WMS Gaming

WMS Gaming is a manufacturer of slot machines, video lottery terminals and software to help casinos manage their gaming operations. It also offers online and mobile games. The company is based in Chicago, Illinois. WMS is a subsidiary of WMS Industries, which became a wholly owned subsidiary of Scientific Games Corporation in 2013.

WMS entered the reel-spinning slot machine market in 1994, and in 1996, it introduced its first hit casino slot machine, Reel ‘em In, a "multi-line, multi-coin secondary bonus" video slot machine. It followed this with a number of similar games like Jackpot Party, Boom and Filthy Rich. By 2001, it introduced its Monopoly-themed series of "participation" slots. Since then, WMS Gaming has continued to obtain licenses to manufacture gaming machines using several additional famous brands. The company continues to sell gaming machines and to market its participation games.

WMS Gaming is a subsidiary of WMS Industries, whose roots date back to the 1943 founding of Williams Manufacturing Company. Over the last decades of the 20th century, Williams produced popular pinball machines and video arcade games. By 1996, WMS had transferred its video game library to its video game subsidiary, Midway Games, which it took public and finally spun off in the late 1990s. With the rapid decline of the arcade industry in the 1990s, the company's pinball business became unprofitable, and WMS sold off the pinball line in 2000.

Meanwhile, in 1991, WMS created a new division, Williams Gaming, to enter the gaming and state video lottery markets, developing and releasing its first video lottery terminals for the Oregon market in 1992. Williams Gaming entered the reel-spinning slot machine market in 1994, but the company's video gaming roots ultimately would prove to be its strength when, in 1996, it introduced its first hit casino slot machine, Reel ‘em In, a "multi-line, multi-coin secondary bonus" video slot machine. WMS followed this with a number of similar successful games like Jackpot Party, Boom and Filthy Rich. During the 1990s, the gaming industry grew as additional states permitted casino gambling and video lottery games, and as Native American tribes built gaming casinos. The division was incorporated as WMS Gaming in 1999 and has since focused exclusively on the manufacture, sale, leasing, licensing and management of gaming machines.

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