There is always plenty of celebrity gossip to keep us occupied for more hours than we have in each day. Whether you want to know about who the richest YouTubers are, what started the beef between Kelly Henderson and Kristin Cavallari, or what Cardi B’s net worth is, the internet has it all for you.
However, sometimes, it’s worth looking into the past to read about the key figures who helped to create and shape popular forms of entertainment today. We all know about Walt Disney and his passion for creating magical movies; Tim Berners-Lee, the man who created the World Wide Web that we use for streaming, social media, and games; and John Logie Baird who created the world’s first TV.
There is also another man who has left a mark on our history and whose work continues to play a significant role in the lives of millions of people today. His name was Charles August Fey, and he was the creator of the slot machine.
Charles August Fey’s Invention and its Influence Today
After a career as an electrical and telecommunications engineer in San Francisco, Fey began inventing. His most famous creation is the Liberty Bell, an early slot machine that included all of the typical features that we associate with the games today. Fey wasn’t the first to create a slot machine, but he adapted the work of people like Gustav Freidrich Wilhelm Schultze, by including automatic coin payouts, removing the need for a costly human attendant.
He quickly built up a business using his invention, but instead of selling them, he leased them to bar and restaurant owners for free on the understanding that they would share the profits equally. Thanks to this, Fey’s slot machine empire was the largest operator of this type of game for much of the early 20th century.
Today, slots have evolved quite a bit from Fey’s early machines. Firstly, most of the physical machines found in casinos no longer contain any moving parts. Instead, the mechanical reels have been replaced by digital video screens, allowing slot developers to offer much more variety in their games.
This variety can also be found online, where most online casinos offer hundreds of different titles for their customers to choose from. Most also contain extra features, such as in Big Blue Bounty which contains eight lines and five reels that can be respun in bonus rounds or replaced altogether by a giant whale that appears occasionally.
Charles August Fey’s Early Life
A lot of events took place in Fey’s life to allow him to be in California and have the right skills necessary to develop the first slot machine. While each one individually seems inconsequential, together, they helped to shape the way many of us play games today.
Fey’s journey began, not in North America, but in Europe. Although he spent a large part of his life in the United States of America, Charles Fey was originally from Germany. Born on September 9, 1862, as Augustinus Fey in Vöhringen, Bavaria, he lived in a chaotic household with 15 siblings and his parents, a total of 18 people.
He got his first job working for a company that manufactured farming equipment, picking up many important skills that would serve him well for the rest of his life. But he soon left his native Germany to avoid a military draft, instead choosing to work in neighbouring France. That didn’t last long though, and he soon left for England, before taking a ferry across the Atlantic to settle in the United States.
In America, he met up with his uncle who had already settled in the state of New Jersey; however, he began moving around the country after his only relative in the US returned back home to Europe.
After some time, Fey eventually settled for the warmer climes of California, making San Francisco his home. It was here where he changed the world in his own small way.
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