The term slot machine (short for nickel-in-the-slot machine) was originally also used for automatic vending machines but in the 20th 4️⃣ century came to refer almost exclusively to gambling devices. The first coin-operated gambling devices in the United States date to 4️⃣ the 1880s, although they were actually mere novelties—such as two toy horses that would race after a coin was inserted 4️⃣ in the machine—rather than direct gambling machines. Set on a bar in a saloon or similar establishment, such devices attracted 4️⃣ wagering between patrons. With most machines, however, the proprietor paid off winning customers in drinks or cigars or sometimes in 4️⃣ the form of trade checks (specially minted metal tokens) that could be exchanged for refreshments. By 1888 machines that paid 4️⃣ off in coins were in existence. In the first ones, inserted coins fell onto an internal balance scale, where they 4️⃣ might cause it to tip and spill other coins out; among later devices were ones with a circular display and 4️⃣ a spinning indicator that came to rest on or pointed to a number, a colour, or a picture.

The first slot 4️⃣ machines in the modern sense were invented by Bavarian-born American inventor Charles August Fey, at the time a mechanic in 4️⃣ San Francisco, who built his first coin-operated gambling machine in 1894. The following year Fey built the 4-11-44 in his 4️⃣ basement; it proved so successful at a local saloon that he soon quit his job and opened a factory to 4️⃣ produce more units. In 1898 Fey built the Card Bell, the first three-reel slot machine with automatic cash payouts. The 4️⃣ Card Bell had a handle that set the reels in motion when it was pushed down and playing card suitmarks 4️⃣ that lined up to form poker hands. His next slot machine, the Liberty Bell, was built in 1899 and used 4️⃣ horseshoes and bells as well as playing card suitmarks on the reels. Three bells lined up in a row meant 4️⃣ the top payout. Chiefly because of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, only 4 of more than 100 Liberty Bell machines 4️⃣ built by Fey survive. The Liberty Bell proved immensely popular among saloon patrons in San Francisco and was quickly copied 4️⃣ by Fey’s competitors, such as the Mills Novelty Company of Chicago.

Forces of morality and the clergy, and then of law, 4️⃣ frequently opposed the operation of slot machines. By the time San Francisco banned them in 1909, there were some 3,300 4️⃣ slot machines in the city. In order to circumvent the law, Fey and his competitors built machines with no coin 4️⃣ slots in which purchase and payout (perhaps in drinks and cigars) occurred surreptitiously across a saloon counter. Soon most slot-machine 4️⃣ factories relocated, especially to Chicago.

The ubiquitous reel symbols of various fruits were first used in 1909 by the Industry Novelty 4️⃣ Company. In an effort to circumvent legal restrictions on slot machines, the company called its machines chewing gum dispensers, replaced 4️⃣ suitmarks on the reels with fruit symbols that suggested various flavours of chewing gum, and built a few machines that 4️⃣ really did dispense gum. The idea was copied in the following year by the Mills Novelty Company, which added on 4️⃣ their reels a picture of a chewing gum pack (soon stylized as the well-known “bar” symbol). The Mills Novelty Company 4️⃣ also invented the “jackpot” in 1916, whereby certain combinations of symbols on the reels regurgitated all the coins in the 4️⃣ machine.

During the 1920s the machines were popular throughout much of the United States, especially in resort areas, and they continued 4️⃣ to be popular into the Great Depression years of the ’30s. But knowledge that the distribution of slot machines was 4️⃣ often controlled by organized crime led to increasing legislation restricting their sale and transportation as well as their use except 4️⃣ in private social clubs. Prohibition outside Nevada, which had relegalized gambling in 1931, was virtually total by 1951, although illegal 4️⃣ operation, especially in private clubs, was widely ignored.