9. More About Slot Machines

As soon as slot machines attained their place in the American scene, people began devising ways to beat them; some fair, but mostly foul. The feeling was that the machines themselves were illegal; therefore, no action would be taken against per­sons who tried to rob them.

It was possible to tilt some nickel machines so that they would take pennies. This meant that the player only put up 20 per cent of the expected amount, giving him a chance of doubling his money even if the payoff was only on a 40 per cent basis.

Another gimmick was a blower, a rubber tube that could be fitted over the slot and air blown through, giving exactly the same pressure to the mechanism as a nickel falling through. Other gyps used a wire that they pushed up into the payoff pocket and twisted whenever the machine delivered, causing a lot of extra coins to drop through.

Players who practiced pulling the lever fast or slow, hoping to control the spin of the wheels, discovered that if an interior spring were broken, the handle could be retained at an "in-between" point, making it possible to spin the wheels time after time without inserting additional coins. The spring could be broken by feeding coins and yanking the handle rapidly and re­peatedly until the coins jammed.

Another gimmick was a thin-pointed gimlet that could be driven through the glass front by means of a ratchet mecha­nism; then used to stop the wheels. One player worked the device while others kept a lookout from the backroom where they were playing the game.

For $35 a player could buy a twenty-five pound magnetic device, complete with dry-cell batteries. He looked rather bulky when equipped with this contrivance, but he was wired for business in the backroom. All he had to do was lean against the slot machine and the magnet would exert control on ratch­ets and wheels while they were in action.

The biggest claim for the magnetic contraption was that it could pull a lever that would drop the Jackpot on almost any play. But purchasers of the outfit declared it did not fulfill its claims. Either it wasn't powerful enough or the slot machine manufacturers soon found ways to counteract it.

Ready-Gaffed Machines

The slot machine industry is said to have put the quietus on the biggest swindle of all, in which more than $1,000,000 was reportedly grossed through a gyp scheme never suspected by the local operators of machines, the storekeepers who repre­sented the lower levels of the industry.

The gyp was this: As the slot machine craze grew, year by year, it became apparent that it was largely a "hit and run" operation. Wherever the machines infiltrated, they became too much of a good thing, coming into the pincer grip of reformers and racketeers, one group demanding their abolition, the other a slice of the "take." The obvious answer was to flood an area with machines, clean up fast and go elsewhere. As a result, cut-rate machines were popular with operators.

One wild-cat manufacturer made this a specialty, always offering an overstock of cheaper models at an introductory price. Other companies wondered how the wild-cat outfit was getting away with it and some clever espionage at the factory finally disclosed the answer. The machines were being shipped "ready-gaffed" so that a trick pull of the handle, generally a short, double jerk, would bring a payoff through the money chute.

Stooges planted in towns where these machines were preva­lent, cleaned them out with systematic rapidity, while the local operators wondered what had happened to the big profits the slots were supposed to bring. What made this gyp all the stronger was that it could be worked openly. A few strangers, dropping in occasionally, apparently were lucky; that was all.

As the slot machine business took on monopolistic trends, the gyp manufacturers were crowded out. But for years, a lot of wild-cat machines were around—and still may be. Whenever the law clamps down on slots in a given area, squads of One-armed Bandits are promptly camphor-balled and tucked away for future use. All sorts of crazy models may crop up whenever an old territory is reopened.

That's why old time players like to jockey the handles of obsolete machines. They've heard that certain styles pay off if you find the right pull, whether it's a quick tug, a slow squeeze, or a double action.

The Mint Vendor Dodge

Along with inventing ways to make their machines fool­proof, the reliable big-time manufacturers have developed in­genious devices to make the One-armed Bandits legal. Their first step was to have them classed as "mint vendors," gearing the machines to dispense a pack of mints when a nickel was insert­ed. Any payoffs were then regarded as a bonus or free gift to the player.

The mints, you say, must have been of a cheap quality, in­deed. That's right, they were. Some were planted on sale at 5c at regular candy store counters to make them look like a legitimate product but nobody ever bought them. That, how­ever, was not the big problem.

Considering that hundreds of nickels can go into a One-armed Bandit nightly, it was impossible to supply packages of mints in the required quantities without demanding too much storage space and giving the machine constant attention. But the manufacturers solved that one; or rather, some genius solved it for them.

They left it optional with the player to take the mints or leave them. With each play, a package of mints was released in a dispenser alongside the machine. If it wasn't removed, it simply stayed there, clogging the dispenser so that the next package could not drop down.

