The Magazine for the Gaming Enthusiasts

Slots
A Decade of Revolution

When Casino Player published its first issue in 1988, casino floors in Nevada and Atlantic City÷the only two legal casino gaming jurisdictions at the time÷presented quite a different appearance than they do today.

The reason for the difference revolves around one brightly lit casino offering: the slot machine. The way the slot floor looks, the way the machines are played and the way the machines are marketed to the player have all undergone a revolution during the past decade.

In 1988, the slot revolution was still young. The first fully computerized slots had appeared only four years earlier. The idea of slot clubs was only a few years old. The machines themselves were still almost exclusively three-reel, single-line games and basic jacks-or-better video poker, with rows upon rows of cookie-cutter boxes creating a sea of sameness on the floor.

But the seeds of what was to come in slots had already been planted. Computerization of slot machines had marked the beginning of what was called "virtual reel" technology, which meant the possible outcomes on spinning reels were no longer restricted to the physical number of positions on which each reel could mechanically stop.

By the late '80s, all the big slot manufacturers were using computer technology to manipulate slot games and payback percentages. Each possible reel position÷each bar, each cherry, each "7" and, most importantly, each blank reel stop÷was assigned a series of numbers. A random number generator in the computer would select three numbers for each reel spin. The more numbers assigned to a symbol or a blank, the more often that result would land when the handle was pulled. If more numbers were assigned to blanks, the payback percentages would be lower. Increasing the numbers assigned to bars or cherries would increase the payback.

What this meant to the player was bigger jackpots. More possible reel outcomes allowed casinos, for the first time, to offer huge jackpots for the outcomes with the longest mathematical odds of landing. Suddenly, slot players weren't playing just to pass time, or just because they couldn't afford the table games. The dream of instant wealth was thrust onto the slot floor. As a result, the slot floor would never be the same.

Casino Player's  debut also came during the infancy of a type of slot that would capitalize on the potential of life-altering jackpots allowed by computer technology. Two years before the magazine's premiere, in the spring of 1986, the Stardust in Las Vegas was the scene of a star-studded introduction by International Game Technology of a new kind of slot system÷the "wide-area progressive." The idea was to link banks of slot machines at different casinos over phone lines and to electronically channel a portion of each wager on each machine at each casino into a giant jackpot. IGT called the system "Megabucks," available on special dollar slot machines across Nevada. The odds of lining up the combination to hit the jackpot were so long that the pot would grow to unprecedented amounts÷first millions, then tens of millions.

It was a stroke of genius on IGT's part. In the late '80s, state lotteries were reaching their zenith across the country and at the time were posing significant competition to casinos for gaming dollars. IGT took the main reason for the popularity of lotteries÷life-changing jackpots÷and incorporated it into slot machines. Not only could someone now get rich playing a slot, but the casinos could correctly advertise that the odds of hitting the Megabucks jackpot were much better than the odds of hitting the lottery. Even if they were still more likely to be hit by a bus than a Megabucks jackpot, players saw the Megabucks dream as much more attainable.

By 1988, as Megabucks' popularity was beginning to spawn lower-denomination spin-offs like "Quartermania" and "Nevada Nickels," computer technology was beginning to change the way slot players were treated by casinos. The first slot club based on a computerized player-tracking system had appeared at Harrah's Atlantic City in 1985. Slot players were now being recognized by casinos as good customers. Thanks to these player-tracking systems, they could now be identified and rewarded for their loyalty.

Player tracking was enabling casinos to know who their best slot customers were. As a result, those customers were being lured back time and again with the types of rewards formerly reserved for high rollers in the pit÷special parties, comped rooms, free meals, free show tickets. Slot players were no longer the unwanted stepchildren of the casinos. Over the ensuing 10 years, as tracking and reward systems were refined, the business of slots would come to constitute three-quarters of the average casino's total income. Slots were now king, and tables would spend the next decade trying to catch up.

