Coin Slot Location

The Golden Age of the Slot Machine 1909-39
gallling lllachines!
To ensure the continued public use of slot
machines, there was a rush by operators to
convert their existing machines to skill control.
The popularity of the device was to prove short
lived, because as its name suggested it really
could be used as a skill control. This in effect
would allow a practised player to win consistently
on a machine, an idea that was anathema to the
operator. It was not long before skill devices were
surreptitiously allowed to 'malfunction' so that
rather than pressing against the reels, they
pressed against nothing more than a spring,
allowing the player the nebulous psychological
satisfaction of having pressed a button.
A departure from the skill device was heralded by
the Times Automatic Manufacturing Company of
Darlaston in Staffordshire in their advertisement
of June 1927:
'Diddlers Made Legal, you can now put into
operation again without any risk whatsoever by
having same converted into an absolute amusement
by a Replay Device ... Nothing comes out but
plenty goes in. As an illegal old playing machine
more than 90% of winning discs were put back in.
The Replay gives the same service, and the only
difference is that the player handles nothing, wins
being registered on a new indicator. The device
gives every satisfaction, and for a small outlay
enables you to get going again-this time without
risks.'
The device tentatively legalised the machines
because they no longer paid out in cash or tokens,
although in practice (as with tokens) the replays
registered on the machine could be cashed.
However, a gambling machine which openly pays
out no tangible commodity very quickly meets
with consumer resistance. The pleasure of playing
a three-reeler has to be seen as one of winning
easy money. If a machine no longer pays out,
even spasmodically, it is no longer a pleasure to
play, as a consequence the Replay device soon
became extinct.
As seen in an earlier article, fortune telling had
been used early on as a disguise. It rapidly
became a regular feature on machines, which by
the 1920s had been refined so that the fortunes
were now included on the reels themselves rather
than on the award chart. The idea had fostered
others, whereby reclining figures could be made
complete according to reel alignment. Another
variation was the joke teller-with the reels
making up a humorous sentence no matter how
they stopped. The player was theoretically
deemed to be operating the machine solely for the
pleasure of having his fortune told, or laughing at
the jokes. All these devices, and the primary
consideration that the machines themselves were
highly popular with the public ensured their
continued, though always precarious use, despite
the strictures of the law against games of chance.
Although the Mills Novelty Company of Chicago
had nominally introduced the 20 stop 20 symbol
system in 1909, in practice machines were rarely
operated with 20 stops before 1940. In fact what
was commonly done was to print 20 symbols on
each reel but to make it with only 10 stops, thus
making it impossible for the machine to stop on
10 of the symbols. It goes without saying that
many of the printed winning combinations on
these early machines were unattainable. In fact
the payout on most pre-1940 machines was in the
order of 50 per cent or less. With such a low
payout it does not take long for a 1 fayer to lose
his money, hence the English nid rnme for the
machines during the 1920s: Diddl1 s. (This term
was later to die out in favou· of the more
glamorous American nickname the 'one arm
bandit', coined during the early 930s).
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