s far as new additions to the vast and seemingly unstoppable gambling market go, you cannot get much better than the online slot explosion of the early 21st Century. The extent to which their popularity is somewhat staggering, especially considering how rudimentary the Internet still was even a couple of decades ago.
It really is an interesting development, even if you are not particularly into the exciting world of casino. Things get even more intriguing when you consider the history of online slots and exactly why they have got to the position they are in today. To really make sense of it all, like how Slots Racer is today, it pays to consider a basic kind of timeline, so read ahead for a few milestones that affected the online slot industry.
1895: First Slot Machine
You might well be wondering why a history of online slots has to go all the way back to the year 1895 here, but bare with us. In order to properly understand the forces at work that have resulted in the online slot world you must also understand a very basic history of slot machines as a whole.
And so we arrive at the first milestone of our historical journey, when a car mechanic named Charles Fey invented a very rudimentary slot machine in 1895. It only had 3 reels and 1 pay line, whilst prizes were also limited to a free drink or cigar at the bar, however it was still unarguably a slot machine.
1980s: Invention Of Random Number Generator
Fast forward around 100 years and the second huge breakthrough for slots happened, something that made it possible for people to think about developing online slots for the first time. That’s right; it’s the invention of the RNG (Random Number Generator), a development that made it easy for slot machines to become digitalised.
No longer did machines have to rely on a physical mechanism in order to determine where the reels would stop, now it could all be done via a computer code – nice.
1990s: The First Online Slots
It was during the 1990s that online slots first became an actual recognisable thing, with juggernauts such as Microgaming being one of the first developers to make the jump online. Obviously it wasn’t until the early 2000s that the Internet had reached a level where the software could run without being horrendously clunky, however it was still the birth of online slots as we know them today.
2005: The Gambling Act In Great Britain
2005 saw a particularly important milestone become completed in Great Britain, as the government passed The Gambling Act 2005 that enabled online casino providers to heavily advertise their sites in a legal and transparent way. This did wonders for the popularity of online slots, catapulting them into the limelight.
2010s: HTML5 & Mobile Gaming
The most recent huge development when it comes to online slots was the introduction of HTML5 technology, a massive step forwards that enabled people to spin the reels pretty much whenever they want.
