Coin Slot Location

Location
IN October 1926 the owner of the
Funland arcade in the Edgware Road,
London, Jack Woods had to everybody's
surprise, successfully appealed against a
previously adverse decision regarding the
use of a slot machine with skill controls.
It was effectively the first time that a
three-reeler had been declared legal by
an English court.
The BAMOS appeal had in part been
implemented because of the success of this case,
however the appeal's ultimate failure was also
embedded in the case's success, in that many
operators now felt that the skill control ploy was
the answer to all their problems, and that a major
case at this time would be counter-productive
because of the unfavourable publicity it would
engender.
The man who took the credit for the skill control
idea in England was Gordon Smith, head of the
Essex Manufacturing Company. In Easter 1926
he had bought 50 slot machines and placed them
in amusement centres in Southend. After the
Easter holidays the chief constable had ordered
that their use be stopped forthwith. It was as a
direct consequence of this that Smith, already a
well known manufacturer of coin-operated
machines, 'invented' and subsequently applied
for a patent for a skill attachment. He showed it
to the chief constable who subsequently agreed
that the device did indeed make the machine
legal. As a direct result of his meeting with the
chief constable of Southend, Smith placed the
following advertisement in the World's Fair, in
May 1926: 'Warning: The Essex Automatic
Manufacturing Company Ltd of the Kursaal
Southend give notice that they have a patent pending
for a device which can be attached to such games as
the Fruit Vending O.K. machines or the like, and
make such machines into games of skill. Should it
come to our knowledge that any manufacturer
should make or use any device which infringes our
rights we shall take immediate proceedings.'
The advertisement in effect, heralded an attempt
by Smith to corner the market and thus capitalise
on the expected rush by operators to legalise their
machines. In practice the device consisted of
three buttons placed opposite the three reels. The
buttons could be pressed when the reels were in
motion causing them to stop, theoretically at the
desired position.
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Ban those
As it happened, the idea was not original to
Smith, as evidenced by the British• American's
marketing of the Caille Superior Operators Bell
complete with skill controls, supplied direct by
the Caille Brothers Company of Detroit. A
month later, the British American replied to the
Essex advertisement with one of their own:
'This attachment does not infringe anyone's rights,
and we will give £1,000 for the conviction and
prosecution of any person saying it does. Skill
attachments have been used on these machines for
years in the United States, so the idea is not new.'
The Essex replied by threatening prosecution.
Despite the truth of their statement, but well
aware of Smith's patent application, the British
American capitulated. Within three weeks of
their defiant advertisement they became
concessionaires for the Essex attachment, and
began advertising the conversion of machines to
the device at a cost of five guineas per machine.
However, according to Harry Holloway,
youngest son of Jack Holloway, the matter was
not to rest there. Essex next sued the Samson
Novelty Company, and in the ensuing court case
the judge found in favour of the latter, ruling that
the device was no more than an improvement as
opposed to an invention.
By the time the Essex were granted a patent in
1928, their attempt at a monopoly had failed.
Other firms quickly entered the field with their
owr. versions of the device, either in the form of
buttons or levers. However, even these
'voluntary' controls were not enough to satisfy
some authorities since a player could choose
whether or not to use them. With this in mind
William Lennards, a well known London
showman, developed the 'Perfect Control', a
device which could be set so that a player had to
make use of it in order to achieve a payout.