Casino slots have changed beyond all recognition over the years

Many thing have changed since online casinos were first available to Irish casino players but none more so than the range and complexity of casino slots. Those who have a few more years under their belt will probably remember the original casino slots or fruit machines as they were then known, named because the symbols were different types of fruit such as oranges, melons and of course cherries. Actually, if you go further back in time and across to America there were no cash prizes but winnings were paid out in flavoured chewing gum which is where the fruit symbols come from. Those original casino slots were also known as “one armed bandits” with the one arm being the handle that was pulled to rotate the three reels and the bandit part is pretty obvious. These original casino slots which could be found at pubs and clubs around the country had only three reels and one winning line across the middle. The introduction of a single push button to replace the handle and the innovation of nudges was considered quite a technological advancement which all seems quite hard to believe when compared to the range available at any online casino today.

It was of course the advancement of electronics that enabled 5 reel casino slots and multiple winning lines to emerge and these were around long before online casinos and even the internet. For the younger readers there really was life before the internet. The online casino has however been a major impetus in the further development of casino slots to give more and more variety and to introduce more features including wilds and free spins and of course those massive casino progressive jackpots. A jackpot in a single machine would take weeks or months to accumulate and even then it was limited in size by the money being spent but with online casinos having multiple casino slots they can be linked together and with several different online casinos having the same casino slot they can all be linked together to produce a rapidly expanding jackpot that often runs into the millions of Euro. The online casinos are able to have the same casino slot by virtue of using the same casino software to drive their platform and this is exactly why you come across the same casino lost on different online casinos sites. A further development to attract players was to get licensed products and music such as the themes to the Marvel™ comic book characters.

Today some online casinos have literally hundreds of casino slots to choose from which can make it difficult to choose one but fortunately there are some simple categories to help. Most online casinos offer two types known as slots and video slots. The video slots are going to be the more complicated ones and will include the jackpot slots although most online casinos will also have a tab which takes you directly to their jackpot slots. The slots section will have the simpler casino slots which may include one or two that resemble the original fruit machines of old. Casino slots such as Fruit Slots™ which is created by the casino software company Microgaming and can be found at www.instacasino.com still have three reels and one winning line. A fairly new innovation has replaced the traditional five reels that often show three symbols on each reel with fifteen independent symbols so that instead of having only the 5 reels moving t is now possible to shuffle all fifteen or any other number of symbols. This might make no difference you might think but in actual fact it enables other features such as Sticky Wins™ to be introduced. Sticky Wins™ is a feature found at the casino slots Jack Hammer™ and Jack Hammer 2™ which are casino slots by casino software company NetEnt and can be found at a number of online casinos including All Irish Casino, Casinoland or Instacasino.

With this feature any winning symbols are automatically held and all others are spun again to see if the win can be improved. This is not a one off process as if the win is improved than all the symbols in that improved win are held again and the remainder spun again as before. This carries on until the win is not improved any more whereupon the highest win or wins are paid out. There is no jackpot on this casino slot but there are still wilds and free spins. A minimum of five free spins symbols are required to trigger free spins but three symbols will trigger the sticky wins™ so it is not as difficult as it might at first seem. Another feature that can only be played with fifteen independent symbols can be found at Gonzo’s Quest™ or Birds on a Wire™ although it is the reverse of Sticky Wins™. In this arrangement it is the winning symbols which disappear and are replaced by new ones but the principle of improved wins continues and in both these cases there are also win multipliers for successive wins. Gonzo’s Quest™ is an Aztec themed casino slot with the symbols carved onto blocks of stone and when they form part of a winning combination they explode. The great explorer Gonzo looks on with interest with an occasional scratch of the beard and might even dance a jig. The win multiplier runs up to 5 times the face value win in regular play but if you can get into the free spins mode which is called free falls in this slot the win multiplier runs to fifteen times the face value win. Gonzo’s Quest™ is again a NetEnt casino software production an can be found at the same online casinos as already mentioned. Birds on a Wire™ is a Thunderkick production available at Instacasino and uses the same principle of winning symbols  disappearing  but in this case they are birds who get electrocuted and disappear in a puff of soot and feathers. Fortunately the birds do not resemble anything you might find in nature so it is quite a harmless bit of fun.