But suppose some steady loser decided to take packages of mints, inferior though they were, as at least a trifling compen­sation for his expenditure? What then? The answer to that was a wonderful gadget that locked the slot machine when the last package of mints was taken.

The One-armed Bandit wouldn't play any more, which meant that there was no chance for the player to keep after the Jackpot. So it was customary to leave just one package of mints in the dispenser and ignore it.

The "One Ahead" Play

Soon, lawmakers decided that "mints or no mints," the ma­chines were gambling devices because they induced the players to speculate on an unknown quantity; namely, the "hit" that might come with each pull of the lever. That curtailed the slot machine business until somebody came up with a real lulu. They fixed the machines to tell the player just how much he was going to get when he pulled the handle!

It worked like this. The machines were geared to follow a prearranged sequence of an irregular pattern, but "factory set" so that each spin of the dial would lead to the next."

In addition to the usual wheels with their customary sym­bols, these machines had a little window where a number would appear on a dial. These numbers were 3, 5, 10, 14, 18 and 20, corresponding to the number of nickels that might be hit. There was also a big round O, which most often was in sight. That told what the next play would produce.

A player would find the machine showing "O." He would drop a nickel, just to see. Up would come a Lemon, an Orange, a Lemon. Again, the window would show "O."

Another nickel, another loser—say a Cherry, a Bar and a Bar. But this time the magic number "5" would flick in sight behind the window.

That called for another nickel. Sure enough, the player would hit Two Cherries and a Bell. Five coins would plop from the payoff slot, as promised. Again, the player would look at the little window.

Even if it showed a zero, he would still invest another nickel. He was simply playing one spin ahead. That was all. If he ran out of nickels when a pay number came up, he could always borrow one. Even a banker would have taken such security, provided the player still had his hand on the lever.

These machines were placed in cities where the police cus­tomarily clamped down on gambling devices. As soon as a few were seized, the operators went to court, claiming they weren't gambling devices as there was no guess-work on the player's part when he dropped a nickel, as he already knew what was coming up.

In some cities, injunctions were granted restraining the police from seizing the machines until their status could be rightfully determined. During the injunction period, the One-armed Bandits cleaned up, but when court convened the ma­chines were soon classed as gambling devices on the basis of a "next play" wager. By then the operators, expecting such a verdict, had invariably pulled them out.

*This, incidentally, answers the question often asked: "Can a slot machine be 'set' exactly?" The answer: It can be.

Other "Legal" Gimmicks

Another gimmick that vainly tried to "legalize" the slots was a series of buttons just below the glass where the symbols showed. There were three of these buttons, one for each wheel, and they acted as brakes when pressed. At any time, a player could press a button and slow or stop a wheel.

This transformed the slot machine from a game of "chance" to one of "skill." It was the only One-armed Bandit which could become a stickup victim itself, with the player turning the tables. But it never worked out that way.

Slow-spinning wheels were fine for demonstration purposes, to prove that a deft player might make them show a winner. But in actual play they were geared to whirl fast, so fast that players soon found they were braking the wheels on losing instead of winning combinations.

So they began treating these like any other machines, letting the wheels ride to an ordinary stop. The law treated them like other One-armed Bandits, too. Chance or skill, it made no dif­ference. Legislative acts classed the payment of undetermined amounts as a gamble and these disguised "skill" machines came under the ban.

In various cities, including New York, slot machines have been operated on an "amusement" basis, players merely buying slugs and dropping them into the machine for the "fun" of seeing what comes out. Naturally, there must be a payoff later or the player will find some less dreary way of amusing him­self long hours at a time.

So the player simply cashes in his slugs with the man who sold them to him, usually the proprietor of the store or other location where the machine is placed. Sooner or later the law catches up with this, though the fun sometimes has lasted until a local "fix" has worn thin.

Meanwhile the operators have usually experienced bad head­aches when slugs are the basis of exchange. The slugs, of course, are of an exclusive pattern, provided or recommended by the manufacturers of the machine. And that has always been the trouble. Operators in "closed" towns were always heavily load­ed with slugs for which they had no use, except to send their friends to "open" territory, supplied with such tokens.

Often these agents never bothered to play the slugs in the machine. They bought a dollar's worth from the storekeeper, went into the backroom and watched the suckers lose, then came out and cashed in an odd amount of slugs, like $2.80 worth, claiming they'd won them. This they would do from place to place.

