Slots lives: The story of the ‘millionaire maker’ Megabucks slot

IGT and MGA Games lead the way in Italy and Spain on SlotJava

Luke Massey January 21, 2021iGaming, Agipro News, Europe, Latest NewsComments Off on IGT and MGA Games lead the way in Italy and Spain on SlotJava

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International Game Technology (IGT) was one of the big winners at an online awards show hosted by igaming affiliate Infinileads SL, which was put on to recognise the most popular slot developers and slot titles across the company’s SlotJava brands in 2020.

The prizes were determined by the total number of free plays across more than 1,700 slots from over 100 providers on Slotjava.it and Slotjava.es in 2020. The five most sought after categories were ‘Most Popular Game Developer’, ‘Most Popular Slot’, ‘Most Popular Mobile Slot’, ‘Most Popular Slot Theme’ and ‘Most Popular Branded Slot’.

IGT landed the prize for top developer in Italy, where over 735,780 games were played through Slotjava.it, as well as the top three spots for best slot (Sphinx, Sphinx Wild and Gypsy Moon) and the best mobile slot (Sphinx – 167,737 plays).

Joining IGT on the podium for most popular slot developer in Italy were Novomatic (347,858 plays) and WMG, whose 42,230 plays were led by ‘groundbreaking games’ such as Fowl Play Gold.

IGT also claimed the best branded slot on Slotjava.it through Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and the most popular theme in Ancient Egypt – which accounted for over 500,000 plays.

Meanwhile, IGT and Novomatic enjoyed similarly strong activity through Infinileads’ Slotjava.es brand, but were pipped to the best developer prize by MGA Games (317,269 games). Novomatic came in second with 206,277 plays, while IGT titles were played 99,517 times.

MGA’s La Mina De Oro Plus came out as the best slot title with more than 50,000 plays (50,775), followed by Book of Deluxe by Novomatic (41,098) and MGA’s The Haunted Mansion (36,302).

However, IGT was not to be denied another of the major titles, as Cleopatra came out as the top mobile game. IGT’s Ancient Theme also enjoyed repeat success as the most popular slot theme on Slotjava.es, but MGA accounted for the best branded slot with Popeye Treasure Hunter.

“We are excited about our first SlotJava Awards and think it was a great way to wrap up 2020 with some fun and interesting slot data,” said Eric Stööp, founder of Infinileads SL. “The infographic we created gives an accurate view of the most popular slot machines in each specific market, as they are based on a dataset of millions of user generated transactions.”

Niklas Lundström, Product Director at Infinileads SL, added: “With more than 1,700 free to play slots from 100 different providers (and still counting), it’s been a huge amount of data to analyse but we’ve managed to narrow it down to some solid winners and are all looking forward in presenting them in our own unique way.”

Lundström added that there were lots of other prize winners outside of the top five categories. Information for all winners in both Spain and Italy can be found on the websites.

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Tags Eric Stööp IGT Infinileads SL MGA Games Niklas Lundström novomatic SlotJava Slotjava.es Slotjava.it WMG

26 September 2020

A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India

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The Rise of Bally

It was not before long that Bally took over the slot machine arena, and pushed Mills’ slot to the side lines. Bally enjoyed decades of being at the number one spot in slots, which was mainly due to its creativity and innovation. Some of the more notable innovations by Bally were;

• The first slot machine that was developed by bally accepted two coin denominations which were nickels and quarters, both of which had their own slots where the player placed the coins.
• In 1940, Bally introduced “Hi Boy” which was an upright slot machine and allowed Bally to firmly establish themselves as the number one slot machine manufacturer in the world. By the 1960s, almost 80% of all slot machines that were being used in casinos across the United States were manufactured by Bally.
• Bally introduced electromechanical slots in the 1960s, along with the coin hopper. The coin hopper enabled higher payoffs since the game did not have to be stopped in order for an attendant to make a payoff by hand. The new technology that was being introduced to its Money Honey slot machine gained immense popularity and attracted many players because of the significantly higher payoffs.
• At first, casinos in Nevada weren’t that open to it because the new electric design was so different to the traditional slot machines. But, that wasn’t the case for British players who loved the new concept. It wasn’t long before Bally was shipping their new design to Britain. The popularity of “the new slot experience” abroad was eventually felt by casinos in Nevada, which allowed Bally to cement its place as the number one slot manufacturer in the world, putting the competition such as Jennings, Mills and Pace out of business.

RISE OF BALLY

Another Chicago company was founded in 1932 as Lion Manufacturing.One of its early successes was a pinball game known as the BallyHoo, and the company name was changed to Bally Manufacturing. In later years, it changed to Bally Technologies, moved its offices to Las Vegas, and today is part of Scientific Games. Several years after the legalization of gambling in Nevada, Bally positioned itself to challenge Mills for the slot machine leadership. Its first real slot was of the trade stimulator variety. The Bally Baby was a tiny countertop model that dispensed award cards to be exchanged for chewing gum.

