Rudy Vogt Recalls Colorful
Days of Early Operating
"King of the Slots"! was what they used
to call Rudy F. Vogt, pioneer in the coin·
operated machines industry. His adven-
tures, risks, golden profits, are as .exciting
as the intriguing stories, woven mto the
histories of the men, who played such a
spectacular part in th e Gold Rush days
0/ California.
But Rudy's ex periences were not con-
fined to one state. They took him nearly
all over the Union and into some foreign
countries. He has operated almost every
known type 0/ coin-operated machine, and
in the accom panying story, written by him-
sell. he tells you about it in his own in-
dividual way. A/ter all his tr{JJl)els, he de-
, cided that Salt Lake City was the place to
stay, and th ere he is today, in business.
•
HILE OPERATING a cigar store in
W San
Diego, in 1912, I ordered two Aoor
styl e gum vending Liberty Bell machines,
and th ey did so well I at once started plac-
in/( th em in local sa loon and cigar stores on
a percentage. In those days the machines
we re about th e size of a floor style Vi c-
trola and were not built to precision as
today, but were mad e of hand fit castings
a nd gave plenty of grief, es pec ially under
the heavy play they received in those good
old days when slugs were few and five-
dollar gold pieces were plentiful. The gold
p ieces more than made up for th e slugs.
Shortly after I started, I ordered so me
sm all co unter Bells, with cast iron ca binets
that seemed to weigh a ton. Then Pilots,
Elks, Scarabs, Silver-Cups, Chec k Boys,
Brownies, Totems, all ca me and went, as
no machin e stood up and rece ived th e play
th e 'Liberty' Bell , invented by myoid fri end ,
the late Charles F ey, did.
In 1916, I had accumu lated about 200
ma chines, in cludin g some small Winn er
Dice, MayA ower, Puritan , etc., and while
I had been continually advi sed by my
bank er and fri ends to get out of th e busi-
ness, as th e law was sure to close them up
shortly, I sold out in parcels of ten to
twenty-five ma chines in order to go and
look up a n ew, large r te rritory to operate
in. At th at tim e I fe lt I co uld always find
some place to fun, should th e law clamp
down on anyone place, despite my bank-
er's and fri ends' advice.
I had always felt th at way, until along
in 1933, when New York, New England,
Pennsylvania, th e Virginias, Carolina s and
the entire so uth east be/(a n clos ing with a
bang. It began to look to me that my
predictioT), made seve ra l years before thi s
date, that the .I ac/<. Pot would eventua ll y
ki ll the slot machine, had come true. Grad-
ua ll y the Middle West, Utah, Colorado, and
even Wyoming closed.
I sold out in San Diego in 1916 and then
looked over the entire northwest and fina ll y
stopped in Salt Lake City, Utah. I ex-
pressed 60 vendors into Salt Lake and, for
nine months, /(ave the city its first real
run on bells. Th e last three months of that
time were fill ed with complaints and test
cases, so I pack ed up and headed for
Northern California, opening in Sacra-
mento with 100 machin es, in 1917. I closed
the re of my own accofd, during th e war
period, sellin g my equipm ent in Oakland.
After the Armi sti ce, I bl ew back to Los
Angeles wi th no eq uipment and less than
$1000.00 in ('asr.
Whi le I was 'in San Diego runnin/( a
cigar store, Joe and Bob Gans were in the
whol esa le cigar busin ess in Los Angeles and
Bob traveled th e road , 'C alling on me every
three or four weeks. Bob had seen me han-
dl e slots and wh en I started for the north-
west, I dropped in on Bob and Joe in Los
A ngeles to say hello , and they asked me to
lin e the m up on the slot machine business.
On th e strength of our conve rsa tion they
bought th eir first 21 slots.
So wh en I reac hed Los Ange les in late
1919, I dropped down to see how the boys
were doing. They had accumulated some
420-odd machines and showed me over 400
of them stored in th e basement with only
20 on location.
Right then I made a proposition. They
were to supply the equipment and I was
to do the work. Fifty-fifty on the profits.
I went north and ope ned in Sacramento
and later Stockton for a four-and-a-half
years' run and sent J9.e and Bob enough
money to start what was later the largest
slot machine operating firm in the world.
Williams of Indianapolis had been the
largest at one time, under the nam e of
Si lver King Novelty Co.
A San Jose operator decided that he too
could operate in Stockton, so he started to
give me competition in grocery stores,
whi ch I would not cover in those days.
This happened at a time when my political
fences in Stockton had become weakened,
so I decided to bite back and went to San
( See R UDY FOGT , Page 54 )
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2833 W. Pico Blvd .. Los Angeles 6, Calif .
RO . 142 1
1945
MONEY
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