The history of the Video Slot

Video Slots are in a nutshell just video screen based slots. We have discussed the history of slot machines in past articles on this site but we wanted to take a more in-depth look at when video slots came about and how they impacted the gambling industry.

The First Video Slot

The first true video slot was Fortune Coin and this was released way back in 1975. It was created by Walt Fraley and at the time it was not really that popular because players did not trust the virtual reels as easily as the physical mechanical ones. The software company IGT saw lots of potential in this technology and bought the company out in 1978.

Evolution of Video Slots

IGT continued to release video slots and improved upon the Fortune Coin game to entice players away from mechanical reels kind of slot machines and onto their own video slots. It was a tough sell but IGT knew that video slots required less maintenance than the more classic slot machines. Players would find it practically impossible to cheat using video slots and it was also extremely difficult to tamper with these types of machines. The next evolution of video slots was Video Poker and this was released in 1979 by IGT and it became very popular amongst players and started to pop up in many casinos throughout America as the years went by. Nowadays, IGT is one of the biggest manufacturers of video slots on the planet.

Coinless Video Slots

With technology racing ahead, software developers were then able to create coinless video slots. This paved the way for penny machines and betting across multiple lines. This was a huge step for video slots as it enabled players to move quickly from one video slot to another without having to carry all their money with them. This changed the face of the gambling industry as casinos fully embraced them and video slots began springing up everywhere. In 1982, IGT released their first video progressive slot called Megabucks. The cool thing about this video slot was that it was connected to other machines in a casino and it provided players the chance to win a huge progressive jackpot. This feature won over thousands of players and video slots had finally become mainstream.

Online Video Slots

The Internet heralded in a wave of new opportunities for online gambling. This led to many online casinos opening their virtual doors in the late 1990’s. These casinos took full advantage of video slots as many classic video slots were digitally simulated on the internet and became hugely successful. Many kinds of innovations happened in the next few years as online video slots started to feature bonus games and unique payline structures. Originally, online video slots were met with the same kind of skepticism that video slots received such as being rigged against the player. Manufacturers combated this by having their games rigorously tested on a daily basis to ensure transparency. Gradually over time, players were won over and online video slots soon became the most popular casino game on the Internet today.

For further information on slots, please check out our articles on a brief history of online slots and the history of the slot machine.