The first slot machine game was conceived in 1895 by Charles Fey. He then improved on this slot invention in 1905, by creating the Mills Liberty Bell slot machine, together with the Mills Novelty Company. This early type of slots game was in the form of a very heavy cast iron machine that contained three spinning reels. At this time, the early slots offered cigarettes or sweets as prizes. The reels of these early mechanical slot machines displayed symbols such as bells and the images on playing cards. This exciting form of entertainment that was originally located in bars and tobacco shops became increasingly popular.
During the early twentieth century there was much opposition to gambling in the US. Slot machine gambling was prohibited in San Francisco, Nevada and then later all over California. Playing slots for US players became increasingly difficult as many slot machines were ordered into the sea in the 1930s. However, the sturdy slot hung on and managed to survive.
The 1960s brought about an electronic revolution for the casino slot machine. This change made cheating on the part of the players more difficult. In addition, at this time casino owners began to offer larger prizes at the slots games. Video slot machines were introduced to the land based casinos in the 1970s. This form of slot machine game became more popular together with the launch of video poker in the 1980s.
The introduction of the best online casinos to the Internet in the mid 1990s appears to have changed the face and fortune of the US slot game forever. Certain adaptations were obviously made in order to transform the traditional slot into an on line slot machine. However, the online slots machines are still easy to learn and play. The basic idea of the slot game remains the same. This make-over proved to be a very successful action, as nowadays online slot machine games occupy a large part of the online casino scene.
At their first appearance as an online form of entertainment the online slot machines were very simple, but very quickly progressed into more elaborate slot machine games. With technological advances, the development of slots software became more enriched and different types of online slot play soon became available.
Over the years, the first early slot machine or one arm bandit has been transformed into an online slot, a bonus slot and a video slot machine. These days, online slots for US players include progressive slot machine games and slot tournaments. The resemblance of today's online slot to the original slot machines remains, although there are many modern gamers that do prefer to play slots on line.