History of slot machines
The history of slot machines runs from coin-operated card games in 1890s America to the RNG-driven video slots that fill casino lobbies today. Along the way came three spinning reels, fruit symbols, automatic payouts, electric motors, video screens and virtual reels, and in Britain, a pub fruit machine culture of holds and nudges.
By the Best Slots UK team. Last checked .
Key takeaways
- The first coin-operated gambling machines of the 1890s dealt poker hands rather than spinning reels.
- Charles Fey's Liberty Bell set the three-reel pattern that slots still echo today.
- Virtual reels and random number generators let modern slots offer far bigger prizes than physical reels allowed.
- Britain developed its own branch: the pub fruit machine with holds, nudges and feature trails.
- Early machines
- 1890s, United States
- Three-reel pioneer
- Charles Fey, San Francisco
- Automatic hopper payouts
- Early 1960s
- First video slots
- Mid-1970s
- UK landmark
- Gaming Act 1968
History of slot machines: a timeline
Exact dates for early machines vary between sources, especially for the 1890s, so some entries below are given as periods rather than single years.
| When | What happened | Why it mattered |
|---|---|---|
| 1891 | Sittman and Pitt of Brooklyn build a five-drum card machine | Coin-operated gambling based on poker hands |
| Mid to late 1890s | Charles Fey builds the Liberty Bell in San Francisco | Three reels and automatic payouts become the template |
| Early 1900s | Fruit symbols appear on gum-vending machines | The cherry, lemon and BAR symbols are born |
| Early 1960s | Bally's Money Honey introduces a bottomless hopper | Automatic payouts of hundreds of coins |
| 1968 | Gaming Act passed in Britain; Barcrest starts out with two staff | The legal and commercial base for British fruit machines |
| 1976 | Fortune Coin shows a video slot in Las Vegas | Reels move from metal drums to a screen |
| 1984 | Inge Telnaes is granted a patent for virtual reel mapping | Prize sizes are freed from physical reel limits |
| 1996 | WMS releases Reel 'Em In with a second-screen bonus | The bonus round enters slot design |
| 1 April 2019 | Stakes on British B2 betting shop machines cut to £2 | The end of £100 spins on FOBTs |
The online chapter, from the mid-1990s to today's UK rules, is covered in our history of online slots in the UK.
Before reels: the 1890s poker machines
The earliest widely recognised gambling machine was built by Sittman and Pitt, a Brooklyn company, in 1891. It held 50 playing cards on five drums. A player inserted a nickel, pulled the lever and the drums spun to show a five-card poker hand. There was no automatic payout: the number of possible hands was too large for a simple mechanism to judge. Instead, the bar that owned the machine paid prizes such as drinks or cigars for good hands.
Bars often stacked the odds further by removing a couple of cards from the deck, which made the best hands much rarer. It's an early example of something every slot still has: a built-in edge for the house. Today that edge is set openly in the maths and published as the RTP, rather than hidden by missing cards.
Charles Fey and the Liberty Bell
Charles Fey, a mechanic in San Francisco, simplified the idea in the 1890s. His Liberty Bell machine used three reels instead of five drums and five symbols instead of 52 cards: horseshoes, diamonds, spades, hearts and a cracked Liberty Bell. With so few combinations, the machine could recognise wins and pay coins out automatically. Three bells in a row paid the top prize.
That design, three reels, a handful of symbols and an automatic payout, is the ancestor of every slot since. A modern 3-reel slot like Fire Joker or Mega Joker is a direct descendant, even though its reels are now drawn on a screen and its results come from an RNG.
The machine's popularity led to copies, and the side lever earned slots their nickname, the one-armed bandit, a name that has outlived the lever itself.
Why slots have fruit symbols and BARs
The fruit symbols arrived in the early 1900s, as anti-gambling laws spread across the United States. The usual explanation is that manufacturers, the Mills Novelty Company prominent among them, built machines that dispensed chewing gum, so they could be presented as vending machines. The symbols showed the gum flavours: cherry, lemon, orange and plum. The BAR symbol is said to come from the logo of the Bell-Fruit Gum Company.