31 August 2020

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THE BILL VALIDATOR

If you were playing slots before the early 1990s, you remember games where you dropped in coins by hand for every pull. The bill validator changed all that.

No longer does a $20 investment in the slots mean dropping in 80 quarters, one by one. Instead, just slide a $20 bill into a reader to get 80 credits on a meter, and play off the credits.

Today’s bill validators must scan bar-coded payout tickets as well as currency, and must offer increasing flexibility to meet casino demands for rapid recognition of currency and detection of counterfeit money.

Developers of cash handling solutions have devised validators programmable and adaptable to different size notes to read currencies from nations around the world.

A Brief History of the Slot Machine

Before we get into the nitty gritty of online slots, let’s go over a brief history of the rise of the slot machine. We talked about some of this in more detail in part four, but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of revision, is there?

There are at least two different accounts concerning the original invention of slot machines.

One states that the first device was the ‘Liberty Bell’ machine, invented by an American named Charles Fey in 1887. It was relatively simple, featuring just three reels and five symbols: a Liberty Bell (hence the name) along with a horse shoe, a heart, a diamond, and a spade.

The Liberty Bell slot

The alternative version is that Fey didn’t develop his machine until later, in 1895, and that the first device was in fact inaugurated in 1891 by two men named Sittman and Pitt. This machine was loosely based on poker, although there were only 50 cards used. These 50 cards were featured on five spinning drums (10 on each), which would display a five-card poker hand on each spin. The better the hand displayed, the more a player could win.

There were some similarities and differences between these two devices. Both required a player to pull a lever to start the reels or drums spinning, and it was this aspect that led to slot machines being known as one-armed bandits.

The basic principle of both was also the same – in that players inserted a coin and won wads of cash in correlation to the grade of spin they managed to produce.

One of the main differences between the two was that the Liberty Bell had a mechanism that automatically dispensed coins depending on the result of the spin, while the machine developed by Sittman and Pitt did not. There were many more possible combinations due to the five reels instead of three and the use of playing cards instead of just a few symbols.

It was perhaps this key difference that made the Liberty Bell the more popular of the two. Although both devices were produced in numbers and installed in bars, saloons, and other venues, it was the Liberty Bell that really started the slot machine boom.

Other companies soon began to manufacture their versions of these early devices, and the slots industry was well and truly established.The slot evolution continues after these early advances, though. Read on to find out more…

INTERNATIONAL GAME TECHNOLOGY

In the 1970s, a Bally engineer, Si Redd, invented video poker. Bally didn’t want the game, so Redd received permission to take it on his own. He did, founding a company called Sircoma, and when video poker was a hit and the company went public and sold stock, it became International Game Technology. IGT, based in Reno, Nevada, went on to supplant Bally as the world’s largest slotmaker, and in 2014 merged in 2014 with GTECH, the Rome, Italy-based leader in lotteries and other gambling services and technologies.

IGT’s innovations have included:

• Computerized slots with virtual reels and random number generators. Those made it possible to design games with much more variation in odds, enabling huge, lifestyle-changing jackpots.
• Wide-area progressive games. IGT’s Megabucks game was the first to link machines at different casinos to offer multimillion-dollar prizes.
• Popularization of the bonus wheel. A smaller company, Anchor Gaming, devised an add- on to slot machines called Wheel of Gold. IGT knew a good thing when it saw it. It licensed Wheel of Gold, worked out a licensing arrangement with the television game show “Wheel of Fortune,” and the rest is history. Wheel of Fortune slots have been among the most popular games since the mid-1990s.

Slots Today

Today, slot machines make up about 30% of an average casino’s profits, which is the result of multiple calculated changes to the machines – In the 1930s for example, slot machines were completely quiet during play, whereas modern day iterations go positively ballistic when a player wins big to generate a kind of quasi-hysteria.

Slot machines generally include very flashy lights and attractive casings in order to make them even more attractive. The coin trays at the bottom are almost always made from metal and are very large in order to catch all the coins that fall out during a win, and the machines that generally provide more frequent wins are strategically placed in highly visible spots on the casino floor in order to further attract the crowds.

These days, slot machines use random number generators which are pre-programmed and correspond to patterns of symbols on the reels. Generally slot machines accept a maximum of two or three coins but some multiple coin playing machines offer a range of options. In some machines, the number of coins paid out is proportional to the number of coins deposited. Some will not even pay a jackpot if only one coin is deposited. It is often best to play the maximum number of coins in order to increase the chances of winning.

Many machines are also moving away from actually accepting coins and the industry is becoming a cashless zone. When players hit one of the smaller winning combinations they are usually paid out automatically from the machine. The larger jackpots are paid out directly by an authorised casino employee who is informed of the winning by a light above the machine.

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IGT – From Vegas To Every Mobile Device

Leading the way for many other game developers as one of the first companies to develop online slot games for Online Casinos and Online bingo sites. IGT Developed and published the first wave of mega slots online. Among them: Cleopatra Slot, Siberian Storm and Wheel Of Fortune. Slot Games who are still among the top slot games in history. The Games are multi-platform and can be played on all the newest Mobile phones, Tablets and home computers.

