Ultimate Guide to Slot Machine History

Professor Slots ^ | 7/11/23 | Jon Friedl - Professor Slots

[DallasBiff]

Let’s highlight developments in these entertainment devices having slots for accepting coins as a sequence of historical events to provide insights into the next technological advancements from slot machines.

[DallasBiff]

Gawd I'm old I remember when a person had to put an actual coin into a slot, nickel or quarter, and people would be walking around with plastic cups full of coins

Not promoting slots or gambling, just remembering old Vegas.

Flame away and mods pull if inapproriate.

[monkeyshine]

Sure I remember those plastic buckets. They also had trays for $1 coins, $100 per tray 20 coins deep 5 wide, and the casinos had machines to paper wrap rolls of quarters and nickels you had to buy from the cage or cart lady. Nothing like the sound of 100’s of coins dropping into the tray.

[xp38]

They don’t call em one armed bandits for nothing. :)

[ProtectOurFreedom]

My Mom grew up in Idaho, so we visited her folks there every couple of years throughout the 50s and into the late 60s. We would drive out west from New York State to visit the grandparents and many other relatives along the way. My parents would drag us kids to the country bars around Potlatch -- in those days, they barkeep didn't mind kids in the bar. I remember the slot machines in the bars back in those days in the 50s.

An article nine years ago in the Idaho Falls "Post Register" says "Idaho’s brief affair with legal slot machines ended more than six decades ago. From 1947 to 1953, one-armed bandits could be found on the outskirts of Idaho Falls, Pocatello and Garden City. But once the Idaho Legislature declared slot machines unconstitutional, machine owners faced the option of “destroying them or shipping them to Nevada,” according to an Associated Press report from 1984. Many were stolen as a result of the ban, however, only to be tossed into rivers. As of the 1980s, scuba divers were still finding abandoned old-timey slots with silver dollars in them."

Grandpa used to pull silver dollars out of my ears and give them to me. It was the coolest magic trick ever for this kid back then. My mom's folks weren't rich and for him to give us kids silver dollars from the slots was very generous. Silver dollars abounded in North Idaho back then, maybe because the biggest silver mine in the USA was in the "Silver Valley" east of Coeur d'Alene.

I've been enjoying watching all the episodes of "Death Valley Days" from 1952 and onward. The episodes frequently show the "Dewey Upright Slot Machine" from the early 1900s (photo below). I never saw any of these in the taverns in Idaho. The ones I saw were the typical mechanical one-arm bandits. People today don't know what they are missing not pulling a mechanical lever and listening to all the whirs and clunks as the rotating wheels dropped into their final position and, if you were lucky, the machine plunking your silver coin winnings into the metal tray. Those sounds were magical!

When I worked for a couple weeks in Las Vegas in 1974, you could still play 5 cent and ten cent slots.

I've never played a modern electronic slot machine out of respect for the "true" one-arm bandit machines. It just isn't the same.

[Openurmind]

I remember when those battling addiction were pointed towards penny slots on Fremont Street.

You work your butt off and still never win or lose much. lol

[boop]

"You work your butt off and still never win or lose much. lol"

I've played those penny slots. IIRC, the max payout was $25.

I have an old 25cent machine.

It cost plenty, but you can get machines that take silver dollars for much cheaper.

Much harder to find the dollars to put in them.

[FrankRizzo890]

In the early 2000’s I worked for Bally Gaming in Vegas writing slot machine software (video slots, not the reel spinners aka REAL slots).

So, if you have any questions (other than How do I win?), feel free to ask away. I’ll answer if I know.

BTW: The answer to “How do I win?” is easy. Don’t play.

[Openurmind]

One of my buddies has a couple slots in his pool room. I lived in Vegas for awhile, never was drawn to the slots. Did some poker, blackjack, and some roulette. I finally got burnt out on the gambling scene altogether.

[Inyo-Mono]

Gawd I'm old I remember when a person had to put an actual coin into a slot, nickel or quarter, and people would be walking around with plastic cups full of coins

Not promoting slots or gambling, just remembering old Vegas.

It was buckets of nickels or quarters and the sound of coins pouring into the tray when my wife and I won. Not Vegas, but Reno and Tahoe for us.

[HartleyMBaldwin]

I used to play the slots sometimes when I was working in Nevada quite a bit in the 80s. I’d wander around with my little bucket of coins, trying whatever machine caught my eye, and the sound of bells ringing and coins dropping into slot machine trays was almost constant. Too bad it was practically never the machine I happened to be playing.

About 15 years ago my wife and I went to Las Vegas and it was really odd to be in the slot room of a casino and not hear that noise. It was all paper tickets, and a lot of the fun was gone. I don’t think the machines even have handles to pull now. For all I know, they run on phone apps these days.

[Inyo-Mono]

Most slots don’t have handles now, but a few do and you have a choice of pulling the handle or pushing a button. We too miss the sound of bells ringing and coins dropping in the trays. We have been quite lucky with big wins on the slots.