The Reel Story
The slot machine that was invented by Charles Fey was introduced in 1897. This machine he built had just ten symbols which were spades, diamonds, bells, hearts and horseshoes and the top prize was won with the lining up of three bells. This was the jackpot payout at that time.
With ten symbols and three reels, there were just 1,000 possible combinations to be made and the payout was 750 coins. Over the years, the slots evolved and the amount of symbols reached twenty which then gave the three reel machine 8,000 possible combinations. That number went to twenty two by 1970 that put the amount of combinations u to 10,648.
It was then up to the slot makers to chose between adding more symbols on each reel or adding more reels. They did try to add reels but somehow the players never liked them. In 1984 the electronic gaming device was invented. A physical reel can hold only twenty two symbols but the virtual reel had from 32 to 256. Virtual stops correspond with one of the symbols on each physical reel and the amount of outcomes are out of this world.
