Antique 1910 Mills Slot Machine Wheel,Bell-Fruit-Gum Novelties,Chicago Mills Bell Fruit Slot Machine Cash Box Vintage Coin Drop Antique Origina More Items From Proxibid, Inc. Other machines made by Mills Novelty Co. During the time period Bell Fruit Gum was produced include 20th Century, Chicago, Cigar Vending Machine, Draw Poker, Electricity Is Life (Pedestal), Dewey Miniature, Dewey Upright Slot Machine, Owl Jr., Mills Gum Vendor, and Manila. 1906 25 cents operator bell VAPS Arcade/Coin-Op Bell Fruit Gum Census.

I have a 1910 Mills Novelty Company out of Chicago it is a bell-Fruit- Gum slot machine with #434995 on the inside. It is in great shape and in working order. It stands about 5 ft tall. VINTAGE MILLS 25 CENT BELL FRUIT GUM SLOT MACHINE ONE ARM BANDIT DIAMOND FRONT. $97.20 shipping. Ending Thursday at 1:52PM PST 2d 20h. Fruit-Bell-Gum 5 cent slot Machine. Mills Novelty Co. Front says: 'Patented April 4, 1911- May 28, 1912 Other pats Pend' In great condition! Played, tested and works. One of the reels has a delay on some spins. There is a crack on the front glass, shown in.

Introduction to Slot Machine History

The first coin-operated slot machine was invented just over 130 years ago. That’s a lot of slot machine history. However, understanding it provides insight into the next technological advancements to expect from this entertainment machine.

In a hopefully fun and interesting way, I’ll highlight developments in gaming machines having slots for accepting coins as a sequence of events. Several significant areas of slot machine history includes:

Technology
Popularity
Government Regulations

As you’ll learn, slot machine popularity waxed and waned alongside the governmental responses to this type of gambling. The first coin-operated slot machines were invented in or around 1887.

Nowadays, we have modern day penny slots and networked progressive slot machines. Gaming machines show no signs of doing anything other than just keep on developing and improving, likely for another 130 years and beyond.

This post has the following sections:

Introduction to Slot Machine History
Charles Fey, the “Father of Slot Machines”
Bell Fruit Gum Slot Machines
American Prohibition 1920-1933, the “Golden Age of Slots”
Nevada Legalized Gambling in 1931
Decades of Bally Slot Machine Development Efforts
The Computer Microchip Revolution of the 1980s
Arrival of the Internet and Better Computers in the 1990s
Online Slots and Involvement with Governments
The First Rewards Clubs
Computer Networks: Progressive Slot Machines and More
Summary of Slot Machine History

Keep Reading … or Listen Instead!

Mills Slot Machines

Charles Fey, the “Father of Slot Machines”

The Liberty Bell, arguably the first slot machine for gambling with automatic payouts, was invented in 1887 by Bavarian-born Charles Fey in San Francisco, California. Given a natural disaster I’ll mention momentarily, there is some debate as to this exact date.

This slot machine simulated the card game of poker, having 3 spinning reels each with 5 symbols: diamonds, hearts, horseshoes, spades, and an image of the Liberty Bell.

It even had the first slot machine payout table. The highest jackpot, fifty cents or 10 nickels, occurred when all three reels showed a golden Liberty Bell. It was wildly popular and a massive success.

Prior to Charles Fey’s 1887 invention in San Francisco, there were gambling machines – but they didn’t have slots for coins. Therefore, despite prior technologies being used in that device, Fey’s coin-operated machine is generally considered to be the first true “slot machine”.

Given the aforementioned loss of historical records, it’s worth mentioning that the Sittman and Pitt Company of Brooklyn, New York was developing a coin-operated slot machine at around the same time. It was based on five-card poker, as it had five reels.

Fey is generally considered to be the “Father of Slots”, both due to his invention but also because he popularized the game. For example, he didn’t sell his slot machines. Instead, he rented them for a 50% commission of their revenues.

Fey’s San Francisco workshop is a California Historical Landmark. Many of Charles Fey’s innovations are still common in modern slot machines, including:

Mills Bell Fruit Gum Slot Machine

Coin-operated.
Operated by pulling a (small) handle.
Rented, not sold, for a portion of gaming revenue.
Pay table display.

Few Liberty Bell slot machines currently exist. About 100 of them remain of those originally manufactured by Charles Fey in San Francisco, as most were lost in the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

According to Marshall Fey’s fascinating book Slot Machines: A Pictorial Guide to the First 100 Years, fires created by the earthquake

“…that day eventually consuming all of the city’s slot machine factories, including their tooling and inventory.”

p. 47, Slot Machines: A Pictorial Guide to the First 100 Years by Marshall Fey

and, further, the fires

“…hit most of the city’s 2,000 businesses which had slot locations, destroying thousands of machines and the coins which they contained.”

p. 47, Slot Machines: A Pictorial Guide to the First 100 Years by Marshall Fey

Bell Fruit Gum Slot Machines

Starting in 1907, Bell Fruit Gum slot machines was manufactured by Industry Novelty Co. This was quickly followed the next year by Mills Novelty Company of Chicago, which had been inherited by Herbert Stephen Mills.

The reels on these 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 Mills slot machine added the photograph of a chewing gum pack along with the fruit reel symbols. Soon after these photographs were replaced with a stylized bar symbol, the Mills company logo.

Photographs of early slot machines are available at Cyprus Casino Consultant, Casino Observer, and International Arcade Museum.

For more on the rather interesting if somewhat shady history between Charles Fey and Herbert Stephen Mills, as well as a analysis of these early slot machine photographs, see my post called Why Do Slot Machines Say Bar on their Reel Symbols?

Thanks to the efforts of Charles Fey and other early slots manufacturers, by 1910 slot machines could be found world-wide. Europe had mass produced 30,000 of them. In America, they could be found in most cigar stores, saloons, bowling parlors, brothels and barber shops.

Improvements immediately found in slot machines were:

Cast iron machines replaced with wooden cabinets.
Improved mechanicals allowed for back-to-back jackpots, not possible in earlier designs.
New coin acceptor developed to limit the use of fake coins, i.e., “slugs”.
Machines were designed to be quieter.

In 1909, new laws began to be introduced prohibiting slot machines from dispensing cash, with the results of slot machines having the aforementioned non-cash payouts of fruit-flavored gum.

American Prohibition 1920-1933, the “Golden Age of Slots”

From 1920 to 1933 is when Prohibition existed in America, making the consumption or supply of alcohol illegal.

Since slot machines were mainly found in bars and saloons, they moved to speakeasies alongside the distribution of alcohol – and returned to offering cash prizes.

Slot machine popularity increased even more. The time of Prohibition is also referred to as the “Golden Age of Slots” due to this tremendously increased popularity.

Nevada Legalized Gambling in 1931

Gambling was legalized in the state of Nevada in 1931, the first state to do so. This was done due to the increasing popularity of gambling despite governmental pressure on the gaming industry.

In the 1940s, an early slot machine was installed in the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. By doing so, American mobster Bugsy Siegal showed slot machines to be a lucrative business opportunity for casinos.

After World War II, municipalities were drawn by the prospect of tax reven