Slot Machine

Slot Machine, aka Fruit Machine, aka Poker Machine is one of the most obvious casino games there are.

The machines are coin operated and have at least three reels that spin as soon as you pull the lever, which is usually situated on the right hand side of the machine. To play you have to insert a coin or a note into the machine, which has a currency detector, so it will be able to recognise and validate the amount you put in and give you the right amount if you win.

The slot machine is a pure luck game and therefore has an ability to leave the player empty-pocketed, which is why it is often informally called one-armed bandit.

The game will pay off when the pattern of symbols on the visible (front) of the machine when it stops. If the three reel windows show consistency in symbols, you usually get a very good pay-off.

Thanks to the modern computer technology there are now many different slot machine concepts. Slot Machines today are indeed the most popular casino gambling method, which is why they make up 70% of all casinos' gross income.

The origins of the slot machines come from Brooklyn, New York, where Sittman and Pitt developed a machine in 1891, which had 5 drums holding 50 card faces. This machine was based on poker, which is why in Australia they still call it poker machine. The machine proved very popular at that time and distributed across every single bar in the city with the speed of light. At that time, gamblers had to insert a nickel and pull a level, which would spin the drums, where the cards were held. All the player had to do while waiting is to hope for a good poker hand. The game did not have any payout, but the rewards were treats from the bar, i.e. three of a kind could get you a free round and a flush could get you snack and cigarettes with a pint. This means that your winnings depended solely on each particular bar's offer of the day.

The first fully electromechanical slot machine, that was called Money Honey was created by Bally, who was an owner of the Bell-Fruit Gum Company. This is where the symbol BAR, that can be noticed on every fruit machine today, came from.

Today you can play on the fruit machine using coins, cash or a bar-coded paper ticket, also called "ticket in/ticket out". The slot machine is activated either by the use of a lever, a button or a touchscreen on the face of the machine. There is a lot of speculation around the skill involved in the game. Some say that there are certain skills you need to have to know how long to stay at the machine and when to wait for the big win. But most consider it a game of chance and nothing more. As in any other casino game, the objective of any player is to win money from the machine by getting the matching symbols on the reels or video screen.

The winning occurs when the combination of symbols appears that matches the stated rules of the particular game. The symbols, that are bright and easy to identify, more like a story book images for small kids, such as apples, flowers, etc; have to come out matching, as usually the best win is the one where all three symbols are the same. In the gambling concentrated areas, such as Las Vegas, the variety of slot machines is great, such as video poker machine, where the symbols should match the winning poker hand. Such machines also have separate rules that dictate how many hands players can play at one time.

Multi-line slots, that are finding more and more fans now. They are different from the traditional machines, as they have more than one payline.