The history of the slot machine industry in the United States, like many activities operated by organized crime syndicates, is a story of shrewd entrepreneurism and opportunism functioning amidst a weak and corrupt state. While organized crime in America has made its mark most memorably on industries like alcohol, drugs, sanitation and construction, the slot machine industry also embodies the fundamental nature of mafia racketeering. Not only was the supply side dominated by a monopoly, but the demand side was also rigged, targeting populations least able to afford such vices. All the major figures of mafia operation were involved–Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, Vito Genovese–enabling the slot machine industry to develop into a national activity that relied on interstate commerce and local support.
Slot machines are also known as one-armed bandits because they were originally operated by one lever on the side of the machine as distinct from a button on the front pane. Many modern machines are still equipped with a legacy lever in addition to the button. Slots machines have been around for a much longer period of time than video games.
With slot machines–more than 25,000 of them in New York City alone in the early 1930’s–placed in prosaic locations, the general populace was both knowingly and unknowingly touched by the mafia. The eventual regulation of slot machines focused on a containment strategy thereby removing slots from the collective memory of everyday urban life. However, the rise of electronic slot machines in the 1990s, with links again to organized crime, and the 2004 opening of the Resorts World Casino in Queens, New York, featuring the controversial “VLT’s” or Video Lottery Terminals, reintroduced gambling into the urban fabric of New York City, making this historical inquiry timely.
- Mills, 25 Cent, Coin Operated, One Armed Bandit, 'Miner' Slot Machine. Carved mid century. 78 inches overall w/hat. On Sep 19, 2020.
- One Armed Banker Toy Vintage Slot Machine $20 (mil Greenfield) pic hide this posting restore restore this posting. Favorite this post Nov 22.
The Slot Machine: An American Invention
The first slot machine was invented in Brooklyn in 1891 by Sittman & Pitt as an added novelty to the typical bar amusements. The machines were rigged from the beginning, garnering the name “drop-card machines” because cards were strategically removed from the deck, usually a ten of spades and jack of hearts, to reduce the probability of getting a royal flush. The machines accepted the nickel to start the game but could not provide cash payouts so bartenders would offer beer or cigars to winners. The machines also did not allow for players to discard cards and draw new ones yet due to technological limitations. According to Jack Harper, author of King of Slots: William “Si” Redd, the game was enormously popular in spite of the technical drawbacks of Sittman & Pitt’s machine and that “one would be hard pressed to find a bar in New York City that didn’t have at least one poker machine besides the bar.” The trend would not remain contained on the East Coast for long.
West coast entrepreneurs like Charles Fey in San Francisco would shore up the technical and aesthetic ends, creating a more lifelike experience with real cards (as opposed to drawings of the cards on the reels) and automatic payout on slot machines. San Francisco was ripe for the proliferation of slot machines due to a particularly feral environment of corrupt politics amidst a proliferation of alcohol establishments. Fey’s grandson, Marshall Fey wrote that “the sheer number of business selling spirits combined with disreputable city politics made the wide open city a natural locus for nickel-in-the-slot machines.”
Fey would go on to create the more popular Liberty Bell in 1895, also known as the “one armed bandit,” and slot machines would migrate to the mining towns in Nevada with unparalleled success. A movement to ban slot machines followed shortly thereafter starting in San Francisco, then making its way through California and Nevada, and the creative response by bar owners, slot machine operators and distributors would have a lasting effect on the gambling industry, still apparent today. According to Daniels Antiques, which sells vintage slot machines made by firms in Chicago:
It didn’t take long for the slot machines to get banned somewhere around the turn of the century in fact, but the owners were not going to take the ban sitting down and they “fired back” by changing the coin slot machines to offer candy, gum, or tokens, and so they decorated the wheels on the slot machines with pictures of gum or different fruits i.e.. cherries.
This type of visual “disguise” enabled the machines to be placed out in the public where children also played them. Sometimes the opposite would occur–machines built as children’s toys, like The Erie Digger, a penny candy vendor, would be retrofitted as a gambling device. The mass inculcation of slot machines had thus reached the youth population–a moral concern that continues to surfaces regularly, the most recent incarnation in the slot machines for children at Trump Taj Mahal and Harrah’s Resort in Atlantic City that dispense tickets that are exchanged for toys and candy. In 1998, Virginia representative Frank R. Wolf raised concern over family-oriented casinos and cited a New York Times article that revealed, “Video arcades for children along the Boardwalk in Atlantic City include reconditioned slot machines that work just like the real thing but offer prizes instead of money.”
