History of Fruit Machines...

[rcampbel3]

Being from the US, I never really understood why fruit machines aren't just called slot machines and why I never saw any of the ones from the UK in the US. Most people here probably already know this history, but I couldn't find it here, and I didn't know...

https://www.slotsracer.com/blog/the-history-of-the-fruit-machine

Specifically, this part:

Quote

 

Gaming in Britain was always slightly different to gambling in the United States, due to differences in how the law was applied. Up until 1960, in Britain a machine had to have an element of skill to it if it paid out a prize. One-armed bandits appeared from America on British shores in the 1960s, and quickly became popular in seaside resorts and pubs.

Due to British law, these machines had to include an element of skill. This was introduced with the advent of the nudge button, and later the hold button. These two features became an integral of the British fruit machine in the 1980s and 90s, when video technology improved massively, and more features could be added to machines - resulting in the fruit machine world that draws all of us to play today!

 

and this:

https://www.bestuscasinos.org/blog/the-rise-and-fall-of-fruit-machines/

Quote

 

Fruities were born out of the desire to bypass gambling restrictions at the time. Developers added “nudge” and “hold” features to make their slots differ from standard casino slot machines.

Hold allows you to hold one or more rules in place after a round. Meanwhile, you respin the rest of the reels in hopes of earning a (better) prize.

Nudge lets you bump a reel up or down one position. The hope is that when you bump the reel, you’ll nudge a more favorable symbol into view.

Hold and nudge don’t exactly require the same level of expertise as, say, Call of Duty. But they did bring enough skill into the equation to make fruities legal on a mainstream basis.

Fruities Spread Across Britain
Before fruit machines, slot machines were unskilled affairs that were only legal in regulated casinos. Developer couldn’t just sell slots to random restaurants and pubs.

Everything changed when fruities came about, though. Suddenly, developers had a much larger market to offer their games to.

Pubs and arcades, meanwhile, filled with these machines. They had great success with fruities due to the combination of gambling and skill elements.