The History of Slots

The slot machine is not just the only casino game that is 100 percent American in origin - it is also the most popular casino game today.

Slot machines have been around for over 100 years, thanks to Charles Fey, the inventor of these enticing, compelling and addicting coin operated machines. It was as early as 1894 that Fey began to manufacture slot machines from his workshop in San Francisco. Five years later, he hit the jackpot when he created the classic three reel slot machine called “Liberty Bell”.

Fay’s “Liberty Bell” was a huge hit and generated a booming gambling machine industry. And even though slot machines became banned in his home state California, he had a hard time keeping up with the demand for the machines in other states. In his original machine, the symbols on the reels included liberty bells, horse shoes, diamonds, spades, and hearts. However, another early machine manufacturer, which gave out winnings in form of chewing gums, used other symbols on their machines that became much more famous - Who does not recognize the cherries, lemons, plums and oranges of a conventional slot machine?

During the mid 1930s that slot machines had taken America by storm, and during the late 1940s Bugsy Siegel himself installed slot machines in his Flamingo Hilton hotel in Las Vegas. From the beginning, the machines were put in to entertain the otherwise bored wives and girlfriends of the high rollers at the tables. However, the proceeds from the slots soon began to supercede the ones from the table games. By the 1990s, slots had basically taken over the casino industry, and it is estimated that about 2/3 of casino revenues in America today are machine-based.