SLOT MACHINES HISTORY
The term was originally used for automatic vending machines as well as for the gambling devices,
but in the 20th century the term became restricted to the latter. The first
such gambling devices in the United States were mere novelties that did not
return coins but presented gambling opportunities, such as two toy horses that
would race after a coin was inserted. Such devices set on a bar in a saloon
attracted wagering between patrons.
The first actual slot machines
were built by Charles Fay in 1887 in a small machine shop in San Francisco.
He built nickle slot machines by hand and rented them to the local gambling
halls. His first machine was not, as some believe, cruder and bulkier than modern
slot machines, nor did its reels carry the fruit symbols commonly used
today. His original slot machine, called the Liberty Bell, was somewhat
smaller than modern machines, and operate basically the same way.
Fay's slot machines were
a huge success, and he couldn't build them fast enough in his small shop. Many
larger gambling supply maufacturers tried to buy the manufacturing and distribution
rights, but Fey refused. However, in 1907, Herbert Stephen Mills, a Chicago
manufacturer of arcade-like machines, began production of a mahince very similar
the Fey's Liberty Bell. The Machine Mills produced was called the Operator Bell.
By 1910, slot machines could be found in every cirt and nearly every
hamlet in the country.
Forces of morality, and then of
law, opposed the operation of slot machines. Throughout the 1920s, the
slot machines were popular throughout much of the United States, especially
in resort areas, and they continued to be popular into the Great Depression
years of the '30s. In the late 40's Bugsy Siegel added slot machines
to his Flamingo Hilton hotel in Las Vegas. Originally, the slot machines
were installed as a way to entertain the wives and girlfriends of high rollers,
but revenue from the slot machines soon began supplanting that of the
table games. In the mid 1980's the popularity of slot machines and table
games were on par with each other, but by the 90's slot machines had
taken over and now account for over two-thirds of casino revenue in the US.
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