Published by Programme B
Whilst the gambling industry has been gargantuan for several hundred years now, it has never been even close to the size that it enjoys today. Of course, humans have always loved to gamble; we can see that proved by the various historical discoveries over the years that point to human gambling as far back as several thousand years ago. But here’s the thing: in the 21st century, it seems that humans love to gamble far more than any other time in history.
And do you want to know what the main reason for this is? Online casino, of course. It is crazy to think that online casinos are only a few decades old because it has quite literally transformed the art of gambling. Online slots with free spins are undeniably the flagship games of online casinos, and as a result, they are subject to many online slot myths. Read on for a discussion into how and why they first appeared.
The first slot machine
In order to fully grasp how online slots appeared in the 21st century, we first have to go right back to the start of the story. In the late 1800s, there were some very rudimentary slot machines that could be found in Californian bars and saloons, however, their main drawback was the fact that the prizes had to be picked up from the bar itself, and they only came in the form of a free drink or cigar.
This all changed when an entrepreneurial mechanical engineer called Charles D. Fey decided to make some alterations, and ended up with the Liberty Bell slot machine. This was the first commercially viable slot machine, and the coolest thing was that the prize came out of the machine itself.
Popularisation of slot machines
Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s gambling across the US was still illegal, and for this reason, the initial popularisation of slot machines took a little while and tended to happen in slightly shady bars and saloons.
It didn’t take long for governments all around the world to loosen their grip on the gambling industry, however, and as soon as this happened slot machines got incredibly popular. By the 1960s there were millions of people playing slot machines, especially in places like Las Vegas.
Video slots and invention of the RNG
In the 1980s there was a huge moment of innovation in regard to slot machines, as developers finally cracked the RNG. RNG stands for Random Number Generator, and with this piece of technology, slot engineers could start creating video slots.
These video screens attracted a huge amount of interest, and by the end of the 80s, most companies had stopped making mechanical slot machines in favor of video slots.
The first online slots
The invention of video slots was also crucial to the later emergence of online slots, as online slots simply cannot work without an RNG. The first online slot is commonly accepted to have been made by Eyecon, and it didn’t take long for the industry to really kick-off.
Photo by Elijah O’Donnell from Pexels