* Back in the day, 3-reel slots with mechanical systems reigned supreme. These gave rise to video slots and later online slots games.
* Today's slots feature powerful technology, including touchscreen functionality and cash handling solutions.
* Video and online slots are packed with unique in-game elements, including mystery jackpots, pick-a-prize bonus elements, and wheel spins.
The runaway popularity of online slot machine games and the meteoric rise of video slots is no coincidence: both are legit phenomena in iive casinos and online casinos worldwide.
Both video slots and online slots work similarly – RNGs (random number generators), amazing audio-visual effects, multi-payline action, 3D animation, unique bonus games, gamble features, expanding reels, collapsing reels, and so much more.
However, tremendous innovation was required to get online slots and video slots to this point. A fantastic journey of discovery had to grab players' attention and keep them captivated with these dynamic games. Innovation, ingenuity, and invention are at the heart of modern-day slots.
Players today focus on how to win at the slots, but none of this would be possible were it not for the fab inventions that began with the 3-reel slot machine games with mechanical reels back in the day. Thanks to a gentleman out of San Francisco, much of this is possible. His name was Charles August Fey.
INTRODUCING CASH HANDLING SOLUTIONS FOR SLOTS
Simply put, cash handling includes all payment-related options for online casinos. They also include paper money bill validators and ticket payment options for brick-and-mortar casinos.
In the early days of online casino operations, players needed to plan for real money gaming. Accounts had to be set up ahead of time to ensure that casinos could complete all necessary identity verification. In the 1990s, credit cards were problematic in the United States since they were banned from transferring funds to online casinos.
The only other option available to players was paper checks. These had to be mailed into the online casino – you can imagine the processing delays. Again, players had to wait for checks to clear before their casino accounts were funded. Similarly, the payouts were equally problematic – they were made in paper checks sent from the casino back to players.
Nowadays, it's all about convenience. The majority of money transfers are electronic today. But, of course, certain jurisdictions such as New Jersey (New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement) allow deposits to be made in cash at a live casino to fund player accounts at one of the partner online casinos. This is known as a Cash at Cage funding option.
But that constitutes a small percentage of all funding – most transfers today are done via bank transfers, e-wallets (NETELLER, Skrill, Interac and PayPal), et cetera. Of course, credit cards such as Visa, MasterCard, and American Express are also popular options for online casinos.
It would be impossible to enjoy popular games like penny slots at bricks and mortar casinos without ticket printers and bill validators in place.
Slot machine games paid players in tokens and coins for the longest time. First, these had to be collected in a container and taken over to the change booth at the casino cashier. Then, just like at banks, casinos used a counting machine to determine the total amount payable to the player.
Of course, that was doable when players used quarters and dollars to play slots. But then came multi-line video slots with smaller coin values – those presented a challenge to the casinos. A C$100 payoff comprised of 400 quarters or 100 dollar coins is a walk in the park compared to a penny slot machine game which requires 10,000 pennies to pay C$100. Technology change was needed.
At the time, slot machines made payouts with thousands of coins in the coin baskets. This meant that attendants had to refill hoppers before slot machines were available for play. This was an inefficient allocation of resources and a sub-optimal way for casinos to run their slots. But there were other challenges faced by the casinos, notably the continual jamming taking place with coin hoppers, especially with pennies. With all this downtime, no bets were being placed, and casinos were miffed.
It wasn't until ticket printers were universally available that casinos added multi-line penny video slots. This meant that players could enjoy payments in bar-coded tickets. These could be exchanged for cash at the cashier without worrying about slot machines being refilled with actual currency – no more money jams. But more importantly, there was no need to stock the slot machines and no need to stop play either.
This was the watershed moment where video slots replaced mechanical slots!
TOUCH SCREENS ON SLOTS
Whenever you play online slots from your iPad, iPhone, tablet, or phablet, you initiate the game sequence by clicking the bet/spin button on your screen. Your screen senses your finger and gets the reels spinning.
Much the same is true with the newer versions of laptops and MacBooks – you can touch your screen to initiate slot spins or use the mouse, mouse pad, or keyboard to perform the same functions.
Now let's switch over to land-based casinos for a moment. Many video slots games allow players to touch the screen and use on-screen buttons to get the reels spinning. And then, the pick-a-prize bonuses require players to touch the screen and select a gift box. You can also click the screen to interact with the in-game elements, such as the cat with Breakfast at Tiffany's, or make the alien disappear in the slot machine, et cetera.
We know that this new-age technology is worlds apart from what things were like back in the day. We can go back in slot history to uncover just how rudimentary these machines were at the time. Slots were known as one-arm bandits because you pulled a lever to make the mechanical reels spin. Later on, the levers were replaced by buttons.
