Pop “slots” into Google anymore and you’re liable to get more search results than any sane person can handle. Part of this obviously has to do with there being thousands of online casinos out there. But the other reason for it is there are almost as many slot machine gaming options in the world as there are hairs on a musk ox’s bottom.

So how do you figure out what to play and what to stay away from? You could spend eternity clicking every link in your search results, or you could just pick one and hope for the best. But, seeing as neither of these prospects seems particularly enticing, we here at AceHoyle.com thought we’d give you a third alternative: Reading about the different types of slots games before you start your search.

That was our original goal as we dove into our research for this page. In the process, though, we discovered that several slots you’d think were pure fiction were actually real slot machines. Naturally, when we found this out we just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to tell you about them. So rather than do another boring list of the many kinds of slot variants, we instead decided to write up a kind of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” for slots.

Now, we do realize you probably want to read that survey of slot machine gambling games, and we promise we’ll have one for you in due time. Just, for now, we think our moment of inspiration offers something a little better. We’re sure, after all, that you’ll be more entertained learning about the slots world’s oddballs than you would be if we just rattled off stats. In fact, the only thing that could make this page any better, in our opinion, is a picture one of those two-headed giraffes.

Oh, wait. Yeah, it’s got that too….

Blackjack Slot Machines

You may be thinking there couldn’t possibly be such things as “blackjack slot machines,” but think again. Apparently, back in 1990, electronic slot machine gaming manufacturer Radica Games Ltd. made several real slot machines based on blackjack—and many of them are still floating around today.

The machines themselves are novelty slots, with the largest measuring no more than one foot from end to end. They basically operate like video poker machines with players trying to beat a computer-generated hand by choosing how many cards to flip over.

These days, finding one of Radica’s blackjack slot machines is pretty tough because the company didn’t make many of them - and those that still work are likely forgotten in people’s attics. One did, however, surface on eBay recently with a very flashy, animated description. But by the time you read this that particular machine will likely be on its way to executive editor Phill Provance, who began bidding on it the moment he found out.

Roulette Slot Machines

We realize it sounds bizarre, but no, “roulette slot machines” aren’t something made up to befuddle Google’s search spiders. And while many of our competitors simply stuff the term where it doesn’t make sense, we here at AceHoyle.com are going to do them one better by actually describing one of these contraptions.

In the 1930s the most popular roulette slot machine, called the “Aristocrat,” was the work of slot machine gaming manufacturer Caille Co. In a glass case above the machine’s main body it featured a wheel that would begin spinning when a player pulled a standard slot lever. The wheel would lift out of its rim while in motion and release the ball, then slowly sink back into place. As it sank the frets on its outer edge would catch the ball, determining which of the wheel’s six colors had won.

Magnificent though it was, when we say the Aristocrat was “popular” we mean in relation to other roulette slot machines. Compared to slots in general it never quite caught on, and nowadays, the only place you’ll occasionally find one is at an auction. This rarity, in fact, has pushed the price for an Aristocrat through the roof, with the full-sized version going for upwards of $100000.

Slot Machine Poker

We probably don’t have to tell you that “slot machine poker” exists since, after all, it’s basically just another name for video poker. What it’s likely you don’t know, however, is that the story of San Franciscan Charles Fey inventing the first slot machine gambling game is a little bunk. Believe it or not, slot machine poker actually predates Fey’s Liberty Bell machine. And it was likely the shortcomings of this earlier innovation that inspired Fey’s work.

The truth of slots history is that in 1891 Sittman and Pitt Co. of Brooklyn released a machine that featured playing cards clipped to a set of reels. At the time, five-card poker was extremely popular, and the company wanted to make providing the game—and making money from it—faster. They figured out that using five reels would allow them to distribute most of a standard deck of cards evenly. Omitting two cards—the Ten of Spades and Jack of Hearts—they discovered, also made scoring a royal flush twice as improbable.

The problem was that players weren’t keen on the machine’s odds. Besides being literally “a few cards shy of a full deck,” the machine also didn’t give them a chance to discard. And because card wagers were highly illegal in the 1890s it could only pay out in cigars. All this on top of the fact that it didn’t pay for every poker hand—Sittman and Pitt claimed it would have been too mechanically complicated to make it do so—provided the huge window for improvement that inspired Fey’s modern slot machine gambling game.

 

Bingo Slot Machines

One of the coolest things you might never have known existed are bingo slot machines. But, like everything else we’ve covered so far, these oddballs are 100 percent real slot machines and 100 percent playable. Ironically, too, though their concept sounds so bizarre—after all, who would want to play a high-vig game crossed with an even-higher vig game?—they probably make up the most diverse group of slots hybrids.

And yet because there are so many different kinds of bingo slot machines we certainly can’t cover them all here. What we can do, however, is point you the direction of an example game we think is the shizzle and explain why we like it so much.

