From the Liberty Bell to Megaways

Sittman and Pitt of Brooklyn, New York build a coin-operated poker machine: five drums carrying 50 card faces. It had no automatic payout; bars paid prizes such as drinks or cigars.

Sources disagree here: The Wikipedia Slot machine article currently says 1893; 1891 is the common date elsewhere. Write 'early 1890s' or 'around 1891'

Charles Fey of San Francisco builds a simpler three-reel machine with automatic coin payout, the Liberty Bell, with symbols including horseshoes, diamonds, spades, hearts and a cracked Liberty Bell.

Sources disagree here: disputed. Fey's Wikipedia page says 1895 for his payout machine and 1898 for the Liberty Bell; the Slot machine article says 'between 1887 and 1895'; others say 1899. Write 'in the late 1890s'

Herbert Mills's Mills Novelty Company makes its own Liberty Bell (1907) and then the Operator Bell, which could vend fruit-flavoured gum. Its reels showed lemons, cherries, oranges and plums, and the BAR symbol came from the Bell-Fruit Gum logo. That is where 'fruit machine' comes from.

Bally's Money Honey is the first fully electromechanical slot machine, with a bottomless hopper paying up to 500 coins automatically.

The first video slot machine is developed by Fortune Coin in Kearny Mesa, California, with prototypes tested at the Las Vegas Hilton.

Inge Telnaes (Norway) is granted US patent 4,448,419, 'Electronic Gaming Device Utilizing a Random Number Generator for Selecting the Reel Stop Positions' (filed 24 February 1982). This is the basis of the virtual reel, which lets odds be set independently of the number of physical stops.

Antigua and Barbuda passes the Free Trade and Processing Act, which allowed licences for online casinos. Microgaming (Isle of Man) says it built the first online casino software the same year.

Microgaming's Cash Splash, widely cited as the first online progressive jackpot slot.

Sources disagree here: weak: trade and secondary sources only, no primary source found. Write 'widely cited as'

Jon Heywood (UK) wins €17,879,645 (£13,209,300) on Microgaming's Mega Moolah at Betway, the Guinness World Record listed for the largest online slot jackpot payout.

Larger Mega Moolah jackpots were reported: €18,915,872.81 at Grand Mondial Casino (2018) and €19,430,723.60 on Absolootly Mad: Mega Moolah at Napoleon Sports & Casino, Belgium (April 2021).

Big Time Gaming's Megaways mechanic (a random number of symbols per reel, up to 117,649 ways) first appears in Dragon Born, followed by Bonanza in 2016. BTG later licensed it to many studios.

The Gambling Act 2005 (c.19) is passed and comes fully into force on 1 September 2007, bringing remote gambling and betting under one regime.

The Gambling Commission is set up under the 2005 Act, taking over from the Gaming Board for Great Britain, and gains its full powers in 2007. It also took over National Lottery regulation on 1 October 2013.

The Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 requires every operator serving British consumers to hold a Gambling Commission licence (1 November 2014), and Remote Gaming Duty moves to a point-of-consumption basis at 15% (1 December 2014).

The government publishes the white paper 'High stakes: gambling reform for the digital age' (CP 835), leading to the online slot stake limits, statutory levy and bonus rules.