spades, hearts and a Liberty Bell, which gave the new improved machine its name. The three cylinders replaced the original five wheels which made the mechanism of the machine more complex and the odds of winning reduced.

This allowed Charles Fey to develop an efficient automated pay out system for the machine. The three combinations of the Liberty Bell have the biggest pay off of ten nickels.

The machine, Liberty Bell, created a buzz in the gaming industry and the demands for the machine is endless. Though in Fey's home state the machines were banned for quite sometime, but in other cities and states the demand for the game has made him busy.

Another machine during the earlier years gave out fruit-flavored gums with pictures of the symbols on the slot machine reels. The first automatic slot machine called the Money Honey was developed by Bally in 1964, giving rise to the modern and computerized versions of today.