The slot machines of today with their computer controlled electronic brains and flashing lights have come a long way since Charles Frey a Germany mechanic invented the first one armed bandit in San Francisco in 1887.
The early machines were simple devices with between three and five reels each with about a dozen different symbols, a mechanical arm (hence one armed bandit) was used to crank the reels into motion and if when they stopped about 30 seconds later the symbols on the win line matched those on the payout chart a certain number of coins would be returned.
The slot machines development really took off after the Second World War with advances in technology allowing many extra features such as hold, nudge,doubling, spins, gambles and extra lines not to mention link machines sometimes accross multiple casinos allowing jackpots running into the millions of dollars.
The interest in slot machines by serious gamblers rather than casual players with little to spend has resulted in the payaouts rising from about 75% twenty yeas ago to well in excess of 90% on some games now. Below are three games that are currently running across multiple casinos with realtime updates of the potential jackpot on slot just select where you want to play and off you go Good Luck!
Craps
A Brief History
The exact origin of Craps like many things in life is disputed, it may be derived from ancient Arab bone rolling games / rituals that were used to predict the will of the Gods from which many dice games are said to have evolved, it probably then worked its way through France to England and then on to America. There was an English dice game called Hazard which migrated to America with the early settlers towards the end of the eighteenth century, Hazard gives the bank a good advantage and it is believed that Craps was developed as a fairer version, the name possibly coming from the term Crabs, the roll of two aces in the game of Hazard. Craps took over from Faro as the main gambling game in Ameria and is now the most popular dice game in the world.
Overview of the Game
Craps is played with two dice which are thrown by a ‘shooter’ on a long table with boards from one to two feet highsurrounding the table.
The game is played in two stages, after the initial bets are placed the shooter throws the dice. If a seven or eleven is thrown that is a natural and the throw is over, players betting on the shooter win. If two, three or twelve are thrown these are known as ‘craps’ and bets on the shooter are lost. If on the otherhand the shooter rolls a four, five, six, eight, nine or ten this number is known as his point. In a land casino this is marked with a disc called a buck.
The shooter then continues to throw until he either rolls the number again ‘makes his point’, in which case bets on the shooter win, or thows a seven when bets on the shooter loose.
These simple rules are added to by a range of bets that players can make both for and against the shooter, see our Craps Bets page for descriptions of the various bets and our Craps Odds page to calculate your best options.