The proliferation of slot machine producers was inevitable given their financial and popular success, but it would be something Charles Fey would desperately try to fight. He refused to license his proprietary technology or give up the monopolistic control his company had over the production of slot machines. Nonetheless, enterprising new companies joined the market. The successful Mills Novelty Company, which put out the Mills Liberty Bell slot machine in 1906, used assembly line production techniques and mass marketing. Herbert Stephen Mills, head of the company, became known as the “Henry Ford of slot machines.” The Mills Novelty Company would become the preferred (and perhaps only) producer for Frank Costello’s slot machine racket in both New York City and New Orleans.
Daniels Antiques claims that “the greatest energy in the design of slot machines was between the great wars in the period 1920-1940. It was in this time period that the most significant design improvements came about.” Such improvements were not only technical–including “skill-stop buttons” for a player to stop the reel instantly, gold coins for luxury gifts and mystery payouts–but also aesthetic. This further enabled the concurrent growth of the slot machine supply industry with the voracious popular consumption of gambling entertainment. The development of the Bakers Races and Paces Races slot machines in the 1930s introduced the connection between horse racing and slots–the machines were also some of the first machines to be powered by electricity.
What Daniels Antiques does not mention are the creative mechanical manipulations that were invented during this time period to evade the authorities and ensure greater payout for distributors. Not coincidentally, organized crime also became involved in the production of slot machines in the 1920s and 1930s (in addition to distribution), as exemplified by the business activities of Joseph Aiuppa, a member of Al Capone’s Chicago Outfit. As reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Aiuppa was a partner in Taylor & Co., a furniture company that served as a front for the production and distribution of slot machines. The company most notably altered one-armed bandit machines to circumvent the Federal statute that prohibited interstate trafficking of gambling devices. The machine, marked The Trade Booster, changed the standard coin-operated slot to an electrical slot operated via cable by the bartender. Aiuppa was convicted in 1960 for “failing to register as a dealer in gambling devices.”
Frank Costello, known as the “King of Slots” and a member of Lucky Luciano’s gang, also made some creative alterations to evade the authorities in New York City:
Costello added a gimmick to avoid legal problems. When the player dropped a nickel and pulled the handle, a candy mint dropped out, turning the slot machine into a sort of vending machine. If three identical objects showed on the machine, fake coins called slugs would be ejected. These could then be exchanged or cash. [Jerry Capeci]
With control over the production and distribution of slot machines, rigged payouts made the entire business a no-brainer. According to John Scarne, an author on gaming and gambling:
Slot machines built during the thirties usually had a payback of about 50% when they weren’t bugged. When half the money you feed in its retained, it doesn’t take long before the machine had it all. And when the bug was used, you lost even faster. It was this type of machine that was called the one-armed bandit. [John Scarne]
In the next installment, we will explore the inter-state operations of Costello, who reportedly operated the largest, network of slot machines in New York, if not the United States, and New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia’s mission to run him out of town.
Get in touch with the author @untappedmich.
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SIGN UP NOWGIFT ITIntroduction to Why Slot Machines Say Bar
Why do slot machines say bar on their reels? Well, to understand why this tradition came to be, we’ll have to delve into slot machine history. First of all, these gambling devices weren’t always called slot machines. Slot machines were originally referred to as a one-armed bandit, then later in Great Britain as a fruit machine.
A slot machine gambling device is activated by pulling a handle or pushing a button. This can only be done after coins, tokens, cash, or casino credits has been entered. Consequently, reels with symbols begin to spin. When done spinning, the symbols shown lined up along pay lines are used to determine the payout, if any.
Reel symbols are often traditional, including stars, bars, numbers, and various pictured fruits. Fruits can include cherries, plums, oranges, lemons, and watermelons. The number seven is also very popular. And, finally, then there are bar reel symbols.
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Bar Reel Symbols
Fruit reel symbols were first used in slot machine by the Industry Novelty Company in 1909. This was quickly followed the next year by Mills Novelty Company of Chicago, recently inherited by Herbert Stephen Mills. But, with a slight addition.
