I have a story about those Eisenhower dollars.
Back in November, 1978, my parents, my sister and myself took our first trip ever to Las Vegas during Thanksgiving weekend. We were living in Santa Barbara at the time.
Anyway, one night we visited the casino at Caesar’s Palace at 1:00 AM. My father spotted Robert Redford playing the dollar machines, and my Dad announced, “I want to be able to say that I gambled next to Robert Redford!” My father stepped up to the machine to the right of Redford, and dropped in an Eisenhower dollar. On his very first pull, three 7’s came up in a row....777. 100 of those Eisenhower dollars came pouring out of the machine. My Dad turned to Redford and said, “I won this because of YOU!” Redford replied, “I’m very happy for you!” (Although by his tone of voice, I don’t think he was sincere). My Dad cashed in the coins for paper money.
At the time, Redford was filming the movie “The Electric Horseman” in Las Vegas.
The casinos haven’t used those Eisenhower dollars in many years. First they started using tokens with their logo, now they have those “coinless” machines.