Gambling games were first mentioned even before 3500 BC. Figures and images of men and Gods throwing astragali (knucklebones) were found on stones in ancient Egypt - they were depicting gambling scenes. There are evidences that gambling as well as gambling tools were known even in primitive pre - historic societies. Gambling games were mentioned in the myths of ancient Greece. For example, according to one of the legends, after defeating the Titans, Zeus and his brothers Poseidon and Hades, becoming masters of the Universe, cast lots to decide which part of the universe they are going to get. So, Zeus took the Olympus, Poseidon - the sea depths, and Hades - the underworld. According to another Greek legend, the Greek hero Palamedes offered a game of dice to the Greek warriors who were bored during the siege of Troy. The expression Urim and Thummim mentioned in Hebrew scriptures is considered to be connected with cleromancy. In addition, various types of wagers are also mentioned in the Bible. For example, after Judas Iscariot betrayal, the eleven apostles cast lots in order to choose Judas replacement and when the lot fell to Matthias, he became the 12th apostle (New Testament, Acts 1:26: "And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles"). In ancient Indian collection of Vedic hymns - Rig Veda, there is a hymn where a gambler shares his bitter experience. The Greek biographer Plutarch speaks about the wife of the Persian King Darius II - queen Parysatis who was a passionate dice player.

According to the Egyptian mythology, when the King of Gods - Amon Ra discovered that his wife Nut - the Goddess of the sky, was having an affair with her brother Geb - the God of the earth, he cursed Nut not to give birth in any day of the Egyptian calendar. Thoth, the God of wisdom and the divine words helped her and persuaded the Moon God Khonsu to gamble with him for some of the Moon's light. Since Thoth won, he managed to create 5 more days with the Moon's light. On each of them Goddess Nut gave birth. So, thanks to gambling, the Egyptian calendar changed and there were 365 days in a year ever since.

The slot machines received universal recognition in casinos and other gaming centers since - unlike other games like table games - the pace of the play was given by players. Even more, players did not need any special skills - everything depended entirely on luck. The point of the game with a traditional slot machine of "one armed bandit" was to activate the lever and wait that symbols on the drums line up in a winning combination. When this happens, the machine throws out a winning amount of money according to the table of winnings. Usually the chance to get a combination with a modest profit was much higher than the chance to win the jackpot.

As a matter of fact, the original American term "slot machine" was used for both vending and gaming machines since both of them had slots for inserting coins. Later this term was used only for those machines which in exchange for a coin was giving the opportunity to play a game but not material goods.

In 1891 Sittman and Pitt invented the first poker machine in New York. It was a card machine with 5 drums but without any payout mechanism. Nevertheless, then it was difficult to find a bar in New York city without such a machine.

According to different sources, in 1895 the German American car mechanic Charles Fey created his first slot machine in his garage. The machine worked on 5 cent coins and was exuberantly and patriotically named after the bell of freedom and the symbol of the American Independence - "Liberty Bell". The machine had 3 spinning reels that contained 5 symbols total: hearts, diamonds, spades, horseshoes and cracked Liberty Bells. Each of the reels operated independently and their speed of rotation was different. But these slots had also payout mechanisms. Anyway, on this machine it was very easy to cheat since the reels were controlled by levers. Maybe that was the reason to fix the profit: the maximum profit of the first slot machine was 10 coins of 5 cents (10 nickels) - just half a dollar. Since Charles Fey's slots were hand built, he leased them to the local gaming and drinking rooms for half of the machines' profit. The demand for these slots became so great, that the inventor couldn't keep up. So, in 1896 Charles fey opened a factory and started manufacturing slot machines, but the earthquake in San Francisco and the fires in 1906 destroyed it. Many larger manufacturers of gaming technology at the time offered to buy the rights to manufacture and distribute the machines, but Fey always refused. Nevertheless, in 1907 in cooperation with Charles Fey, Herbert Stephen Mills (Mills Novelty Company) began manufacturing slot machines in Chicago, Illinois. In 1910 the slot machines can be seen in every town and village of the country. Meanwhile, in 1901, Fey has designed the first draw poker machine, a predecessor of modern electronic poker machines.

That time the slot machines in California have been semi - legal, but they soon became completely illegal since a law prohibiting gambling was introduced. Then slot machines were modified as vending machines for gum and candy. Fruit that we see today on the machines' reels such as plums, pears, cherries etc. are nothing more than reminder to us relative to the difficult relationship between the slots and the law before. By the way, in the UK, the slot machines are called fruit machines. Although the slot machines were banned in California, Fey continued manufacturing them illegally. For which he was arrested and penalized.

Nevertheless, slots gained a considerable momentum - their popularity was not affected even during the Great Depression.

In the late 40s slot machines appeared at the Flamingo hotel in Las Vegas. Originally, they were supposed to entertain the wives and the girlfriends of the rich players who spent their money at the casino playing card games or roulette. But soon machine games captured the market and in the mid 80-s the popularity of slot machines and casino table games was about the same, but during the 90s the slot machines began the bring to casino owners about 2/3 of their profits! Of course, we need to admit that popular slot machines are popular since they do not require personal contact, they often offer a big payoff against a small fee per game, and the pace of the game was to be chosen by the player.

In 1964 the company Bally Technologies Inc. which is still one of the leading gaming machines manufacturers, created a slot called Money Honey - this was the first electromechanical slot. Unlike the first slot machines, this slot was based on the mechanics, they had motors and there was a possibility to add some lighting design. The same company in the mid 70s began to create slot machine networks, thus offering greater jackpots.

