"Since the first 'one-armed bandit' was introduced in the late 1800s, slot machines have become a thriving multi-billion dollar global industry," says says Nathan Slaughter. "And International Game Technology (NYSE: IGT) is the '800-pound gorilla' in the slot machine industry" he explains in his Half-Priced Stocks.
And while he notes that the earliest slot machines were crude mechanical devices, the latest are "technological marvels," equipped with rich high-resolution plasma monitors, stereo surround-sound speakers, live streaming video, and other features.
And looking ahead, Slaughter explains, there are other exciting developments on the horizon to look forward to -- such as server-based gaming, where entire banks of slot machines connected to a central server can be reconfigured instantly.
In Nevada, he notes, slot revenues surpassed those generated by blackjack and other table games in 1981 and never looked back. Last year, he observes, they accounted for 66% of total casino revenues statewide.
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