At Slotssons.co.uk, we aim to provide casino players with the very best from the casino world. In this section, you will get access to reviews of all the popular slot machines on the market, as well as a chance to try the games out for free. Browse our list of online slots reviews in order to find your own personal favorites, then pick out a casino that offers a generous bonus with which you can play these games.
The History of The Slot Machine
The slot machine, which has become the staple of the gambling history, has a humble beginning to say the very least. Dating back to 1895, the first slot machine was created in San Francisco, California by a man called Charles Fey. Fey was a mechanic and his first slot machine, known as the Liberty Bell, was a modern marvel of mechanics, making use of levers and reels.
Humble beginnings
The original slot machine, the Liberty Bell, had three reels and used playing cards as the symbols. Each reel would also have one cracked Liberty Bell, with this being the original bonus symbol. Using a lever controlled the machine and you played by pulling it directly down and watching the reels spin. The reels would stop and you won the jackpot if you were able to line up three liberty bells. Back then the jackpot would barely be considered a minimum bet today because it was just 50 cents, but that was certainly a lot of money back then. These machines were popular right from the get-go and it didn’t take long for the slot machine to take over the scene.
From cash to candy
Like everything fun, it didn’t take too long for slot machines to be banned. They were banned as soon as 1902 in some states, but of course this didn’t stop Fey or the other people that had begun making them by this point. This was the time when playing cards were swapped out and replaced with fruit and the term fruit machine was born. They also used candy and gum as prizes. This allowed people to manoeuvre past the gambling ban, as people weren’t winning money, but it still gave people the chance to enjoy the fun and thrills of slots play.
Growing pains
For a long time the slot machine was purely mechanical. You pulled the lever and watched the reels spin round. There’s an odd satisfaction to just pulling the lever and feeling as the motor pulls and controls the reels. In a way it makes people feel in power of the machine, but in order to remain relevant slot machines had to evolve beyond being “just this”.
It may have taken a long time but eventually modern technology finally caught up with the slot machine. By the time the 1960s rolled around, roughly 70 years after the first slot machine was created, the first electromechanical slot machines were introduced. One of the most famous electromechanical slot machines is Bally’s “Money Honey”. It didn’t take too long for the electromechanical slot machines to be replaced by purely electrical machines. This happened in the 1980s when machines powered by microprocessors came around.
In the interest of fairness
Using a purely electric machine like this allowed casino slots machines to take bigger bets. Bigger bets led to bigger payouts. This extra thrill made slot machines even more popular and almost every leisure club and hotel in the world had some form of slot machine to offer visitors. After the Random Number Generator was created slot machines were improved even more and became yet more popular. Random Number Generators are computer programs that are able to simulate the spinning reels of a slot machine and create a truly random outcome from the spin. After the Random Number Generator was created the basic one-armed bandit machines started to fade away. Slot machines could be controlled using a simple button rather than a lever. The technology led to brand new slot machines being created. It made it possible for manufacturers to create slot machines based on literally any theme they could imagine and allowed for the creation of multiple payout lines.
All things progressive
Random Number Generators also allowed for the creation of the progressive jackpot slot machine. A progressive jackpot allows for several slot machines, even slot machines across different casinos, to be connected electronically. Whenever people use one of the connected machines it contributes to the overall jackpot shared by all the machines. There is no end to a progressive jackpot. It just keeps on growing until someone is lucky enough to win it. Given time, this style of play would go on to redefine the industry.
Artistry and evolution
The biggest evolution of the slot machine, since the Liberty Bell was first invented, came with the creation of the online casino. Online casinos really came to prominence during the 1990s. Online casinos, much like regular land casinos, used slot machines as their main attraction and source of income. Thousands of people now enjoy slot machines online without having to leave their home. An online slot machine is able to deliver everything that a regular slot machine can and give back even more. The sights and sounds of the online slot machine make it better than any land based slot machine, as long as you are betting at a fully licensed and certified casino.
Breaking the bank
An online casino offers just as many progressive jackpots as a land based casino. Because so many people are playing these slot machines the progressive jackpot can, and often has, reached more than seven figures. The Internet helps connect slot machines and allows for slot machines from different casinos entirely to be connected. As a result thousands of people are playing connected slot machines and eventually one lucky player is going to come along and win the big jackpot. Online slot machines also allow for super small bets. There are online slot machines where you can play for as little as one cent. Providing a lot of fun for a low price, online slot machines are something that everyone can enjoy, especially when you factor free slots and free slot games into the equation. Yes, saying it how it is, online slots have evolved to a point where free slots and free slot games are a possibility.
Growing possibilities
The possibilities are endless when it comes to casino slots machines, as each day brings something fresh in the form of a brand new game or a technological tweak to. The wide variety in graphics and themes also provides a lot of fun for players. They’re sometimes called video slots. There are even casinos online dedicated to slot machines. Many of the casinos that you’ll find in our lists of recommendations will have several hundred different online slots UK and constantly adds to their collection with new machines introduced each month.
Going toe-to-toe
After the online slot machine was developed it was only a matter of time before someone decided to create an online slots UK tournament. During these tournaments players from all around the world connect together and put their skills to the test in order to win big. The largest of these online slot tournaments was called the World Series of Slots. It took place at the aforementioned All Slots Casino and the grand prize was a whopping $500,000.
Stepping into the future
Slot games may have come a long way from the days of the Liberty Bell, a machine created in the garage of a mechanic. Charles Fey was likely unable to even conceive that his humble little machine would become the slots online powerhouse that we see today. We’ll always remember the “one armed bandit” and the humble fruit machine, but these things are slowly becoming a piece of history, as technology advances and more people move on to online slot games. No one can tell what the future of the slot machine holds, but considering what has come before, we’re looking forward to it!