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A Brief History of the Slot Machine and 243 Ways to Win at Slots

From The Liberty Bell To The One Armed Bandit

The first modern slot machines were an invention of Bavarian mechanic, Charles August Fey. In the year 1984, he successfully created his first coin-operated gambling machine. He used an existing poker model but changed the drums to reels and replaced the playing cards with hearts, diamonds, spades, horseshoes and a liberty bell. His invention was later called the Liberty Bell but as he hadn’t patented the machine, it was later copied by many.

During the nineteenth century, long before Mr Fey created the first official gambling machine, the first poker machine had been invented. The game had five drums with a total of fifty playing cards and cost a nickel to play. Players pulled the lever and if they won, the bar paid them in drinks, there were no money payouts at that time. The house edge was increased by the removal of two cards, the ten of spades and the jack of hearts. This halved the chances of getting a royal flush

In 1902 slot machines were officially banned but the Liberty Bell survived and continued to be manufactured. Money prizes were illegal, and prizes were chewing gum and sweets based on the corresponding fruit wins.

For many more years, slot machines remained mechanical with a lever that needed to be pulled to set the reels in motion. As there were springs that stretched and gradually stopped as the reels stopped spinning, players felt they had control. The “one-armed bandit” was born. By 1964, Money Honey was released with a payout of five hundred coins, and by 1976 the first video slot was developed. Slots as we know them, with different screens and payouts on bonus rounds came into existence in 1996. “Reel ‘Em” was exciting! Two interchanging screens and multiple prizes and suddenly the casino started seeing real money. These machines generated seventy% of the casino’s income but took up seventy% of the space!

It was around the middle of the 1990’2 when the gaming boom happened. Initially, the only games available were the traditional ones, such as roulette and blackjack, but soon slots were added.

243 Payline Slot Machines

At first glance, these slots are a little confusing because they appear to have 243 paylines while at the same time, they eliminate paylines altogether. Players are not limited to paylines but can collect as long as they land several identical symbols on consecutive reels.

Software developers using a simple little mathematics to get to this number, 243. Three are three visible symbols on each reel and for five reel machines, the number of possible combinations would be the number three to the fifth power, which equals precisely 243. At first glance these machines seem expensive to play, but they aren’t when you compare them to a regular paying machine. If you play a slot with fifteen paylines and bet ten coins with a value of two cents, your wager per spin would be three euros. However, if you decide to play the 243 Ways to Win slot, your wager might increase somewhat, but then so do your winning opportunities increase dramatically and your chance of getting a payout does too.