Our pick for the best bingo slot machine online actually comes from FreeSlots4U.com. Though one of our competitors, the site has a game so good our AceHoyle.com code of honor won’t let us omit mentioning it. Basically, in this interpretation of “slot machines bingo” every time you line up three or more “Bingo Bonus” symbols the game ushers you into a bingo bonus game. In it you can manually mark your card with a daub, and you actually get to spend more than a few seconds trying to rack up extra dough.

Suffice it to say, the very idea of a bonus game lasting up to a whole minute would normally be enough to make us suggest the game to anyone. But add that to the fact that it’s also free, and well, we’d seriously have a hard to telling you not to play it.

Booby-Trapped Slots at Slots of Fun

A pun after our own hearts, Slots of Fun, or “Slots A Fun,” isn’t only a nifty play on words; it’s also a darn good Las Vegas slot machines casino. It’s got that authentic it’s-4-a.m.-and-I’m-trapped-in-Fear-and-Loathing feel to it, and the best part is it’s über cheap.

But maybe that’s why someone’s been spreading nasty rumors about this capital of Las Vegas slot machines. Like Sam’s Town, Slots of Fun is known to be a locals’ place, and Vegas residents usually like to keep tourists at arm’s length. Happily, though, we can report the “Slots of Fun slot with a dirty syringe in the coin tray” is one type of slot machine gambling game that’s a complete myth. The origin of it is likely the same as that of the anonymous dirty-needles-in-pay-phones e-mail that circulated about 10 years ago: Some jerk with a sick sense of humor.

In reality none of it ever happened, and according to Snopes, the two historically verifiable incidents of booby-trapped coin returns were absolutely harmless. How do they know that? Well, as the Centers for Disease Control state, the really nasty bugs don’t last long enough outside the body to infect random people after several hours. So chill. Play some real Las Vegas slot machines at Slots of Fun on your next trip out, and stop believing everything you hear.

Slot Tournaments

The idea of competing to see who can best play a game devoid of any skill requirement might seem ridiculous. But millions of people do in fact take part in slot tournaments every year. And, believe it or not, these events inject as much strategy into slot machines as there will ever be: The faster you can push a button, the more likely you are to win.

The way it works is that a brick-and-mortar or online casino holding a tournament collects an entry fee. Then the house assigns each player a machine and sets all the tournament slots to free-play mode. Players then have a set amount of time to win as much as they can, with the players with the highest final winnings pile taking home cash prizes.

As for whether playing in slot tournaments is worth it, it’s totally up to you. Some people rave about how they allow slots players to work toward a set prize. Others, on the other hand, whine that playing in them makes their fingers sore. Here at AceHoyle.com, we don’t have an opinion, but we do think you’ll be missing out if you never try at least one slot tournament.

Pachislo Slot Machines

The U.S. and Japan have a funny relationship: Whereas America has comics, Japan has manga; whereas Americans drink Coke, Japanese drink Ramune. So, as you’d expect, Japan also has its own take on the only modern gambling game invented in the U.S. And like everything else that comes from our friends in the Land of the Rising Sun, it’s a pretty darned cool.

Pachislo slot machines are basically automated versions of Japan’s classic Pachinko games. These games were something like vertical pinball machines minus the bumper paddles. Players would draw back a spring-loaded shooting mechanism that would send a ball up to the top of the machine. Then the ball would travel down through a series of bumpers and, depending on which hole it fell into, would trigger more balls or disappear completely.

Basically, Pachislo slot machines’ major improvement on both Pachinko and slots is the set of buttons, called “skill stops,” beneath their reels. As the name implies, skill stops allow players to determine when their reels stop, so in a sense, Pachilso is the game slots players have been waiting a century for.

In actuality, of course, the reels don’t stop exactly when you want them to—giving the House its edge—and they move much faster than standard slots’. But the very fact that they offer players a feeling of control makes them helluva fun and awfully addictive.

The SIMS Slot Machine Casino Game

Rounding out our “Believe It or Slots” page, we decided to throw in one oddball class of games that do exist, but aren't what you could actually call "real slot machines." Remember the SIMS from nearly half a decade ago? Well, it seems at one time there was a SIMS slot machine casino game to go along with it. And for a while getting your hands on one was all the rage.

Apparently back in ’06, when online gambling’s popularity was at its height, SIMS publisher Electronic Arts decided to stuff a slot machine gambling game item into the game. The problem was this SIMS slot machine casino game didn’t do anything but sit in players’ homes collecting digital dust. And that’s where hundreds of amateur programmers came in, all of them vying to add some real slots software to the basic item first.

With the SIMS now an artifact of a bygone decade, it’s hard to say how many of these programmers succeeded in their quest. The strands of hurried replies on their message boards end abruptly a few months after the U.S. Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. And visiting their forums today gives you the feeling you’re in a ghost town.

Still, if you’re a SIMS aficionado and all you want this holiday season is some slots software for your SIMS slot machine casino game, we might be able to lend a hand. It seems the enterprising code jockey at Oddsim.com got’er done, developing two slots software modules that turn players’ SIMS slot machine casino games into playing machines. Better still, he offers these patches gratis. All you have to do is visit his site.

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