Your old Uncle Dave’s day job is at a slot machine company. I travel around the country to casinos installing and training on software to manage slot and player operations. I got into gaming by taking classes in slot machine repair two years ago. With a background in both electronics and programming, and given slot machines are essentially computers with fancy displays, it seemed like a good fit since I live in Vegas. So, I thought you dear readers might like a few lessons in how they work. You might not win more after taking my class, but hopefully, you won’t lose more.

First, a bit of history. The first slot machine was invented by Charles Fey in 1887. Called the Liberty Bell, it was the first “one-armed bandit.” It was entirely mechanical and consisted of springs and levers and wheels to create the classic three reel slot. Over the decades, improvements were made, but it wasn’t until the 1980’s that electronics really began to replace the mechanical. Today, slot machines are simply computers with either mechanical (real reels) or video displays.

Ignoring the type of display, most slot machines can be divided into two types of games: spinning reels and poker. There are also kino games, blackjack and assorted others, but they are a tiny fraction of the slot machines out there.

The big, new thing in the industry is building electronic versions of games like blackjack which still has the half-circle table, but each player has a video screen instead of cards and a virtual dealer you don’t have to tip. These aren’t slot machines in the classic sense, but are odd hybrids the casinos love because their dealers don’t need vacations, salaries or health insurance.

In future lessons we’ll learn how slot machines work, look at how the odds of a machine are calculated, why signs touting “98% payback” are misleading, why it’s getting harder to find slot machines that accept coins, how to tell which poker machines to play, and more. Get your nickels ready!