The slot machines are famous by many different names. "Fruit machines" (the English slot machines, that got their names by the images that the spinning reels traditionally displayed); "the one-armed bandits" (that gives association to their appearance with one lever, and the ability to leave you with no money at all if you get carried away), "Poker machine" (the Australian slot machines), "puggy" (Scottish) and simply "the slots" (the Canadian slot machines .)
They have all these variations in their names, but how do they actually work? We can easily conclude that it has a lot to do with slots and spinning wheels.Basically, the machine has several symbols and pictures that can be displayed in many different combinations, some of which give you a reward.
Originally, the slot machines were mechanical, they were consisted of reels that turned and were set to stop at some random point, at which they displayed a specific symbol. But in the beginning, the chances for jackpot were very small because the number of symbols they contained was very small. That's why they eventually started making them with electronicparts. This way, the same symbol could appear much more often and made it more probable for the player to get a winning combination.
Later, the probabilities of every combination and symbol became more easily controlled and planned, with the implementation of the microprocessors. The lever was replaced with buttons and there were no more moving parts. The modern slot machines in the casinos are now made with screens that display the symbols and inform you when a winning combination appears. They also have currency detector that can recognize the money that you insert inside. Nevertheless, the classic image of the slot machine remained the same – a machine with (usually) three moving reels and a lever on the side.
The modern slots actually make the game more interesting because they display more lines, and the symbols can be combined from each line and reel to the others, in different ways. This digitalization also allows more machines to be linked together so they could together offer a large jackpot. For example, if you get the winning jackpot combination on one of the machines, the chance of the same jackpot decreases on all of the linked machines.
So there's not much of a philosophy in here. Everything is based on combination and luck, on which you have no decision whatsoever. Nonetheless, they make a very interesting and time-consuming game, and bring around 70 percent of the incomes of the casinos all over the world.