Nobody questions the cherries. You load up a slots game at any UK casino offering slots online, and there they are, cherries, lemons, plums, watermelons, sitting on the reels like they’ve always belonged there. Which in a sense they have. But the reason they’re there is so strange and so specifically American that it’s worth actually knowing.

It starts with Charles Fey, a Bavarian mechanic working out of San Francisco who built the Liberty Bell machine somewhere around 1895. Three spinning reels, five symbols, horseshoes, spades, hearts, diamonds, and a cracked bell. Line up three bells and you won fifty cents. Simple, wildly popular, impossible to keep up with demand. Then the law got involved.

When Gum Became the Prize

By the early 1900s, gambling bans were spreading across US states and the machines that had been sitting happily in saloons and barber shops started causing problems for the people running them. The solution the industry landed on was genuinely creative. If you couldn’t pay out cash, you paid out chewing gum. Turn the slot machine into a vending machine, technically, and suddenly you weren’t running a gambling operation at all. You were dispensing confectionery.

The fruit symbols came directly from that pivot. Cherries, lemons, oranges, plums, each one represented a flavour of gum the player might win. Line up three plums and you got plum-flavoured gum. Three oranges and you got the orange. The machines weren’t really hiding what they were, everyone knew you were gambling, but the loophole held because the prize was technically a food product and not money. The courts were suspicious. Several vending machines and gumball dispensers of the era were treated with outright mistrust by judges who could see exactly what was happening. But the model kept working well enough to stick.

The BAR Nobody Understood

The BAR symbol is the part of this story most people don’t know. It looks like a gold ingot, reads as shorthand for wealth and high payouts, and that’s entirely how it functions now. But the original BAR was the logo of the Bell-Fruit Gum Company, one of the manufacturers who had pivoted their machines into gum dispensers. When you lined up three BARs, you were winning a bar of chewing gum. The logo of a confectionery company became one of the most recognisable icons in gambling history and nobody involved in modern slots is thinking about gum when they see it.

Mills Novelty Company in Chicago copyrighted the fruit symbol set in 1910 and carried that copyright date on their reels until the 1940s. The symbols outlasted the gum prizes by decades. Cash payouts came back as laws shifted but the fruit stayed, partly because players had come to associate it with the machines, and partly because the visual language of slots had already been built around it. By the time anyone thought to question why a gambling machine was covered in pictures of oranges, the answer felt too obvious to bother asking.

The digital transformation and jump from those mechanical reels to the online slots sitting on your screen now is bigger than it looks from the outside. The Liberty Bell had three reels and five symbols. A modern video slot might have five reels, 25 paylines, 20 or more different symbols, wild substitutions, scatter triggers, free spin rounds, and bonus games that play out like a separate thing entirely. But open almost any classic-style slot today and the cherries are still there. Lemons too. The BAR in single, double, and triple variations. Bells, because the Liberty Bell started all of this in a San Francisco workshop in 1895 and nobody has seen a good enough reason to retire it.

It’s one of the stranger pieces of design continuity in popular culture. A legal workaround involving chewing gum, invented to help saloon owners avoid prosecution in the early 1900s, turned into the visual identity of a global industry worth hundreds of billions. The cherries on the reels aren’t there because someone chose them. They’re there because at some point a long time ago, someone needed to prove their machine was a sweet shop and not a casino, and the symbols that came out of that pretence never left.

Many internet users have come across adverts for casino websites and apps, even when they had no intention of playing poker, slots, or any other game. For anyone actually thinking about using an online casino, here are a few things to consider. The thoughts below may help new players play more responsibly and safely. 

The house always has an edge

Despite the best efforts of mathematicians and devoted poker, blackjack, and bingo players, the house always has an edge. The casino is designed to win more often than the player. It is easy to forget this when analysing odds or getting caught up in the game. In reality, the casino always plans for (and achieves) a long-term profit. It may lose occasionally, but this is expected and is intended to attract players. Ultimately, players are always risking money. That is, if they are playing paid-for games, of course. 

Many games are “no deposit” casino games

Many games are promoted as “no deposit” options. Players should remember that while these games may appear free at first, often the website or app will encourage the player to commit money – either on that same game, or elsewhere on the platform. In some cases, free-to-play features are limited, with restricted gameplay or capped winnings. Players would be wise to read the terms and conditions thoroughly. If a website or app’s terms are unclear, it is best avoided. People can use review websites to check if a platform seems trustworthy. 

Reviews are widely available so that players can learn from others’ experiences

Many reviews are available online, and a new gambler does not have to risk their money with an untrustworthy site. With so many casinos to choose from, it only makes sense to use a reliable, licensed platform. There are professional reviewers of casino platforms who assess the pros and cons of the hundreds of sites and apps available. For example, CasinoTopsOnline (https://www.casinotopsonline.com) provides UK gamblers with in-depth casino reviews that consider game selection, platform design, safety and various other aspects of casinos. 

There are hundreds of licensed casinos online

The iGaming industry is fiercely competitive, which is potentially both good and bad news for players. The bad news is that players may feel bombarded with offers and promotions, which aren’t always good value. But on a brighter note, the competition means that there are plenty of options to choose from and because it is a profitable industry, there are platforms that make an effort to improve their game selections, provide enjoyable experiences, and make the gaming experience as safe as possible. As with any other paid-for activity, players should try to consider whether a game may be good value (and professional reviews may help with this). 

