Slot machine

From WE Computers Museum
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Sonic Generations slot machine.png
Slot machine
Developer Numerous
Publisher Numerous
Platforms Numerous
Released 1925-present
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A slot machine, fruit machine, poker machine, pokies, slots, or one-arm bandit is an arcade video game that is commonly used as a gambling game.

The goal is to get a set number of symbols on a spinner to match.

In Asian gambling parlors, it is common for slot machines to be combined with elements of pachinko. This is known in Japan as a pachislot (パチスロ) or pachislo.

History

In 1891, the Sittman and Pitt Company of Brooklyn, New York developed a gambling machine that simulated poker. It had five reels, each of which had pictures of card faces. The faces lined up to make poker hands.

This machine was more complicated than modern slot machines. The precursor to modern slot machines was Liberty Bell, designed around 1894, by Charles Fey. It had three spinners with various varieties of fruit and a bell, and the object was to match the symbols together.

Slot machines in video games

Many of the video games in Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog series contain stages with slot machines into which the title character usually spins.