Slot machines are a primary producer of casino revenue and popular collectible items. As a blend of electronic and mechanical components, slot machines will wear with age and require routine repairs. Complex repairs require the use of a qualified technician, but common repairs can be carried out by the machine owner.
Have you ever wondered how are slot machines made? Surely you have seen this machine before and have a general idea of its functionality. Simply place your money inside the machine, pull the lever and wait for the reels to stop spinning, while hoping for a winning combination. That’s how they work in a nutshell.
Who Is Making The Slot Machines Machine
Today, the reels on modern day slot machines (video slots) are displayed on a screen and are powered electronically, sort of like a video game. However, with the older classic machines, the reels are mechanical and are manually powered. In this article, we’ll be speaking specifically about video slots and will give you a more detailed look inside the machine so you can see exactly how they are made and how they operate.
Open Up a Slot Machine
If you were to open up a slot machine, you would be able to see there’s a lot of different parts inside. Since you probably don’t have a machine of your own to take apart, we’ve gone ahead and listed all the important ones for you below:
Reels
Typically, you’ll find three to five reels on slot machines. The old classic slot machines used to have metal hoops that were used as the reels, however nowadays, video slots use virtual reels.
Play Button
The Play Button is used to determine the amount of lines you’re going to select as well as how much money you want to bet for each line.
Symbols
Are the characters/items that appear on the reels in order to make the game entertaining and of course to let you know if you’ve won, once the reels have stopped.
Random Number Generator
Also known as RNG, is a computer software that randomly selects which symbols will appear on the reels.
Paylines
Are lines which make up all the possible winning combinations on the reels. Usually there’s anywhere from 25 – 50 different paylines on any given machine. The more reels there are, the more paylines there can be. In order to view all the paylines for a specific machine, you can simply check the game’s paytable (described below).
Paytable
Each game has a paytable, which depicts the rules, explains the features, the value of each symbol, and of course all the different paylines.
How Slot Machines Work
Now that you know what’s inside a slot machine, let’s go ahead and discuss how slot machines work.
First of all, slots are a game of chance. That means, there’s absolutely nothing you can do to in order to influence the outcome of any given spin. Why? That’s because each machine is built with a special software inside called the RNG (Random Number Generator). The RNG is programmed to generate random numbers which get translated into random results as soon as the spin button has been pressed.
Even before the reels begin to spin, the RNG is creating random sequences every millisecond. This software is built into all licensed and regulated machines in order to ensure fair gameplay. This means that none of your previous spins will have an impact on the upcoming spins you’re about to make. For example, let’s say you start playing on the same machine someone just won a jackpot on, the odds of you hitting that jackpot will remain exactly the same, just as if it was never triggered in the first place.
A majority of the slot machines nowadays are built in order to look, sound and feel the same as the original ones, from back in the day. Gone are the days when the outcome of your spin is determined by the movement of the reels, instead it’s all done by a computer inside which uses step motors to rotate the reels. The step motors are activated by digital electrical pulses that come from the computer.
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