July 2011

Milestones In Our Slot Machine Journey by John Grochowski


Any journey begins with a single step, and so it is with our journey from the first mechanical slot machines to modern games with bonus events, multiple progressive jackpots, high-definition video and other bells and whistles. And this journey so far has been longer than most.

We’ve had to step into stepper slots and hop up payouts through coin hoppers to punch our printed ticket to modern games.

Along the way, there have been milestones, stops on the journey that have been special in themselves. This is by no means a complete log of all our stops, just a special few.

The Liberty Bell
Charles Fey’s 1895 creation wasn’t the first coin-operated gaming device. There had been “slot machines” with large wheels at the front, alternating wedges of different colors. Players wagered on what color would be at the top when the wheel stopped.

But the Liberty Bell was a milestone as the first three-reel slot. The workings were mechanical, like clockwork, right up the alley of auto mechanic Fey. The result was a game that would be instantly recognizable to today’s players as a slot machine. Put an old color wheel game on display, and it raises curiosity about just what it is, what it does, how it works. Put the Liberty Bell on display, and you see a slot to drop coins in, a handle to pull and three spinning reels. Antique, yes, but a slot machine, definitely.

Symbols were spades, hearts, diamonds, horseshoes and bells, with the biggest prize coming for lining up three bells.

Obviously, it was an enduring format. Three-reel games today have electronic, computerized innards, but on the outside you still see three spinning reels with symbols to line up for payoffs.

Money Honey
Slot machines continued to function like the Liberty Bell for decades. The symbols changed, and some had more symbols per reel, but the slots continued to be mechanical games. That changed in the mid-1960s when Bally Gaming introduced the first electromechanical games, with electrical components inside instead of gears and levers. For the first time, slot machines had to be plugged in, lighting up the slot floor.

In addition to being electromechanical, Money Honey was the first slot machine to feature a coin hopper. Up to that time, slot machines had coin tubes inside, and coins for payouts had to be stacked inside the tubes. That limited space for coins, and limited payouts that could be made without having to re-fill the tubes or pay by hand.

Developed by engineers Frank Nicolaus and Bud Breitenstein at Bally in Chicago, the motor-driven hopper gave slot machines a large pool of coins rather than the limited tubes. On the Money Honey, the hopper enabled payouts of up to 500 coins at a time. That in turn enabled larger, more frequent payoffs, jump-starting slot machines toward their current position as the most popular games in today’s casinos.

Blazing 7s
In an era where we measure the popularity of individual games in months, the staying power of Bally’s progressive Blazing 7s is just stunning. Developed in the 1970s by Bally engineers Bob Manz and Terry Daly, Blazing 7s was designed as a rapid-hit jackpot game.

On a dollar machine, the top jackpot starts at $1,000. In the early days, Daly once told me, operators would put 10 or 20 games on the floor, and the jackpot would hit about every 15 minutes. That created positive feedback that drew, and continues to draw, players to the game. The rapid-hit feature not only increased player excitement, but the $1,000 start and frequency of jackpots meant it usually paid off before reaching the $1,200 threshold that requires IRS paperwork.

The original Blazing 7s machines were electro-mechanical, but within a few years, random number generators and virtual reels were developed, and Blazing 7s endured through the transition.

Bally Series E1000
The random number generator and virtual reel were developed by another Bally technician, Inge Telnaus, starting in the late 1970s. The patents were later acquired by International Game Technology, but the first RNG games were those in the E1000 series, though they weren’t quite modern in all respects. That required the stepper motor, developed by the slot manufacturer Universal in the 1980s. Bally responded by converting its Blazing 7s game to use the RNG and virtual reel in conjunction with a stepper motor, and the next series of games, the Bally Series 2000, incorporated the stepper motor and gave a huge boost to the growing popularity of slots. One small stepper for a motor, one giant leap for slotkind.

Manufacturers were looking for a way to allow slot machines to pay larger jackpots. One problem that hadn’t been overcome since the days of the Liberty Bell was that the odds of slot games were dependent on the number of symbols and spaces on a reel. If you had three reels, each with 20 symbols and 20 spaces, and one symbol on each reel was for the top jackpot, then the odds of lining up three jackpot symbols was 1 in 40 times 40 times 40, or 1 in 64,000.

