Progressive Jackpot Slot History

You pull on the handle and watch excitedly as the symbols come up on the slot machine, you hold your breathe hoping that you will win the jackpot… sounds familiar?

Well slot machines are a little older than what you think with the first one being invented by a Mr. Charles Fey at the end of the nineteenth century. Of course, as with all other new inventions, his simple machine was improved consistently all through the twentieth century, giving you better odds and larger winnings. One of the most successful and popular developments was the progressive jackpot slot.

In the late 1960's along came a certain William Redd, known as Si, and it is he who we have to thank for this fantastic invention of progressive slots. At that point in time he worked as a distributor of games for a company called Bally Manufacturing and he was trying to get the company interested in video poker, which was a computer-simulated program. The company wanted nothing to do with it and but Redd didn't give up easily and decided to do it alone. A true entrepreneur, Redd launched his own company in 1978, which after a lot of hard work really took off, first under the name Sircoma, which later became the International Game Technology (IGT), and it was by this company that progressive slots were first introduced to make the original slots more exciting.

The idea behind progressive slots was to make the jackpots even more thrilling. This meant that a percentage of each bet was put aside and added to the jackpot so that the final winnings had the potential to be sky-high. It started off with as just single machines but gradually casinos started to group together machines to make the jackpot even higher.

And yet they thought of a way to reach astronomical jackpots: Around 1986, IGT launched their latest invention, which was the first multi-site progressive slot machine. Basically, this meant that casinos across Nevada were linked over phone lines and coins from each slot would add to a super jackpot! To make things even more attractive, it was more likely to get hit than the lotto jackpot. The new invention was very appropriately called Megabucks.

Of course the best thing about this entire system is that it is not limited to one single game, but can be applied to many different games like table game. Now other manufacturers have used this same idea to sweeten the pot of their casino games, so make sure you keep on the lookout for all the different progressive jackpots you can win next time you think about going to the casino. One of the biggest games of this type is the all time favorite, Wheel of Fortune and of course other manufacturers have discovered the magic of the progressive jackpot and added it to their games.

Progressive jackpot games have made millionaires, and in every casino online or off they are the number one player attraction thanks to their thrilling nature and outrageously high wins.