Many casinos offer a mobile app

Casinos have widely recognised that most people use the internet on their phone. That means there are many casino apps to choose from, with a lot of platforms keeping both their web browser version of games as well as their apps regularly updated. The choice for a new player may depend on what they’re most comfortable with – some people don’t enjoy downloading lots of new apps; others prefer the separation between using an app and browsing on Safari, Chrome or whatever mobile browser they use.

Casinos offer responsible gambling tools

The more trustworthy and highest-rated casinos often offer responsible gambling tools. These include deposit limits (preventing players from going over their desired daily or weekly amount), self-exclusion options, and time check-ins (where players are reminded that they have been online for a certain amount of time).

The main responsible gambling organisation in the UK is the Gambling Commission, which can be found at gamblingcommission.gov.uk – it is the government to which gambling businesses apply for a license to operate legally. It is a non-departmental public body and is sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. 

Poker is still popular, despite the spread of slots, and has changed since the 90s

Slots are often the most promoted games and there are practically countless variations of essentially the same titles. But poker is still played by thousands of players online, after growing in popularity partly thanks to the rise of televised poker in the 1990s and 2000s. 

Popular players such as Daniel Negreanu have become famous and have helped encourage the development of modern players’ training techniques, which sometimes include meditation, healthy eating, and regular exercise. Negreanu posted on Twitter (now X) a few years ago that when he needs to get into shape, he eats three meals and one snack per day, with 30g or more protein per meal.

This kind of poker role model was more difficult to picture in the early days of the internet, but the stereotypical image is fading somewhat. The fundamentals of the game remain the same, though – and like with other casino games, the house has the edge.

From Mechanical Reels to Digital Rooms

The story of online slots starts long before the internet. Early machines taught developers that simple symbols, fast feedback, and a clear rhythm could make a game easy to follow.

In Short: Many features that feel modern were tested decades ago and refined by a small group of influential studios.

When Early Online Studios Set the Template

When online gaming reached home computers in the 1990s, studios had to translate reel-based play into software that worked on slow connections and small screens. A modern reference point is NetEnt games free-play, where recognizable reels, layered features, and polished presentation show how durable those early design choices became. Developers kept the readable layouts and quick loops that made slots easy to learn.

Microgaming helped drive that shift by backing one of the first online casino platforms and later introducing Cash Splash, which showed that a linked jackpot could live online instead of on one machine. That step made digital slots feel larger in scale, even when the visuals were still simple.

Why Jackpots and Bonus Rounds Changed Expectations

Early studios did more than copy spinning reels. They added progressives, mini-games, and themed interruptions that turned slots into short bursts of interactive entertainment.

Land-based pioneers opened the door with electromechanical and video formats, and digital developers expanded the idea online. IGT’s Megabucks showed how linked jackpots could create a shared event, while WMS’s Reel ‘Em In helped normalize the second-screen bonus that still appears in many forms today.

Key Shift: The slot stopped being only a reel display and became a package of pacing changes, visual rewards, and surprise features.

How NetEnt Refined the Modern Slot

Later studios built on those early experiments by making games cleaner and easier to read across devices. NetEnt stood out by treating layout, animation, and feature timing as part of the experience rather than just decoration.

Starburst Made Simplicity Feel Premium

Starburst showed that a slot did not need a crowded screen to feel memorable. Its bright visual style, quick re-spins, and win-both-ways format made it easy for newer players to understand while still feeling polished.

Twin Spin Kept Classic Reels Moving

Twin Spin took a familiar reel setup and added linked reels that could expand across the screen. That small twist made every spin feel more dynamic, showing how studios refreshed old ideas instead of abandoning them.

Features That Still Carry Early DNA

Many modern slots still follow patterns that were set in the first big wave of digital development. A quick look at top 3 NetEnt games makes that lineage easy to spot because each title highlights a different branch of slot design. Some lean on simple re-spins, some build around changing reel behavior, and others focus on layered feature timing.

• Linked Jackpots: Early networked systems proved that one prize pool could connect many sessions and make a game feel larger than a single machine.
• Bonus Screens: Second-screen events taught players to expect short breaks from the main reels, whether through wheels or feature boards.
• Cascading Wins: Chain reactions added motion after the initial result, which made each spin feel less fixed and more alive.
• Mobile-Ready Layouts: HTML5 delivery and cleaner interfaces helped the same game feel readable on a phone, tablet, or desktop screen.

How Free Play Opened the Door for Comparison

Free-play libraries changed how players discover slot design. Instead of judging a game by artwork alone, they could test pacing, bonus flow, and volatility across many titles in one sitting.

That made older mechanics easier to recognize. Many current features are updated versions of ideas that early studios tested years ago.

Why the Early Era Still Matters

The lasting influence of the first online slot makers is easy to miss. Under the surface, the same lessons still drive design: keep the interface clear, make features easy to read, and give each spin a sense of momentum.

Bottom Line: The path from early studio experiments to modern free play is shorter than it looks, and NetEnt remains one of the clearest places to see that evolution in action.