In 1975 Walt Fraley has created the game Fortune Coin, which was actually the first video slot. The production rights got the International Game Technology company (IGT) which next year introduced several game machines of that type. The company just saw the potential and understood the advantages of these machines. Of course, it wasn't a great success in the beginning. Players initially did not trust the machines with TV screens. They did not see the usual drums or reels and they were afraid that they will be deceived by the new type of machines. This situation changed in the early 80s. In 1979 the first video poker games were introduced and their popularity helped video slots as well. In 2006 IGT company introduced in Las Vegas an entirely new slot machine called Guaranteed Play. The machine guarantees the player that he / she is going to stay in the game for a certain amount of time and not just lose money in a couple of minutes. In fact, players have the opportunity to buy some games for a nominal fee. People from the company believe that players prefer some guarantees even in gambling.

If you play online casino games today you can find over a thousand different gaming machines. Among them there are some unique ones, but there are also games with just a few differences. Fortunately, in normal casinos games are different. Of course, you can say that slots have a lot in common, but you can divide them into two main types: classic and video slots. The classic ones have the right to be called "one arm bandits" since all of them have a lever which reminds a raised up hand. The first slots were mechanical, they had three drums which were activated by a lever and which stopped in turn. Over time slots became automated and they were activated by simply pressing buttons. Although levers still exist, they are used more as a tribute. These slots can be seen today as well as their spinning reels, although they are operated electronically. The classic slots have usually three reels and 1 to 5 pay lines. The 3 drum slots do not usually have bonus games.

With the development of computer technology, video slots have become increasingly popular. They are a new generation gaming machines. Video slots do not have reels but screen on which these reels are simulated. The video slots include not 3 but 5 reels (some video slots have 4 or 7 reels). On each of them you can see 3 symbols at the same time (the newest versions show 5 symbols). Actually, you have 3 x 5 with 9 to 50 pay lines or 5 x 5 with up to 100 pay lines. In classic slots you win if you get the same symbols on all three reels. In video slots 2 - 3 symbols are enough, but of course, starting with the first reel. The more symbols you get, the higher the payout. Sometimes it is not even necessary the symbols to be on one line.

It is normal that new video slots are more popular due to the great graphics and many gaming opportunities. And the industry does not stop developing and constantly coming up with new versions of games. Therefore, we can say that there are 3 another types of slots:

• AWP (Amusement with prizes) - these machines come from the UK where they are very popular in bars and pubs. They are classic slots with one line, but a player can get an extra bonus game with a great variety of different prizes. Usually the value of the prize is not as great as in video slots. Also, the game player is randomly given an opportunity to "push" the reel or "hold" it.
• i-slots are online slots which are based on video slots but the outcome does not depend that much on chance, but on the skills of the player since the game consists of a few different games in a particular order. Besides, they have some beautiful cartoon images.
• Special slots - these are the slots that are difficult to classify, the unusual slots. Here you can find slots with non-standard playing fields, Tetris-like games etc. Slots, similar to multi - line video poker games. There are also "cubes"(3 x 3 slots) where all cells are filled at random, and payments usually go to 8 lines: 2 diagonals, 3 horizontals and 3 verticals.

Perhaps this is the most popular type of the casino games - slot machines, one-armed bandits, slots, or video slots. According to some studies, more than half of casino players prefer slots. They say they are especially loved by women, but men also do not mind spending some time in front of slot machines. Besides, Internet provides an ample amount of opportunities. Online you can find all the opportunities offered by land - based casinos, and even more. Online casinos offer player literally hundreds of different slots - from the classic ones to the latest video versions. On the Internet you can find huge jackpots (exceeding 1 million dollars), machines with up to 100 lines, a variety of bonus games and exotic options.

Here are some popular video slots online;

• Dolphin coast video slot is presented in casinos with Microgaming software. It has 5 reels and 55 pay lines as well as extraordinary graphics and many opportunities to win or multiply your winnings. The minimum bet is $ 0. 01.
• Monster in the closet video slot is presented in casinos with Microgaming software. It has 5 reels and 50 pay lines as well as wilds, scatters, multiple bonus opportunities, free spins etc. The minimum bet is $ 0. 01.
• Tiger's eye video slot is presented in casinos with Microgaming software. It has 5 reels and 40 pay lines. The minimum bet is $ 0. 01. Tiger's eye takes the players to the deep jungles of India. The video slot offers wilds, scatters, free spins, multipliers and opportunities to double or quadruple your winnings.
• Steinfest video slot is presented in casinos with Microgaming software and introduces the German beerfest. It has 5 reels and 9 pay lines as well as wilds, scatters, bonus games, free spins, multipliers etc. The minimum bet is $ 0. 01.

The evolution of the slot machines captured the attention on the system and the player. The game systems, which were created as a tool for tracking the game and to facilitate the calculation of winnings, today provide surveillance of the whole gaming room and can communicate with other remote systems. The usage of servers allows players to control their own games since in casinos there is an opportunity almost immediately to reconfigure the slot machines from the central server. This eliminates the need to spend time and effort in order to switch the games for each slot manually. The concept of "Guaranteed play" developed by IGT in partnership with Walker Digital, allows players to buy a certain number of turns (of the reels) or certain number of poker hands for a fixed amount of money per package.

Video slots with multiple lines and the possibility to determine the amount of the bets, 4-reel and 5-reel slots, multi-level progressive winnings, the machines that offer multi-user products and games for a whole group of players - for example, Wheel of fortune Super Spin - that's the most popular type of gaming machines which today can be found in casino rooms worldwide. The Wheel of Fortune Super Spin has 9 video slots arranged around a giant bonus wheel, so that multiple players can participate in a bonus game.

In the same way as open computer networks have changed the way we communicate by telephone and via the internet, they will change the gaming industry as well. New technologies, access to which is provided by open networks, will allow players to experience even more fun and excitement, offering a huge range of possibilities for entertainment.