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Charles Ingel - Wednesday, 13 February 2019 - Features

Las Vegas is known as the city where people’s dreams come true. Unlike no deposit bonus casinos in the USA where you can play the best free spins slots machines, land based casinos offer the thrill to play with other players in a social setting. Spin those slot reels and who knows if you could be the next millionaire. We have put together a list of the highest paying slots in Vegas so that next time you find yourself in Sin City, you will know where to start your jackpot quest.

Slot Machines and the Liberty Bell

Charles Fey invented the legendary Liberty Bell back in 1895, but evidence suggests that coin operated gaming devices were around before the invention of the Liberty Bell, yet modern day slot machines are linked to the invention of the Liberty Bell. As a San Francisco-based mechanic, Fey had invented a game which had three spinning reels with a handle at the side, and a slot where the player inserted the coin.

The following are some interesting facts about that slot machine;

• The display featured a single payline that ran across the middle.
• Slot machines were clearly inspired by table games, which is why the reels of that game features hearts, spades, and diamonds, three of four suits found in playing cards. The reels also featured horseshoes and you guessed it…the Liberty Bell.
• The maximum payoff came by lining up three Liberty Bells symbols.
• The first jackpots were just 10 nickels or five cent pieces, which means that the total jackpot was only of half a dollar which is tiny as compared to the thousands that are won by slot players today.
• Other popular slot machines that Fey invented included; the Klondike, the Draw Power, and Three Spinde.

The first slot machine that was designed by Charles Fey was simple yet elegant, with none of the bells and whistles of today’s popular slot machines. The three-reel design in slot machines of today is powered electronically which is a far cry from their predecessors that worked on cogs and gears. While Fey’s design was not called a lot machine at the time, if placed in a casino today, it would easily be recognized as one.

23 August 2020

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SO WHY PLAY SLOTS?

On a percentage basis, slots (and online slots) can’t compare to table games, but there are many reasons players choose the slots:

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16 August 2020

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CHARLES FEY AND THE LIBERTY BELL

There were coin-operated gaming devices before San Francisco mechanic Charles Fey invented the Liberty Bell in 1895, but it’s with the Liberty Bell that the line that leads to modern slots begins. Fey devised a game with three spinning reels, a handle on the side, and a slot in which to drop coin.

Among the game’s features were:

• Five different symbols were used on the reels – horseshoes, diamonds, spades, hearts and a Liberty Bell.
• There was a single payline across the middle of the display.
• The top payoff came for lining up three Liberty Bells.
• The top jackpot was tiny by today’s standards – 10 nickels, or U.S. five-cent pieces, meaning a total jackpot of half a dollar.

The design was simple, elegant, and long-lasting. You can still find three-reel games in today’s casinos, though they’re driven electronically rather than by handle-initiated cogs and gears. If you placed the Liberty Bell in today’s casinos, it would immediately be recognizable as a slot machine.

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SLOTS OFFER BIG JACKPOT CHANCES

The allure of big money is a strong attraction, and big money is possible on the slots. It’s possible to win thousands of dollars, even millions on some games, with one lightningstrikes lucky spin. The largest slot jackpot in history, $39.7 million, came on a $3 bet on a $1 denomination International Game Technology Megabucks machine at the Excalibur casino in Las Vegas in 2003. Such large jackpots are extraordinarily rare events, but any dedicated slot player occasionally collects winnings of hundreds of times the size of the bet. It might not be millions, but a $300 win for a 30-cent bet is the kind of thrill that keeps slot players coming back.

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4. Wheel of Fortune Slot Machine

Wheel of Fortune is very famous because it is based on the hit TV show and it is known for making a few millionaires in its time. The most common variation of Wheel of Fortune is the one with 3 reels. The player has to hit the “spin” symbol on the last wagered payline. The main jackpot in Wheel of Fortune is progressive and the prizes can vary from a couple of hundred to millions of dollars.

You can play the Wheel of Fortune at Silverton Lodge Casino.

10 September 2020

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IGT Contact Details

Full Name: International Game Technology PLC.

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Phone: 0800-783-8004 (Other Countries)

Head Office Address: 2nd Floor, Marble Arch House, 66 Seymour Street, London, W1H 5BT, United Kingdom

IGT UK Gambling Licence Number – 41794

5 September 2020

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5. Buffalo Grand Slot Machine

Those who love slot machines have heard of Buffalo Grand by Aristocrat and a lot of the spinners consider it as one of the top choices for land-based slots. It is an excellent progressive jackpot slots game with awesome features like Free Spins, Bonus Wheel, and Multipliers. You will be running wild with animals like Moose, Cougars, Eagles, Wolves, and Buffaloes. These symbols pay the highest in the game.

You can play Buffalo Grand at Aquarius Casino Resort.