Sometimes the tokens, though of a pattern, had identifying marks. In that case, the out-of-towners had to play the machines with theirs and collect on those that came out before their own brand began dropping through. At any rate, slugs were so cheap it meant a tidy profit.

Gypping the Machines

Many slugs won't work in machines that are equipped to take real coins, but they are still the bane of all operators. In later types of machines, the manufacturers arranged for coins to run across the top behind non-breakable glass so it wasn't your nickel that made the wheels go but one that somebody had put in quite a while before. It was like the mint dropper, applied to coins.

Nobody could jam the slot in such machines and the parade of coins enabled the man in charge—often a barkeeper or clerk —to tell at a glance if any slugs had been inserted. Once a rumor got around that a syndicate of racketeers had stamped out "one-sided" coins to be played in slot machines. But any­one familiar with counterfeiting laws knew that the U.S. Secret Service would clamp down on those as quickly as they would on counterfeits bearing both heads and tails.

One "gyp" system that enjoyed occasional success was the use of foreign coins which looked enough like United States coins to get by in the procession. French coins with the familiar Liberty figure were particularly adaptable to quarter machines. Players who used them a few at a time could always say that they'd come from the machine and that they were simply put­ting them back.

But coins gain value as collector's items. Slot machine ad­dicts have sometimes kept this in mind when playing their favo­rite game. Often they pick up nickels, dimes and quarters of ancient vintage that some non-collector has unwittingly dropped into a machine. Going through a Jackpot is like dig­ging into an old trunk.

With half-dollar machines, connoisseurs often pick up Com­memorative half dollars worth far more than their stamped value of 50 cents. A lot of people carry such coins as "lucky pieces" and drop them into a slot machine on the hunch that they may end a bad run and bring good luck. So they do, for the collector who snags one later.

Silver Dollar Machines

But the silver dollars top them all. Players have banged away at such machines with a list in hand, checking all the coins that drop to see if they belong to "rare" years. Only recently a bank gave out reserve silver dollars to people who wanted to use them as Christmas gifts and it turned out that they were worth from $5 to $25—except that the bank had given out too many.

Yet all the while such coins have been dropping from dollar slot machines, unknown to any except the few smart players who have strung along with that one hope in mind. After all, there are few dollar machines—comparatively—in existence and an even smaller percentage of players who want to tackle them.

That brings up perhaps the most fantastic "system" of all, the nearest to a legitimate-illegitimate scheme that could possibly be applied to slot machines. It was worked by a player who had long cast envious eyes upon the Silver Dollar Machines that promised the biggest profit of all, if he could only find a way to play them. All he wanted was a 40 per cent break in his favor and he found it.

This chap learned that back in the 1870's American com­merce had run into a bad snag. Yankee skippers, sailing their clipper ships to the Orient, had found that the American dollar wasn't worth the buck that it was supposed to be. The reason: It was below the standard of Sterling silver and when the Chi­nese merchants melted it down, they regarded themselves as short-changed.

To meet the competition of the peso, or "Mexican Dollar" as it was then known, the United States government coined a "Trade Dollar" that was up to Sterling standard. These closely resembled the silver dollars of the period, bearing the U.S. Eagle and stating that they were "Trade Dollars" so they would not be confused with the ordinary silver dollar which was worth less.

As the value of silver fell, it came to be worth so much less in relation to gold that the coinage of Trade Dollars was abandoned. About the time when dollar slot machines came into vogue, a Trade Dollar was worth less than 60c.

That was when some smart players began using them in the dollar machines. The dollars that they put in were worth only 60c and those that they took out were worth $1. They were playing their own percentage against the machine's and at that time dollar machines gave the player a very high break in order to encourage play.

What was more, nobody ever knew the difference. The col­lectors who emptied the machines thought that the Trade Dol­lars were simply old-style Silver Dollars. They bore the name United States, they said "Dollar" and they had an eagle on them. Besides, they rang like silver dollars and were just as heavy; in fact, a bit heavier if anyone had weighed them closely.

But the "Yankee Trader" system soon ended. There weren't enough cheap Trade Dollars to keep it up. Coin dealers were pricing them from $1.25 up, according to dates and holding them for collectors. If anybody hands you a Trade Dollar in mistake for an ordinary "cartwheel" today, don't drop it in a slot machine. Take it to an old coin dealer. You'll probably get a better break. 

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