Even in this modern age, where a fast paced lifestyle is the norm, people want “distractions”. We like music, television and movies, we use our cell phones and our portable devices while we wait in a checkout line or in traffic, and we love to play online casinos usa games.
Millions of people regularly watch sporting events, play video games and make trips to nearby, or even distant, gambling casinos. Casinos, in fact, were born from a need for distraction.
In the late 1800s guests of barrooms in New York City found amusement and entertainment playing the mechanical poker machine crafted by the Sittman and Pitt company in Brooklyn, New York.
While these machines were a far cry from today’s computerized versions of the game they did ask the player to interact with the machine in order to win a prize. The players did not receive a “payout” directly from the machine however, but cashed in at the bar, where they might win cash, cigars, food or cigars. Even at this stage of “slot machine” development the “house” or bar owner would eliminate two cards from the machine’s deck – the ten of spades and the jack of hearts – as a way to reduce the player’s chances of winning a royal flush and a big reward. This trend still exists today, with computer programs guaranteeing the casino a certain percentage of return from each slot machine.
The next variation of slot machine brought the game into its most recognizable form, when Charles Fey created the first three reels, single payline machine in history. This invention allowed a slots machine to issue an automatic payout on every possible winning combination. Fey’s design incorporated five separate symbols into the three reels configuration, and these were the bell, diamond, horse shoe, spade and heart symbols that persist to this day.
Fey’s machine was able to distinguish the correct payout amount based on the notches of the wheels, and the popularity of the game just exploded. By the 1900s gambling casinos counted slots as their most popular and rewarding game – both for the players and the best payout casinos in au casinos.
By the 1960s enough technology existed to create electronically, or computer, operated slots machines. These were the first to require no assistant in order to payout on larger wins, and allowed casino operators to establish exactly what their profit would be on each machine.
These computerized slot machines can be called “loose” or “tight” depending on how the software is set, and most state regulatory agencies require a minimum return to the players to be set at seventy five to seventy eight percent, though most casinos keep their slots at around ninety five to ninety seven percent. Today, slot machines have gone even farther, becoming completely computerized and operated on a “touch screen”. While initial reactions were skeptical to such an easily manipulated system, the payouts and performance of computerized machines have now made them equally popular to their earlier mechanical cousins. There are also an amazing number of casinos that operate online slots sites, where players use the same software and play many of the same games they would find in the “live” environment.
