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In the year 1891, Sittman and Pitt designed slot machine history where five drums would show different poker hands. There wasn't a payout mechanism, though, so different places bought them and paid personal prizes in, like free drinks.

The Machines

Then, Charles Fey arrived in the picture. He built the very first machine for slots in his own basement and called it Liberty Bell. However, slot machines weren't able to succeed until much later after it was placed in a Las Vegas Hilton hotel.

Fey's very first machine looked nothing like the slot machines of today. First of all, it was made out of heavy cast iron. Secondly, it didn't have today's common fruit symbols, but had stars, card suits, and horseshoes on it instead. This first machine can still be seen in a restaurant and saloon in Reno, which Fey's grandchildren own to preserve his legacy in slot machine history.

After that, Fey created a slot machine called Operator Bell, which featured the well-known fruit design. This changed slot machine history forever as the fruits are now standard to the aesthetics of any slot machine. Anti-slot machine groups started to rise soon after this, so Fey wizened up and started to design a lot machines that worked similar to vending machines. Vending machine owners then hated this because the general public couldn't tell the difference between them, and the police capitalized on this whenever they needed great press.

The company of Bell-Fruit Gum once stole Fey's slot machine and ended up being the ones who mass produced gum dispensers to mask slot machine nature. The symbol that says BAR can be attributed to this because they wanted to market gum more than anything else.

The Downfall of Slot Machines

Joining the movement of temperance was the movement against gambling, which really brought Fey some trouble. Slot machines started to become illegal by 1909. By 1930, anti-gambling became politically popular, most of all when it came to slot machines. In fact, some politicians dumped these machines into the sea - even those that were mere vending machines. A lot of legal vending machines were confiscated, too, just to get a coup of public relations.

In 1970, another revolution occurred after companies started to use RNGs and microchips to find out the reels' spins. Pulling the level started to become an anachronism after the machines didn't need them anymore. While the microchips evolved, slots did, too and by 1980, every casino used slots powered by microchips while casinos went through tighter profits because of the much cheaper machines and slot machine history still keeps going to this day.