Online slots are perhaps the most popular online games globally, not just big in the world of iGaming but pretty much every other area. There are slots available on mobile, consoles, and all come in various formats, designs, free-play or real-play for money. The fact is, they’re fun, look good, and are enjoyable to play. And with technology ever advancing, slot gaming is just getting more hi-tech as time goes by.
Humble beginnings as fruit machines
Slot games can find their origins in the form of the classic fruit machines. You know the type, the ones that you’d find in an old-timey bar, next to the pinball machine. You’ll still probably find them there now, and they haven’t changed much since their inception. There will be a big lever to pull down, a slot to put in a dime, and then the classic Bars, Lucky Sevens, and various fruit symbols. It was something fresh, something fun, and something which gaming developers could take advantage of and make it into the mega slots that we see today. It was a simple formula for creating slots – build on the visuals and sound effects that players like and that latest hardware supports. But boy, was there a massive improvement.
The first online slots
It’s difficult to pinpoint what the first-ever online slot was, especially because many gaming developers are releasing new slots every month, and many will claim to be the first. There are thousands out there, and history is a bid muddied when it comes to who came out with the first. Microgaming might claim it was them, especially when they were the ones who released the very first progressive jackpot slot (Cash Splash) in 1998. Whoever it was, it didn’t take long for the world to get used to the introduction of online slots and what they brought.
And what did they bring? For starters, they improved massively on the traditional fruits and bars. Slots like Mermaid’s Millions allowed us to see mermaids under the sea and treasure boxes filled with cash. Suddenly, online slots gave us characters, stories, themes of money and gold and treasure, and more importantly, the opportunity to win cash prizes. It also saw the rise of online casinos. A place where you could go to and play these online slots, no longer having to travel to Las Vegas to play slots in a clockless room. You could say the evolution of slots basically started the rise of online casinos, too.
They got even better
When you’re looking at popular slot games and reading up on how they work, you’ll see how they’ve advanced and improved over the years. Immortal Romance was a slot that played on Buffy the Vampire Slayer at a time when vampires and werewolves were a big thing as well (thank you, Twilight). The slot not only provided great graphics, but it had a story to tell as well, giving you the chance to advance through the game, learning more about the story, and getting bigger bonuses as you played. Then there was branded content, too, such as Tomb Raider or the Terminator slots. The iconic characters appear on the screen and as symbols, helping you to relive the classic games and films.
Then the bonus features got better and better too. Wild symbols and Scatter symbols help create more wins, but then there are the triggerable bonuses and free spins that provide you with cool new graphics and more ways to win, which is always good for a slot player.
As slots advanced, cool new graphics, cinematic sound, and brand new gameplay just become part and parcel. We’ve seen slots that play more like Candy Crush and retro slots that bring back that sense of nostalgia with the fruit and bar symbols all over again. Nifty animations, new characters, and progressive jackpot slots give you the chance to play for millions – literally millions!
Enjoy on the go
With so many people using their mobiles these days, it made sense for slots to be mobile-friendly too. Which of course they are now. You can enjoy almost all slots to play on your smartphone, whether it’s on a casino app or just on the web browser at an online casino, as they’re all made on HTML5 and are fit for mobile. So if you want to join Gonzo on his quest for lost gold or Ragnar Lothbrok on the Vikings slot, you can do so from the palm of your hand. Slots are matching the advancement of technology, so we’re excited to see the next stage, too.