What is a slot machine?
Although we know that it is not necessary to tell you what a slot machine or slot machine is, we do not want to miss the opportunity to refer to a couple of curiosities about this invention . The younger ones will wonder why the name. Formerly, in New Zealand it was denominated at 5 cents of peseta bitch girl . Be it was the coins that the machine originally "swallowed” , so to speak. In some places of Latin America the qualifier traganíqueles is also in use, due to the metal, nickel, used to mint coins, for example, in Cuba and Puerto Rico or also in Portuguese it is called machine caça-nickel . Today, the English term slot it has been accepted and is widely used especially to refer to the machines that we find on online casino platforms.
The first machines were based on the poker deck , so it can be said that the video poker machines today they are replicas of the authentic precursors of slots.
With a nickel, the reels were activated waiting to get a good hand. The prizes did not consist of money , but in what the establishment where the machine was located offered, whether they were cigarettes, beer or anything else. Another of the prizes were chewing gums, the flavors appearing on the reels of the machine, hence the fruit symbols in traditional slots. Another of the first symbols is that of the bells, but to know what it is about here we have to first tell the story of Charles Fey.
Charles Fey and Liberty Bell
The first automatic machines based on the game of poker they existed before the invention of Fey . But its reel mechanism was complicated and the winning combinations wide, making it practically impossible for the machine to pay all. Fey was a German emigrant who settled in San Francisco as a mechanic working for the Western Electric Works, the electrical engineering company that manufactured components for AT&T, one of the largest telephone companies since its founding as the Bell Telephone Company in 1875.
But Fey was also a passionate casino player. In his spare time he spent modifying machines , when the idea came to him to build an automatic gaming machine that would simplify the existing ones. Fey built it with 3 reels, which each rotated independently of the other, and with 5 symbols instead of the 10 poker cards used to date for 5 reels, 50 cards in total. The 5 symbols were: horseshoes, diamonds, swords, hearts and bells. The slot machine had become definitively independent of the poker game.
The machine became a resounding success and allowed Fey to found his own company in 1895 in Berkeley in which he devoted himself to the production and improvement of his machine. Fey did not sell the machine, but rented it to the locals , especially salons, barbershops, shops... and brothels, in exchange for a percentage of the profits, usually 50/50. The demand was so great that Fey was not able to satisfy it, having to get together with a Chicago company in 1907 thus founding the Bell Machines .
Fey named his machine Liberty Bell in tribute to the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. As is known, the chimes of the Liberty Bell brought citizens together in 1776 for the reading of the Declaration of Independence. The bell symbol thus became a regular of slot machines , the ones that allowed the German emigrant Charles Fey to live the American dream.
Slot machines today
A lot has rained since the invention of the good by Charles Fey. In 1910 Bell Machines brought the first fruit machine to the market , which was a milestone by expanding the symbols and creating one of the standards that has survived the most, next to that of the bells. Later, in 1963 Bally Technologies invented the first electromechanical machine, making something from the past the usual lever for actuating the machine.
Today, computer technology has extended the possibilities of slot machines to unthinkable limits by Fey. The options are innumerable and developers are striving to create new and innovative features that will appeal to gamers and enthusiasts of this entertainment. On our dedicated page you can check the huge variety that exists today . Nevertheless, the basic principle created by Charles Fey, a series of independently spinning reels creating random combinations of symbols, remains. Otherwise, we would not be talking about slot machines but about something else.
