How Slot Machines Evolved Slots were banned for a while starting with 1902, but in 1907 Herbert Mills launched a new machine that bypassed this ban. The slot was the first to feature fruit symbols on the reels, and it gave payouts in the form of sweets, such as chewing gum, instead of cash. Despite the evolution of slot machines and reel symbols being comprised of just about anything, many video slots still choose to use classic fruit symbols. The likes of Double Bubble, one of the most popular video slots around, draws on classic features and symbols while still providing players with a modern spinning experience. The machine was aptly named as “Money Honey”. With the evolution and developments of slot machines, the newer technologies were introduced every now and then. Slot machines were now being installed with speakers and music systems. Some slot machines started to have an automated voice reacting towards the win or loss of players.
Have you ever heard of a man named Charles D. Fey? It’s alright if you haven’t, as we cannot see many people knowing who the man is, despite his invention of one of the most played gambling games in the history of the world. This man invented the slot machine back in the late 1800s by designing the Liberty Bell machine—a game that would very quickly sweep the world.
It is no exaggeration to say that, without Charles D. Fey, the slot industry may not even exist, and it certainly wouldn’t exist in the same capacity as it does now. But things have changed a lot since the early days of his invention, specifically with the way that slot developers are using symbols. Let’s take a look at the history of slot machine symbols before the best online casino slots surfaced.
The First Slot Machine Symbols
If you want to understand the history of slot machine symbols, the first thing to focus on are the symbols that were used by Charles D. Fey when he originally designed the Liberty Bell slot machine. As you might well garner from the name of his machine, the highest paying symbols available on the reels were the liberty bells themselves, and these subsequently became common high paying symbols in the early days of slots.
Other icons used by Charles D. Fey include standard playing card symbols that were used in the few machines before the Liberty Bell took off and can be still be seen in slot machines today. There were also horseshoes and stars thrown in the mix. When compared to modern slot machines, it is clear that the first slot machine symbols set the blueprint for many other slots that have come after.
Popular Wave of Slot Machine Symbols
Although the Liberty Bell slot quickly swept across California and rest of the US after its creation, it actually took quite a while longer for slots to become commonplace. That is largely because of a gambling ban that lasted until the early to mid-1900s, something that effectively stifled any innovation from slot machine developers.
However, after this was lifted the slot industry underwent a massive expansion, spearheaded by places such as Las Vegas. This, in turn, brought a new wave of symbols that we all know and love, for example the various fruits that are associated with fruit machines.
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Video Slots and Evolving Symbols
The discovery of the RNG (Random Number Generator) in the 1980s paved the way for purely digitalized slot machines in the shape of video slots, something that meant that there were an almost infinite set of new possibilities when it came to devising new symbols. While the icons used on slot machines in the past had to be printed on physical metal plates, they could now be programmed with software, meaning that quite literally anything was possible.
This resulted in a number of slots that had icons specialized to their particular theme, something we still see today. The emergence of video slots was a key moment in the continued innovation of slot symbols, you cannot argue with that!
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Evolution Of The Slot Machines
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There are at least two different accounts of the original invention of slot machines. One is that the first device was the Liberty Bell machine, invented by an American named Charles Fey in 1887.
It was relatively simple, featuring just three reels and five symbols: a Liberty Bell (hence the name) along with a horseshoe, a heart, a diamond, and a spade.
The other version is that Fey didn’t develop his machine until later, in 1895, and that the first device was in fact inaugurated in 1891 by two men named Sittman and Pitt. This machine wasloosely based on poker, although there were only 50 cards used.
These 50 cards were featured on five spinning drums (10 on each), which would display a five-card poker hand on each spin. The better the hand displayed, the more a player could win.
Evolution Of Slot Machines
There were some similarities and differences between these two devices. Both required a player to pull a lever to start the reels or drums spinning, and it was this aspect that led to slotmachines being known as one-armed bandits.
The basic principle of both was also the same in that players inserted a coin and won certain amounts based on the result of the spin.
One of the main differences between the two was that the Liberty Bell had a mechanism that automatically dispensed coins depending on the result of the spin, while the machine developed bySittman and Pitt did not.
There were many more possible combinations due to the five reels instead of three and the use of playing cards instead of just a few symbols.
It was perhaps this key difference that made the Liberty Bell the more popular of the two. Although both devices were produced in numbers and installed in bars, saloons, and other venues, it wasthe Liberty Bell that really started the slot machine boom.
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Other companies soon began to manufacture their versions of these early devices, and the slots industry was well and truly established.