Believe it or not, touch screens weren't available to video slot players until the early 2000s. Ironically, rudimentary versions of them were invented in 1965. However, it wasn't until the Atari personal computer in 1985 that touch screens became available. This type of technology has become available for widespread use in video slot games in the years since.
WHAT ARE PICK-A-PRIZE BONUSES IN SLOTS?
The public needed something to separate mechanical slots from video slots. If there was nothing to differentiate these two, the changes would have been slow coming. Instead, video slots paved the way for online slots, and this is how it happened. One of the earliest known solutions which gave video slots their big break was the pick-a-prize bonus.
One such game that made everybody stand up and take notice was WMS Gaming and its Reel ‘Em In slot machine game, released in 1997. Players needed to hit 3X fishing lures on the screen to trigger fishermen on a pond. The player was tasked with selecting a fisherman. Your selection would catch a fish – the bigger the fish, the bigger the prize. Players got more credits for bigger fish.
If you think about it, it's an ingenious concept, but it's simple and elegant in execution. This provided the much-needed WOW factor for video slot games. The video slot machine games that mimicked mechanical slots from the early days failed.
Believe it or not, Pick-a-Prize Bonuses had origins in mechanical slots games. WMS Gaming began from the old Williams pinball company. They had been trying to get into the slots market for a long time, and they created many unique 3-reel slot games. These included screens above the reels known as Dotmation, where orange dots created the images.
Remember the game Jackpot Party? It used Dotmation technology. In one of the first bonus elements of the game, the screen would begin with multiple rows of rectangles comprised of dots. Next, players utilized button panels to select rectangles. These would change them into bonus credit values.
This 3-reel slot machine game had a pretty sizeable following. However, it took about a year to become successful as a video slot game. Thanks to innovative gameplay in the reel version that helped to pave the way for the popular video slots and online slots games we enjoy so much.
SLOTS PRIZE WHEELS
The prize wheel had origins in the mechanical-reels era of slots. This bonus favourite is available on popular 3-reel, online and video slots such as the Wheel of Fortune. There are many other games and providers using slots prize wheels. Each wheel is split up into sections, a.k.a., wedges. Wherever the wheel lands with the arrow pointing at it, determines the value of bonus credits to be awarded to the player. Sometimes, these lead to progressive jackpots and even additional bonus events.
Back in 1996, the very first Prize Wheel was used in Wheel of Gold by Anchor Gaming. It was attached to the rear of Bally slant-top three reel slots. The wheel was located at the top of the tower. When a winning symbol landed on the reels, the player would be alerted by a sound. The tone indicated that the player should depress a button to start spinning the Prize Wheel.
It was a big hit right out of the gate! Whenever players heard that tone, fans around them stopped and watched the Prize Wheel for the first few months. Nowadays, wheel spins are part and parcel of the toolkit used by designers for online slot machine games and video slots. Players drew the inspiration from the early days of mechanical slots – that's how we got here!
MYSTERY JACKPOTS SLOTS
With online slots and video slots, players can place different-sized bets simultaneously. For example, Player A might be betting a couple of pennies per line, while Player B plays all the lines but bets a penny per line.
It's way different from 3-reel mechanical slots games. These slots are configured with just one payline, and players can bet either 1, 2, or 3 coins. With progressive jackpots slots, players were required to bet three coins to be jackpot eligible.
Not too long after video slots went mainstream, gaming developers determined that despite varying bet sizes among players, only a small number of slots players bet the maximum coins.
This presented a challenge to casinos: How is it possible to offer the identical jackpots to players betting different amounts and still make it fair to everyone?
That's where mystery jackpots come into the picture. There are many different mystery systems, but Acres Gaming developed the most commonly used one. This one allows slot operators to determine jackpot parameters. As an example, many jackpots on multi-level progressives can require bets of at least C$5, with maximums of C$25.
RNGs (random number generators) determine a total between the min/max amounts. Then, a percentage of the bets is added to the jackpot prize pool until a player wins (by hitting the number set by the RNG). The jackpot is then paid out to the player bet that nudged the prize pool to the winning amount.
In this fashion, a player who consistently plays at the minimum bet value also has a chance of winning. But, a player who bets more has additional opportunities to one with every coin that is wagered. This has the effect of nudging the jackpot over the threshold. All players are eligible for jackpots, but those players who bet more have additional chances at winning at slots.
We all know that progressive jackpot slots are hugely popular among players, and this solution is what made it possible for video slots and online slots players to enjoy them. Like pick-a-prize bonuses, wheel spins, touchscreen technology, and cash handling solutions, developers required inspiration to bring these features of video and online slots to players worldwide.
