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Slot Manufacturer Profile: Aristocrat Slots (Part 1)

If you gamble in Australia, Aristocrat Gaming is more or less synonymous with “slot machines.” (Actually, it’s synonymous with “poker machines” or “pokies,” because that’s the Aussie parlance, but we digress!) Aristocrat produces no less than ninety percent of the slot games Down Under, which should tell you something about the massive numbers and unparalleled diversity of the machines produced by this company. Nor is Australia the sole provenance of Aristocrat’s fruit machines – the company has also broken into the gambling markets of the United States and Europe. The moral of this story? You’ve probably played and enjoyed an Aristocrat device at least once!

The history of Aristocrat Gaming spans six decades, or the majority of the golden age of gaming that was ushered in with the creation of the first slot machines in the 1890s and hit its pinnacle in the middle of the twentieth century. The first big Aristocrat pokey success was The Clubman. The Clubman’s success predated the origination of the company’s latter-day name, which it took on in 1955. The Australian economic boom of the 1950s was good to Aristocrat, and the company shot to prominence, bringing with it a new day in Australian gambling. Business was so good, in fact, that it was only five short years before the company took the initiative to bring their slot machines to Europe. Aristocrat’s big move to America took place in 1964, although it would ultimately take over a quarter-century for the company to compete on a level with such Yankee slot game giants as Bally gaming and International Gaming Technology.

Continue to part 2 here.

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