With fewer symbols and spaces, odds were lower, and with more they were higher, although there were limitations on how big a reel could get and still fit in the machine cabinet.

The problem was solved by Telnaes. Instead of being limited by the symbols on the reel, the programmer could map a “virtual reel.” To make up a simple example, let’s say each of three reels has 20 total symbols and spaces, only one of which is a jackpot symbol, with two triple bars, three double bars and four single bars, along with 10 spaces. On a mechanical machine, one of the 8,000 possible combinations would be three 7s, and the largest possible jackpot would be limited both by that 1 in 8,000 chance of hitting the big award and by payouts to other combinations.

But with a random number generator and virtual reel, the reel can be made to behave as if it has more symbols and spaces. Let’s say our programmer is designing a 128-stop virtual reel. He can have the machine show that 7 space on the first reel any time the RNG generates No. 1, the first triple bar any time it generates 2 or 3, the second triple bar on 4, 5 or 6, the first double bar on 7, 8, 9, or 10, and so on down the line.
If you have three 128-stop virtual reels, each programmed for one stop for the 7, now chances of lining up all three 7s on the payline are 1 in 128 times 128 times 128, or 1 in 2,097,152 — a 1 in 2 million-plus longshot that makes it possible to pay out a lifestyle-changing jackpot.

Megabucks
There long have been progressive slot machines, in which a percentage of each bet is added to the jackpot until someone hits the big combination to win it all. The dollar game Megabucks, introduced by IGT in 1986, was the first wide-area progressive.

What that means is that the Megabucks system electronically links machines in different casinos to the same progressive jackpot. Many gaming states have their own links, and the Native American link enables a common jackpot in multiple states.

By drawing on players in multiple casinos, and programming the virtual reel for very, very rare jackpots, Megabucks is able to pay millions of dollars — tens of millions, in fact — to its lucky winners, with a record jackpot exceeding $39 million.

It was an immediate hit, and led to the development of a whole series of IGT Megajackpots games, from pennies on up, on reel steppers and video.

Double Diamond
There are any number of IGT slots you could list at or near this milestone. Double Jackpot, Double Diamond, Red, White and Blue, Wild Cherry. These were slots that really showed what the RNG, virtual reel and stepper motor could do. Through much of the 1990s and into the early 2000s, lists of the most-played slot machines would show eight or nine of the top 10 to be IGT stepper slots.

Double Diamond has a classic, elegant look, and a “doubler” format that has stood the test of time since its 1989 introduction. The format seems simple now, but it’s led to a whole family of games. Most reel symbols are the traditional 7s, bars, double bars and triple bars that you find on many slot games. What gives this one its spice is the Double Diamond symbol that doubles winning combinations. Get a Double Diamond symbol and two single bars, for example, and you get twice the payoff of three single bars. Make it two Double Diamonds and a single bar, and you double the payoff twice — you get four times the payoff for three bars. And three Double Diamonds, well, that’s good for the machine’s top jackpot.

Every time a Double Diamond lands on the payline, players start crossing their fingers. Double Diamonds on the first two reels guarantee a quadruple pay if any third-reel symbol lands on the payline. And if the third Double Diamond comes up, that’s a payday to remember.

Double Diamond wasn’t the first game with a multiplier, but it has had remarkable popularity and staying power. It’s led to sequels such as Double Diamond Deluxe, a “nudge” game in which bar symbols with diamonds either drop down to the payline from above if the diamond points down, or nudge up if the diamond points up. Triple Diamond followed, as well as Triple Double Diamond, the video slots Double Diamond 2000 and Double Triple Diamond Deluxe with cheese, and five-reel mechanical and video versions of Double Diamond. Games such as Five Times Pay and Ten Times Pay use the same kind of multiplier format. And Double Diamond is frequently used as a base game on IGT progressive and bonus systems.


Wheel of Gold
One of the most creative companies ever seen among slot manufacturers was Anchor Gaming, since absorbed by IGT. Anchor’s Randy Adams had been at Universal and was one of the forces behind the stepper motor. At Anchor, he strived to put extra fun in the games with bonus events in the top box.

