In 2009, just as I began my post-banking career as an insurance agent, a colleague approached me with a strange request. Do you want to get paid for playing slots? “Are you kidding?” I replied. I had never gambled on anything and didn’t want to start now. A month later, I tried it anyway. I played at a casino in Ohio called Nick’s Landing, a place with no rules, no limits, เว็บสล็อต and no surveillance cameras. I could take my time. I could make up any time I wanted. I didn’t have to gamble in the traditional sense.

More slots have been invented in the past few years than ever before. Some look like they belong in a video game, while others resemble something out of science fiction. They can be played on your laptop or smartphone. But there is something very old-fashioned about them. It’s like visiting a museum and finding an original mechanical time-travelling machine, with hundreds of shiny parts that move when you push a button. They are ancient symbols of pleasure, too, with gambling as their main purpose. And the story of how slot machines became a huge industry that transformed America has a strong resemblance to a very old, and also very American, tale.

When the first casinos were established in the early 19th century, they were at first used by the upper class to fund their elaborate parties. Later, the “chaw-bacons” of the frontier used them to fund their dangerous journeys west. A century later, as the American empire spread, these early slot machines helped Americans build their wealth and then lose it. Some bec เว็บสล็อต ame collectors’ items. And by the late 19th century, it was an American vice that had the world in its grip. “Sporting” was the term used for gambling on cards, dice, and horses, and slot machines were the big winner. They had been invented in 1883 by the Englishman William Romaine Newell, who had been inspired by a bet between a few friends.

Slot machines

He created the first “one-armed bandit,” or a machine that randomly chose which card you would be dealt from a pack of cards. This became known as the “double up” machine, and it was first introduced to America in the 1890s. In this way, gambling became a respectable, if not legal, part of the country’s economy. But it also became something that could take over a person’s life, particularly when the gambler was from the wrong side of the tracks. It was in this way that the Americans learned the power of addiction, and the slot machine became a symbol of the country’s spiritual downfall.