How the Development of the Humble Playing Card Led to the Most Rapidly-Evolving Casino Game Around
While casino history dates back to the 17th century, with Il Ridotto in Venice often cited as the first known casino house, gambling games and similar luck-based games of contest using playing cards have been around for much, much longer. From leaves of paper detailed with symbols to throwing cubes, it’s intriguing to see how early games adopted by casinos have inspired others down the line.
Most casino games that we see today are very similar to how they were played at the time of their invention. Blackjack has always been a card game with the aim of getting to 21, roulette has always been a randomized wheel with numbers that feature at least one banker pocket, and so on.
However, for one of today’s most rapidly evolving casino games, it began as a mechanized version of a very different card game.
Playing Cards Lay the Foundations of the Machine
The transition from manual card-based gambling to mechanical reels marked a significant shift in gaming history. Unlike traditional card games that relied on human shuffling and dealing, early slot machines automated the gambling experience. Charles Fey’s Card Bell machine replaced the physical deck with reels displaying card symbols, offering players a faster-paced and simplified form of gameplay. This mechanization laid the groundwork for the evolution of slots, blending the familiarity of card suits with the thrill of instant payouts.
The evolution of gambling games can be traced back to ancient China, where playing cards first emerged. Played on leaves of paper with symbols on them. Many gambling games based on a set of these playing card progenitors became popular across the country, eventually arriving in Europe. As relayed in this Guardian response to a question on playing cards, playing cards went from China to Egypt, received their original suit marks, and then made it into Europe.
It was in Europe, under the Mamluk Empire, that playing cards would be given polo sticks, gold coins, swords, and goblets to work as the four suits. Translated for Spanish and Italian audiences, these suits transformed into batons, gold coins, swords, and cups when they started spreading around the 1360s. Around 1418, German professional card makers pivoted the symbols into hearts, leaves, acorns, and hawk bells.
By 1480, playing cards would spread to France. French card makers simplified these symbols into hearts, clovers, pike heads, and paving tiles. It’s these symbols that arrived in England, where they would adopt their modern names – spades, clubs, diamonds, and hearts. From England, these playing cards would be spread across the British Empire and, eventually, to the colonized lands of North America.
In what would become the United States, playing cards became popular among settlers and those exploring the American Frontier. Games like blackjack and poker became staples of saloons and gaming houses. After the American Civil War, German-born inventor Charles Fey found himself working on a coin-operated gambling machine in San Francisco, or as we would recognize it, the first kind of slot machine.
The basis of his first invention released to the American public was the Card Bell machine. Released in 1898, the Card Bell had three reels, ran automatic cash payouts on wins, and ran strips of playing cards to show its symbols. The playing card suit marks had to line up as a poker hand to trigger a win, according to the history laid out by Britannica. From there, the Liberty Bell was developed in 1899, which added bells and horseshoes to the reels.
Cards Game Origins Remain a Staple of Slots
Since the days of the Liberty Bell, slot machine origins have given rise to a wide array of innovative designs.. In their physical form, slots became hefty machines capable of running five or even more reels of hundreds of symbols on each. Fruit machines became particularly popular, with fruits like plums, oranges, and lemons often filling in for card symbols on the British variants. In the 1990s, though, slots started to pop up online, and it was here that the classic card origins were brought back.
From digital versions of the naturally limited mechanical slots to more expansive designs, you’d never be hard-pressed to find slots with suits or high card symbols on the reels. Even now, with Megaways slots spanning all themes and payline counts – some even exceed 200,000 paylines now – you’ll see the king, queen, jack, ace, and sometimes even the ten and nine symbols rolling around the reels.
Perhaps most surprising is that it’s different developers sticking to these classic themes. Megaways is licensed out by BTG to all slot developers, which is why the original Bonanza is now joined by Big Bass Bonanza Megaways and Mega Moolah Megaways from different studios. So, even in this incredibly varied and advanced form of online slot gaming, their roots in card gaming remain visibly present.
While slots and just about all card games found at casinos are wildly different, the origins of slots can be clearly found in the humble deck of playing cards.