Back in the late 1800s a savvy Californian mechanical engineer called Charles D. Fey designed the Liberty Bell machine, a landmark in the field of slot gambling, and one that set the precedent for the slot gambling revolution in the 20th century. Although Mr Fey must have known that he was onto a winner with his Liberty Bell blueprint, we’re almost certain he would never have anticipated the modern world of online slots.
The online slot industry is undeniably the biggest gambling industry in the world now, but the most surprising thing is the fact that this happened over the course of little more than two decades – play Mad Mad Monkey Slot. You can see why many gambling analysts are calling the online slot industry the fastest growing industry in the gambling world, keep reading for a more in-depth look at this remarkable expansion.
The gambling industry before online slots
Now, nobody is saying that the gambling industry wasn’t doing well before the arrival of online slots, far from it! One thing is true though, and that is the fact that the gambling industry looked a lot different before the rise of online slots. You see, online casino was in its infancy back then, and casino developers were struggling to design an online casino game that would attract more players than regular brick and mortar casino games.
Back in the late 20th century land-based casinos still dominated the industry, however this would all change as the 21st century rolled through.
Online slots and The Gambling Act 2004
The first online slots started to appear at the beginning of the 2000s, with pioneering developers such as NetEnt, Microgaming and Eyecon all racing to see who could put their online slots out first. The first online slots were quite rudimentary compared to what we have now, however they still caused a great deal of excitement upon their release.
One of the main events, however, at the start of the 2000s, was the UK government’s decision to implement The Gambling Act 2004. This hit the industry with a lot more regulation, but the trade-off was that online slot casinos and developers could advertise their games, hence giving the exposure that they needed.
The key emergence of mobile slots
Things like The Gambling Act 2004 definitely kick-started the rapid growth of the online slots industry, however if it wasn’t for the arrival of mobile slots around 2010 we wouldn’t see anywhere near the same level of growth in the online slots industry.
With mobile slots gamblers could spin the reels of their favourite online slots even whilst they were on the move, so it is easy to see why mobile slots became so popular.
A look at the statistics
It doesn’t take much to realise how successful the online slot industry has been over the last two decades, but we thought we’d back this up with some statistics. Since 2016 there has been a $40 billion revenue increase from online slots, for example, and slot gambling is responsible for 30% of the entire gambling industry’s annual revenue.
