The birth of the slots
German immigrant Charles Fey developed and created the first slot machine in San Francisco in the late 1800s. The metal box, which he named The Liberty Bell, stood on cast-iron feet and displayed three metal reels through a window.
The first machines took a nickel to play and displayed ten different symbols, creating 1,000 possible combinations. You won a whopping jackpot of ten nickels if you lined up three Liberty Bells (compelling some happy winners to sing America, the Beautiful).
Back when Bugsy Siegel laid the foundation for Las Vegas gambling in the 1940s, slot machines were an afterthought, a distraction to keep the wives happy while theirhusbands played craps or blackjack. Slots were considered one-armed bandits because of their poor odds. Now, a generation later, slots have turned the tables on the more popular games, and the widespread appeal of slots drives today’s casinos.
