The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1894-05-19
SLOT GAMBLING.
How It Is Carried on In the Saloons
Of the City.
Schemes Of Cumming Men to Beat the
Nickel-Devouring Devices-1mmense
Profits Realized by Saloon
Keepers.

chines." said Chicago bartender re-
ferring to the nickel-in-the-slOt ma
chine. They are the greatest intro
ducers you ever saw. Why, I have
seen men who had never met before
get we'll acquainted with one another
before they got through playing.
heard of case up on Blue Island ave
nue. where fellow was dropping his
nickels into the slot. He had been
playing for twenty minutes or more
when another man walked up to the
about chances of winning at the game.
The conversation then took a wider
range, and in the course of an hour il
developed that the men were cousins.
They had not met before in eighteen
years.
'sThe machines provoke trouble as
well as merriment," the bartender con-
tinued .,Up in the saloon at Noble
and Ingrahamr streets a Pole dropped
nickel after. nickel into machine un-
til he had 'piled away dollar or more.
Finally a coin went right. One of the
doors flew open and the gambler thrust
his hand into the receptacle, expect
ing, of course, to get some of his own
.osings and the nickles of other un-
fortunates. Besides the nickel which
had sprung open the door the Pole
found four suspender buttons. He
raved and tore about the place and
threatened to break the glassware.
The bartender called a policeman and
the fellow was taken to the station.
Who plays the machines? All classes
Of men. l have seen business men drop
Ave dollars worth of niclsels into ma
chine at one standing without getting
so much as penny in return. Then,
like enough, some old skate with a
case nickel would drop in, spring the
door and take all the money. But the
machines are q good thing for the
house. The percentage is SO big that
it is an object to have them in the
place, no matter if they do take up q
deal of space. Most of the proprietors
buy the contrivances outright in order
to get all the rake-off. There is one
place in town where the owner has
nine machines of different patterns.
His winnings for one week paid for
three of them: When he counted up
on Saturday night he found that his
share of the investment of his patrons
was one hundred and twenty-seven
dollars in niclzels, and that is not reck-
oning what the players spent at the
bar think, though, that the time is
coming when the machines will be
recognized as gambling devices pure
and simple, and as such become mat
ter for police attention. But they are
a good substitute for the poker-room,
which, as everybody knows, is thrifty
adjunct to any saloon.
do players attempt to open the
boxes by talnpering with the
repeated the saloon keeper
to Herald reporter. swell, should
say SO. Wires, nails, buttons, beer
checks and metal of the same weight
and size of nickel are used, but they
seldom work. The most successful
schemes for breaking machines with
pegs is to tie string through a hole
bored in a nickel and then drop the
coin into the slot, its course being gov
erned by the hand of the operator.
One sharp fellow got a heap of money
out of our machines by slipping a
nickel into the slot and then tracing it
into the receptacles by means of pow
erful magnet which he held against
the glass. 1 heard later that he worked
the same game in other places and
that his winnings amounted to many
of dollars. If the glass had
been Theoretically sealed to the frame
work it would have been impossible
for the magnet to influence the coins.
The patentees now provide against this
sort of trickcry, and the machines, as
they stand to-day, are almost invulner-
able to manipulators. But the time
will come when some smart fellow will
get up a contrivance which will upset
Ill the precautions taken by the MAX
ers and give him access to the vaults of
Ill the machines in town."