It is difficult to believe that all of these tens of thousands of ultra powerful and super sophisticated pokies you will find in casinos throughout the World or in the hundreds of online casinos all derived from a simple piece of mechanics that first saw the light of day more than a hundred years ago.
For as long as man can recall people have liked to gamble, but gambling takes a lot of forms, some of which the gambler who didn't want to get too involved and wanted to find an easy way to spend a few pennies and have some enjoyment.
Their salvation was found in a simple pokey machine that was developed in the West Coast of the United States more than one hundred years ago. The man who the World can thank for the pokey went by the name of Chares Fey and he lived and worked in the wild and wonderful city of San Francisco in California. According to history, Fey, who was seemingly more of a gifted mechanical engineer than a gambler, noticed that among San Francisco's large expatriate Chinese population there appeared to be a big market for limited budget gamblers. Fey reckoned that if he could build a simple machine where players can put in a cent and if they might win two or three or even ten they would be happy.
Fey set of for his workshop and began the painstaking task of developing a prototype pokie that he could sell to local casinos or wherever the Chinese congregation like to gather. Obviously the machines had to guarantee a profit for those who bought them and operated them. However even these days Foy reckoned that the philosophy of pokies should be relatively high pay outs meaning low profits yet high turnover for the people who operated them.
The first pokies began to roll off the production line in the early eighteen nineties and the early response was so much greater than anyone could imagine Soon San Francisco was going pokey mad and there were crowds around the machines wherever they were placed. The formula for the early pokies were very simple with a three wheel window and a combination of ten possible symbols for each window. They most popular winning symbol was three cherries for Fey's babies was three cherries which meant that the pokie soon began to be known as a " fruit machine" a name that has stuck with it to this day.
It didn't take too long before the pokie craze swept all across America and Fey's workshop was expanding fast to keep pace with the demand. Eventually in 1910, having become a wealthy man as a result of his invention, Fey sold out to a larger company owned by Herbert Mills.
Mills took the pokie to the next stage, expanding production, developing new machines, although along the same lines as Fey's.
Within a few years pokies began to find their way into Europe and especially the UK where they became immediately popular.
Today the pokie has become as big a part of US and UK culture as Coca Cola and doughnuts. And it's all down to the vision of Charles Fey.
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