With online casinos in so much demand, it’s almost hard to figure out where to begin. With so many online casino games available 24/7, you can literally spend hours browsing through the casino lobby to find your favorite game. Fortunately, this is a good problem because a sign of a worthy online casino has hundreds, if not thousands, of games available for all of its members. Without question, slots make up the majority of these games. It’s not shocking because slots offer some of the most diverse gameplay. With slots soaring in popularity, this guide helps walk you through the immense popularity of slots and how to get in on all the fun.
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The History of Slots
The first noted usage and known history of slot machines have roots in the late 1800s. In the early 1890s, the Sittman and Pitt company got credit for developing the prototype of today’s slot machines. The game symbols all consisted of poker-playing card numbers. Like today’s slot machines, the players at that time put in a quarter and pulled the crank to spin the five drums. Instead of getting three of a like symbol to land, the early prototype awarded winning combinations if the symbols formed a winning poker hand like a straight.
By 1895, Charles Fey created the first modern-day slot machine, known as “Liberty Bell.” This time, the slot machine had three reels and five paying symbols, including horseshoes. With the rise of brothels and saloons, although illegal, slot machines became extremely popular.
For those wondering how the legacy fruit-themed slot games that dominate real money and online sweepstakes casinos became so popular, you can thank Herbert Mills for developing the slot machine, “Operator Bell.” Operator Bell was the first to showcase the iconic fruit symbols like lemons and cherries that we all know and love today. In a unique twist, instead of paying winners cash, they often received candy or gum.
With the rise of legal casinos in the 1930s in Nevada, the popularity of slot machines really took off as a cultural American and, later, a global phenomenon. With World War 2 came new technology that further enhanced the slot machine process.
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Exploding Popularity
With the rise of Atlantic City Casinos in the 80s, the popularity of slot machines swept the entire country. With such a higher demand came the need for slot machine innovation. The call was answered by Fortune Coin in 1976. Fortune Coin is believed to be the first true video slot machine because it didn’t have the typical fruit or seven-themed slot style.
With Fortune Coin, slot players were treated to visuals instead of the usual mechanical reels. Ironically, this breakthrough would become the norm for online slots thirty years later.
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The Rise of Digital Slots
In the mid-90s, the future of slot games was born with the first wave of online casinos. While it seems like not much compared to today’s epic technology, the concept of online casinos was controversial with several countries like America originally opposed to them. For traditional slot players they had to use the dial-up modem to connect to offshore casinos to play three reel games that ran on the now defunct Flash technology.
As the 2010s emerged, broadband technology improved. With much-improved bandwidth, the major slot game developers like Real Time Gaming, Betsoft, and NetEnt quickly took advantage of the increased bandwidth. They also took advantage of the emerging HTML5 technology to produce the first wage of digital video slots.
From this springboard came a flood of new slot genres from everything from mythology to sports themes. Today’s online slots now use original concepts that are only available at their sites as a form of competition. This was also the period of the great American online casino expansion.
Since legalizing the first online casinos in 2012, the popularity of online slots continues to be off the charts. With the advent of megaway and hold-and-win slots, online slots began redefining themselves by increasing the reels from six to seven to now eight. And let’s not forget about the seven-figure jackpots that are widely available at most American online casinos.
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The Social Slot Experience
With the rise of social casinos, the name of the game is having fun with today’s top-tier online slots. Players can play for free these technological marvels thanks to gold coins. They can also play among their online peers in daily tournaments, making memories and making new friends.