One of the most popular was Wheel of Gold, a sensation when it was released in the mid-1990s. A tower with a vertical wheel was fixed atop Bally slant top slot machines. When a Wheel of Gold symbol signaled a spin of the bonus wheel a tone sounded, and nearby players stopped in their tracks. Everyone wanted to watch that spin and see how big the bonus would be.

IGT knew a winner when it saw one, and moved to license the wheel from Anchor. It also negotiated a license to use sound and images from the TV game show “Wheel of Fortune,” and a megahit was born.

Game Maker
Not just a milestone, the Bally Game Maker is a cornerstone for the slot machine industry. When it came to casinos in 1994, it was the first machine to bring multiple games and a touch screen to a single unit.

While the slot games weren’t megahits, usually taking a back seat to the video poker, keno and blackjack games also offered on the Game Makers, it was really the first time mainstream reel slots worked on a video platform. Players could switch from game to game, sampling the slots, and playing different poker games.

That ability to choose among multiple games, and play by touching a screen, makes the Game Maker one of the most important stops on our trek.

Reel ‘Em In
The game that turned Americans on to the possibilities of five-reel video slots with bonus rounds was WMS Gaming’s original Reel ‘Em In. The bonus round was simple, the video screen changed to a scene of fishermen in boats, and the player touched the screen to select one to drop a line in the water. After a frenzy of splashing water, the angler would reel in the catch, the bigger the fish, the bigger the bonus.

Simple enough, but enduring. The game remains a hit, with follow-ups including Reel ‘Em In: Compete to Win, with a competitive community bonus event. But its biggest impact was just to show Americans would accept slot machines on video in a big way. Video slots already were popular in Australia and the Pacific Rim when Reel ‘Em In debuted in 1997. Americans would sample the slot games on the Bally Game Maker, but still loved the three-reel, one-payline stepper slots. Reel ‘Em In showed we were willing to try something a little different, too.

Slotto
One of the keys to staying power is innovation, continually coming up with new variations on a theme to keep the customers intrigued. A.C. Coin has done just that with its Slotto games.

Slotto is a lottery-like blower with game balls in the top box. When the player goes to the bonus round, the balls swirl around the enclosure until players finally see the randomly selected balls marked with the bonus awards they’ve won.

That was fun in itself, but A.C. Coin has amped up the entertainment year after year by using the Slotto concept in new ways. Slotto balls have been popcorn kernels, raindrops, mushroom spores, cannon balls, all in the name if slot machine fun.


Cash Express
Any walk through a modern casino will find dozens of machines with multi-tiered jackpots, with names such as Mini, Minor, Major and Grand. The company that showed us how it’s done is Aristocrat Technologies, and the game they chose to introduce the concept to America was Cash Express.

We reach this milestone by train, in the railroad-themed Cash Express. A stationmaster’s whistle takes the player to a bonus event, and the credits accumulated in the bonus determine which progressive level the player wins.

The four-level jackpot system is called Hyperlink, and Aristocrat has had dozens of follow-up Hyperlink games. The competition has followed, with IGT, WMS, Bally and other manufacturers all bringing out their own multilevel progressives.

Top Gun
We’re in an age of innovation now, and any number of machines could be chosen to represent the modern era. Perhaps WMS’ Monopoly Big Event, a community gaming milestone in which players win together, or any of the company’s Transmissive Reels games in which a video image is transmitted on the clear glass in front of mechanical reels. Perhaps IGT’s Center Stage series, with a 103-inch screen above pop-culture themed games such as The Dark Knight or American Idol for shared bonus fun. Or maybe Bally’s U-Spin games, which really makes the touch screen an integral part of the game as the player touches, drags and lets fly a virtual wheel on the screen to launch a physical wheel in the top box.

But Top Gun is no doubt a milestone, such that other manufacturers have imitated its basic components. It comes with a special chair for motion effects, and with Bose speakers in the back for 3-D sound. In Top Gun’s bonus round, you have the sound and feel of flying a jet fighter as you shoot down bonus awards.

WMS has used the equipment to create very different sensory experiences, as in the megahit Wizard of Oz games. IGT and Bally now have their own chairs for special effects and sound. But Top Gun is a milestone, and a first step that has launched a whole new journey. Ω

— John Grochowski is the author of The Casino Answer Book, The Slot Machine Answer Book, The Video Poker Answer Book and the Craps Answer Book, available online at: www.casinoanswerman.com.