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The Mini-God of Slots (2 of 2)

Back in Fey’s day (no rhyme intended!), slot machines were run by mechanical spinning wheels that were physically operated and stopped by the player-controlled lever. The force of the spinning wheels determined how the symbols would align. Nowadays, it’s a microprocessor chip – the RNG – that makes the decision whether your spin will be a loser or a jackpot. Odds still apply. The major difference is that, now, the likelihood of you hitting a jackpot can be externally controlled. Latter-day slots can be programmed to pay out at a certain percentage. As long as that percentage is being met with precise calculation, however, the RNG can do its thing, and the rolls remain truly random – ensuring that your slot game experience is not so different from Grandpa’s, after all.

The major difference is that the “new” slots cannot be tampered with. The Liberty Bell slot machine paid out its big jackpot (a whole fifty cents!) when three symbols of the eponymous liberty bell aligned. Only one bell symbol was depicted per reel, among many other symbols that made the chance of that particular picture showing up less likely. Of course, players could tamper with the machine in various ways to make that likelihood a LOT more likely! Nowadays, this sort of cheating is not possible.

The first RNG-powered slots appeared in 1984. These initial, all-computerized slot games put God in the machine, and took all the player control out of slots gambling. Press the button, pull the lever – hard or soft, it doesn’t matter. Computerized slots cleaned up the industry as it emerged into a new millennium. It’s hard to tell how our children’s children will be playing the slot machines. Certainly, the first one hundred years of slots’ existence has been memorable!

Back to September 2008 Archive.