Whatever the precise origin, the symbols stuck. They became the language of the British fruit machine and survive online in fruit slots and classic slots, from simple lemon-and-cherry games to modern versions with multipliers and jackpots.
Electromechanical machines and the bottomless hopper
For decades, slots stayed mechanical: springs, gears and a lever. In the early 1960s Bally's Money Honey changed that. It used electric motors and circuits to run the reels and introduced a bottomless hopper that could pay out hundreds of coins automatically, rather than relying on a small coin tube or an attendant.
Here's how a win was paid on a machine of that era:
- The player inserted coins, and switches registered the credit.
- Pulling the lever or pressing a button started motors that spun the reels.
- Each reel stopped at a physical position, with electrical contacts reading which symbols lined up.
- If the combination was a winner, the circuit triggered the hopper motor.
- The hopper counted out the prize coins into the tray, up to its limit, without an attendant.
The lever soon became optional. Once a button could start the reels, the arm was kept mostly for tradition.
Video screens, RNGs and virtual reels
In 1976 Fortune Coin, a company in Las Vegas, demonstrated a video slot that showed its reels on a modified television screen. Players were wary at first, suspicious of reels they couldn't see spinning, but video slots gradually took over. IGT later acquired Fortune Coin.
The bigger change was invisible. Physical reels limit the prizes a machine can offer, because every combination has to be possible on real stops. In 1984 Inge Telnaes was granted a patent for a method of mapping a random number generator onto virtual reels, which IGT licensed. A machine could now have a much larger virtual strip behind each visible reel, with some symbols mapped to more positions than others.
| Design | Stops per reel | Combinations on 3 reels | Chance of one specific line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physical reels | 20 | 8,000 | 1 in 8,000 |
| Physical reels | 22 | 10,648 | 1 in 10,648 |
| Virtual reels | 64 | 262,144 | 1 in 262,144 |
| Virtual reels | 128 | 2,097,152 | 1 in 2,097,152 |
With odds that long available, machines could offer much larger top prizes, and linked progressive jackpots across many machines became practical from the mid-1980s. Online slots use the same principle today. Our guides to how a slot RNG works and how progressive jackpots work pick up the story.
The bonus round arrives
In 1996 WMS released Reel 'Em In, a fishing-themed video slot widely credited as the first in the United States with a second-screen bonus: a separate game, triggered from the reels, with its own screen and prizes. It's an early ancestor of today's bonus rounds, free spins features and pick-me games, and, in a roundabout way, of the fishing slots that still crowd UK lobbies. See our fishing slots page for the modern versions.
Britain's own branch: the pub fruit machine
British slots took a different path. The Gaming Act 1968 set the legal framework for gaming machines in clubs, pubs and arcades, and a domestic industry grew around it. Barcrest, which started near Manchester with two staff in 1968, released its first game, Invader, in 1970, and decades later created Rainbow Riches.
The British fruit machine, or AWP (amusement with prizes) machine, developed features rarely seen in American slots: holds that kept chosen reels in place for the next spin, nudges that moved a reel one step, and feature boards and trails that lit up as you progressed. These gave players decisions to make, though the overall return was still set by the machine. Our guide to fruit machine features explained covers each one.
Under today's Gambling Act 2005 categories, the typical pub fruit machine is Category C, with a maximum stake of £1 and a maximum prize of £100. Pubs are entitled to two Category C or D machines once they notify their licensing authority. That's a very different scale from online slots, where the stake limit is £5 a spin for players aged 25 and over. Our comparison of online slots vs pub fruit machines sets out the differences.
Betting shop machines and the £2 stake cut
From the early 2000s, high-street bookmakers installed fixed-odds betting terminals, classified as B2 machines, offering casino-style games including slots and roulette. Stakes of up to £100 a spin on some games drew sustained criticism, and from 1 April 2019 the maximum B2 stake was cut to £2. The episode shaped later thinking about online stake limits, which arrived for online slots in 2025. Our page on online slots vs bookies machines explains how they compare.
What today's slots inherited
- From the 1890s: three-reel layouts and a built-in house edge.
- From the gum machines: cherries, lemons, bells, sevens and BARs.
- From the 1960s: automatic, larger payouts.