Mills added the photograph of a chewing gum pack along with the fruit reel symbols. Soon after, these photographs of a chewing gum pack were replaced with a stylized bar symbol.
Slot machines have a very rich history. Within gaming device circles of the time, it was well known that Charles Augustus Fey of San Francisco refused to sell or lease the design of his first coin-operated slot machine, the Liberty Bell, which he invented around 1887.
So, how did Mills get the design from Fey? There are two theories. First, that Fey cooperated with Mills to spread the use of slot machines. After all, Fey is known as the “Father of Slots” both for his invention of the coin-operated device as well as popularizing its use.
The second theory is Mills somehow “obtained” a Liberty Bell as a result of a San Francisco saloon robbery in 1905. Less than a year later, Mills produced a new version of the Liberty Bell called either the Mills Liberty Bell or Operator Bell.
During my review of the history of early slot machines, there are also suggestions the bar symbol may have another origin story. It is generally accepted that the bar symbol is a stylized image of a chewing gum pack, as well as a company logo.
According to some historical sources, however, the company having that logo may have been the Bell-Gum Fruit company.
A Bit More History
As mentioned, slot machines have a very rich history, especially in their early days. Besides Why Do Slot Machines Say Bar, there are a few other interesting historical items of interest.
In 1916, another historic slot machine innovation created by the Mills Novelty Company was the jackpot. When a specific combination of reel symbols resulted from a bet, the slot machine would empty its coin hopper of all coins as a prize.
The Mills Novelty would later go on to produce slot machines with wooden cabinets, rather than the original cast iron construction materials.
Photos of early slot machines are online at Cyprus Casino Consultant, Casino Observer, the International Arcade Museum, and elsewhere. I especially enjoy photos of antique slot machines in my copy of Slot Machines: A Pictorial History of the First 100 Years by Marshall Fey, grandson of “the Father of Slot Machines” Charles Fey.
The Cyprus Casino Consultant website shows 4 slot machines on a waist-high counter top. They appear to have wood cabinets and are each perhaps 30 inches high by 18 inches wide. In metric, that’s about 76 centimeters by 46 centimeters.
Each slot machine is of the one-armed bandit variety, meaning they appear to are activated by first inserting a coin and then pulling a large lever on the right side of the machine. Each of these models appears to accept coins at the top, as well as dispense coins for winners at the bottom.
The Casino Observer website also shows 4 slot machines. Two of these machines are some of the first slot machines, from about 1890, while two others are more modern, ~1940s. The two older slot machines receive coins, but only the poker machine appears to not be able to dispense coins. This poker machine has typical card suits as reel symbols and a cast metal-type cabinet.
Slot Machine One Armed Bandit
It appears to be missing its one-armed bandit lever, perhaps due to damage, or it never had a lever. One older slot machine with coin dispenser capability is clearly identified as a “Liberty Bell”. It rests on cast feet located on each corner. The reel symbols show three Liberty Bells, but its “pay table” shows card suits – not fruit or bars.
The International Arcade Museum website shows a single slot machine. It’s a very old slot machine showing the symbol of the Liberty Bell on its front next to three reels showing Liberty Bell, bar, and fruit reel symbols.
This is probably a “Liberty Bell” by Charles Fey, but must be a slightly later version due to it having obvious fruit and bar reel symbols. It also has a cast metal-type cabinet and the distinctive “feet” of a Liberty Bell. It also has a small tray for coins, suggesting it has automatic payouts.
Charles Fey manufactured about 100 Liberty Bell slot machines for distribution in and around San Francisco. However, there are few of them remaining in existence. The scarcity of Fey’s Liberty Bell is a direct result of a natural disaster occurring shortly after their manufacture: the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.
One Armed Banker Slot Machine
Summary of Why Slot Machines Say Bar
Starting in 1907, Bell Fruit Gum slot machines were manufactured by Industry Novelty Co. They were followed by the Mills Novelty Company in 1910.
The reels on these slot machines included cherry, melon, orange, apple, and bar symbols with non-cash payouts in the form of fruit-flavored gum, allowing machine owners to avoid prosecution under the anti-gambling laws of that time.
The cherry and bar symbols became traditional to slot machines, and are still commonly used today. The bar symbol was a company logo, originally a photo of a chewing gum pack before being stylized as a bar.
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