page_title: Slot machine
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Slot machine / History
caption_attribution_description: Fey's liberty bell slot machine
context_page_description: A slot machine, known variously as a fruit machine, puggy, the slots, poker machine/pokies, fruities or slots, is a gambling machine that creates a game of chance for its customers. Slot machines are also known pejoratively as one-armed bandits because of the large mechanical levers affixed to the sides of early mechanical machines and the games' ability to empty players' pockets and wallets as thieves would.
  A slot machine's standard layout features a screen displaying three or more reels that "spin" when the game is activated. Some modern slot machines still include a lever as a skeuomorphic design trait to trigger play. However, the mechanics of early machines have been superseded by random number generators, and most are now operated using buttons and touchscreens.
  Slot machines include one or more currency detectors that validate the form of payment, whether coin, cash, voucher, or token. The machine pays out according to the pattern of symbols displayed when the reels stop "spinning". Slot machines are the most popular gambling method in casinos and constitute about 70% of the average U.S. casino's income.
context_section_description: Sittman and Pitt of Brooklyn, New York developed a gambling machine in 1891 that was a precursor to the modern slot machine. It contained five drums holding a total of 50 card faces and was based on poker. The machine proved extremely popular, and soon many bars in the city had one or more of them. Players would insert a nickel and pull a lever, which would spin the drums and the cards that they held, the player hoping for a good poker hand. There was no direct payout mechanism, so a pair of kings might get the player a free beer, whereas a royal flush could pay out cigars or drinks; the prizes were wholly dependent upon what the establishment would offer. To improve the odds for the house, two cards were typically removed from the deck, the ten of spades and the jack of hearts, doubling the odds against winning a royal flush. The drums could also be rearranged to further reduce a player's chance of winning.
  Because of the vast number of possible wins in the original poker-based game, it proved practically impossible to make a machine capable of awarding an automatic payout for all possible winning combinations. At some time between 1887 and 1895, Charles Fey of San Francisco, California devised a much simpler automatic mechanism with three spinning reels containing a total of five symbols: horseshoes, diamonds, spades, hearts and a Liberty Bell; the bell gave the machine its name. By replacing ten cards with five symbols and using three reels instead of five drums, the complexity of reading a win was considerably reduced, allowing Fey to design an effective automatic payout mechanism. Three bells in a row produced the biggest payoff, ten nickels (50¢). Liberty Bell was a huge success and spawned a thriving mechanical gaming device industry. After a few years, the devices were banned in California, but Fey still could not keep up with demand for them from elsewhere. The Liberty Bell machine was so popular that it was copied by many slot-machine manufacturers. The first of these, also called the "Liberty Bell", was produced by the manufacturer Herbert Mills in 1907. By 1908, many "bell" machines had been installed in most cigar stores, saloons, bowling alleys, brothels and barber shops. Early machines, including an 1899 Liberty Bell, are now part of the Nevada State Museum's Fey Collection.
  The first Liberty Bell machines produced by Mills used the same symbols on the reels as did Charles Fey's original. Soon afterward, another version was produced with patriotic symbols, such as flags and wreaths, on the wheels. Later, a similar machine called the Operator's Bell was produced that included the option of adding a gum-vending attachment. As the gum offered was fruit-flavored, fruit symbols were placed on the reels: lemons, cherries, oranges and plums. A bell was retained, and a picture of a stick of Bell-Fruit Gum, the origin of the bar symbol, was also present. This set of symbols proved highly popular and was used by other companies that began to make their own slot machines: Caille, Watling, Jennings and Pace.
  A commonly used technique to avoid gambling laws in a number of states was to award food prizes. For this reason, a number of gumball and other vending machines were regarded with mistrust by the courts. The two Iowa cases of State v. Ellis and State v. Striggles are both used in criminal law classes to illustrate the concept of reliance upon authority as it relates to the axiomatic ignorantia juris non excusat ("ignorance of the law is no excuse"). In these cases, a mint vending machine was declared to be a gambling device because the machine would, by internally manufactured chance, occasionally give the next user a number of tokens exchangeable for more candy. Despite the display of the result of the next use on the machine, the courts ruled that "[t]he machine appealed to the player's propensity to gamble, and that is [a] vice."
  In 1963, Bally developed the first fully electromechanical slot machine called Money Honey (although earlier machines such as Bally's High Hand draw-poker machine had exhibited the bas
caption: 1899 "Liberty Bell" machine, manufactured by Charles Fey.
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