- From the 1980s: RNG-driven virtual reels and linked jackpots.
- From the 1990s: bonus rounds and second screens.
- From British pubs: holds, nudges and feature trails, which still turn up in UK-made online games.
One thing hasn't changed since Sittman and Pitt: the machine is designed to keep a share of what's played. Treat slots as paid entertainment, and set a budget before you start.
18+. Gambling should be entertainment that costs money, not a way to make it. Set a deposit limit before you play: how to set limits. Free, confidential help: National Gambling Helpline 0808 8020 133.
Frequently asked questions
Who invented the slot machine?
Charles Fey, a San Francisco mechanic, is usually credited with inventing the slot machine as we know it, with his three-reel Liberty Bell in the 1890s. Earlier coin-operated gambling machines existed: Sittman and Pitt's 1891 card machine dealt poker hands on five drums but couldn't pay out automatically. Fey's design used five symbols on three reels, which made automatic payouts possible. That three-reel pattern is the ancestor of every slot since. Our 3 reel slots page covers modern games built on the same layout.
What was the first slot machine called?
The machine most often called the first true slot is Charles Fey's Liberty Bell, named after its top symbol, a cracked Liberty Bell. It had three reels showing horseshoes, diamonds, spades, hearts and bells, and paid its top prize for three bells. If you count earlier coin-operated gambling machines, Sittman and Pitt's 1891 poker machine came first, but it had no reels and no automatic payout. The modern descendants are listed on our classic slots page, from fruit games to simple three-reel titles.
Why are slot machines called one-armed bandits?
The nickname came from the side lever early machines used to start the reels, which looked like a single arm, combined with the machine's habit of taking players' money over time. Once electric motors and buttons arrived from the 1960s, the lever became optional and is now mostly decorative or missing altogether. The name stuck anyway. Online slots have no lever at all, and UK rules require you to start every spin yourself. See our guide to how online slots work for what replaced the mechanism.
Why do slot machines have fruit on them?
The usual explanation is that early 1900s manufacturers, facing anti-gambling laws in the United States, built machines that dispensed chewing gum and showed the gum flavours as symbols: cherry, lemon, orange and plum. The BAR symbol is said to come from the Bell-Fruit Gum Company's logo. The fruit stuck, especially in Britain, where the gaming machine became known as the fruit machine. Online, the tradition continues in fruit slots, from basic three-reel games to modern ones with multipliers.
When did slot machines become electronic?
Slot machines went electromechanical in the early 1960s, when Bally's Money Honey used electric motors to drive the reels and a bottomless hopper to pay out hundreds of coins automatically. Fully electronic video slots followed in the mid-1970s, with Fortune Coin's Las Vegas machine of 1976. The decisive change came in 1984, when a patent for mapping a random number generator onto virtual reels let machines offer far longer odds and bigger prizes. Our guide to how a slot RNG works explains the technology.
What is the difference between a fruit machine and a slot machine?
In Britain, fruit machine usually means a pub or arcade AWP machine, while slot machine is the broader, originally American term. British fruit machines developed features such as holds, nudges and feature trails that let players make choices, and they're limited by law: a typical Category C pub machine has a £1 maximum stake and £100 maximum prize. Online slots are video games with their own rules and a £5 or £2 per-spin limit. Our guide to fruit machine features explained covers the British features.
What did virtual reels change?
Virtual reels freed prize sizes from the number of physical stops. With 20 real stops on each of three reels there are only 8,000 combinations, which caps how rare, and so how large, a top prize can be. Mapping a random number generator onto a much longer virtual strip, for example 128 positions per reel, gives over two million combinations, allowing much bigger top prizes and linked jackpots. Every online slot uses the same idea. Our RNG glossary entry explains the core term in brief.
Are old-style slot machines still available online?
Yes. Many studios make online games that recreate classic fruit machines and three-reel slots, often with fruit symbols, bells and sevens, and sometimes with British features such as holds and nudges. Some are very simple, like Fire Joker with its 3 × 3 grid and five paylines, while others add multipliers or jackpots. They follow the same UK rules as any other online slot, including stake limits and the 2.5-second minimum spin time. Our classic slots page lists examples.