It was into this rich soil that Casino Player planted its flag. The magazine was to chronicle the sea change of casino offerings that would result from these beginnings, guiding the emerging armies of slot players in ways to get the most back from these dynamic gaming devices.

Among the earliest ways the magazine did this was to spawn competition among casinos for slot business. The magazine was the first to take publicly available information on casino slot "win"÷the amount of money left after all bets were paid but before expenses were taken out÷and reverse the percentages to show which casinos were giving the most back to slot players. Players began to use Casino Player's monthly slot charts to choose the casinos with the "loosest" slots. Marketing departments at casinos began using payback percentage figures from the slot departments to sell their casinos to slot players.

Meanwhile, a slot subculture was developing. Slot players were becoming smarter and more discerning. Increased knowledge of odds and payback percentages spurred players to look for the best gamble.

Video poker players splintered away as a separate subculture, realizing that through skill and the mathematics of probability, they could know the exact house advantage÷or lack of house advantage÷on a video poker machine by simply looking at the pay table. Video poker became an actual profession, and Casino Player used the new video poker pros to inform the recreational players on how to get the most return from the games.

In addition to searching for the best gamble, slot players began to look for more entertainment, tiring of the monotony of reel-spin after reel-spin and single pay lines. The slot manufacturers picked up on this desire, and by the mid '90s, the second wave of the slot revolution was at hand.

Native-American casinos had been spreading for years, and these gaming halls bore a markedly different player dynamic than the tourist houses in Vegas and Atlantic City. Namely, they were frequented by the same customers over and over. These customers became bored by sameness in their games and began demanding more innovation in their slots.

The Native-American market was a carbon copy of an older, established market in the other hemisphere÷Australia. Private clubs in New South Wales had catered for years to repeat customers with multi-line video slot games. There were as many as nine pay lines, with multiple-coin bets for each line. Players employed betting strategies to extend their play on the "pokies," as they are called (a reference to the poker symbols on the reels).

North American casinos had experimented with video reel slots in the late '80s, but the genre had not caught on. Now, the new American slot markets were ready for a more complicated machine. Australian manufacturer Aristocrat introduced its multi-line video slots in the Indian markets, and they were an instant hit. Players were sitting at nickel-denomination machines and betting more than $2 a spin÷a fact that would soon get the attention of mainstream casino operators.

In 1996, Aristocrat slots made their Atlantic City debut. By this time, the North American slot manufacturers had caught on to the benefits of multi-line video and were offering their own versions of what had become known as the "Australian-style" slot machine.

By the time multi-line video gained steam, the manufacturers had expanded the slot universe to include a panorama of new styles of slot machines. In 1986, a mother lode of innovation in slots rolled off the assembly lines. There was a collection of "hybrid" games÷slot machines combined with bonus games played out on everything from game show-style wheels to pinball machines to rolling dice. Standard three-reel slots were now only part of "game-within-a-game" slot machines. Symbols on the reels triggered bonus games on LCD video screens, integral wheels or back-lit "tunnels," arcade-style racetracks, and even a gorilla climbing up a mock Empire State Building to a "bonus zone." A small California company called Silicon pioneered a machine that employed highly sophisticated software. The result÷the Odyssey multi-game machine÷offered players a dynamic three-dimensional graphic experience and state-of-the-art sound equal to the most popular home video games.

Today, the slot revolution continues with an ever-increasing variety of machines. No longer is there a slot floor dominated by one style of game. And the wealth of choices only stands to increase as technology advances.

Similarly, the slot club continues to reach new levels of sophistication. Computers central to the club now allow cash-back awards to be downloaded right to the machines as credits. Customers can now use keypads to collect comp awards without leaving their machines. The computers have pushed slot clubs to new levels of customer service.

Today, the slot floor occupies the center of the casino universe. What's in store for the gaming machine during the next 10 years is limited only by the imagination of game developers. You can bet Casino Player will be there to chronicle the journey. And one thing's for sure: It promises to be a fun ride.÷ Frank Legato

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