Play Meter

• co1nman of the month WWW Selling Time conversation with Vegas operator Norman Little "We try to keep our games what we call factory fresh. Presentation: the cl,eaner the game, the more appealing it is, the more respect it gets. " Norman Little got an early start in the business. That was in the thirties in Vancouver, British Columbia. He was fourteen years old when he went in with the son of a merchant who had machines in his store that couldn't be fixed. In those days, Norm told Play Meter, "when the average American operator couldn't fix his machines, he would trade them in and we in Canada became the dumping off market for games that had problems in them. "So we became astute in repairs and an understanding of the coin machine business, "Norm went on. At a very young age apparently. "I got my first location when I was fifteen," he told us. The operation run by Norman and his brother, gradually grew to some 300 locations and ran amusement games, bingo machines, one balls and jukeboxes. Eventually the brothers separated. "My brother went into cigarette machines, "Little said, "and the changing laws in Canada, those on operating one balls and bingos, drove me to greener fields. " Greener fields for Norman Little meant the desert. He arrived in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1951. There he dropped out of the amusement end of the business for a while. He went to work in a casino and in 1953 became the. assistant general manager ofo.t he Nevada Club. Not too much later ~ he became general manager. ~ Finally, he opened his own casino, Honest John's, """ and went on to open a total of four Honest John's, ~ allinLas Vegas. Although he's since sold them, one = 14 still exists under that name. The others are around but now operate under different titles. Little continued to work in casino management, however, until about three years ago, when "a victim of overexposure, "he says, he at last got back into operating amusement machines. But the casino experience has by no means gone to waste. One reason we wanted to talk to Norman is his reputation as a merchandiser. He excelled in the gaming business, making a world-wide reputation for his concept for and merchandising of the silver dollar slot machine. He now operates over 1100 amusement and vending pieces in five states, Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. His route is "heavy in pinball machines, "but he has pool tables, videos, jukeboxes and cigarette machines as well- but no gambling pieces. Little is not a joiner- he belongs to no assoC'iations- but enough of one to be married. His son Doug, once a basketball player at the University of Oregon, is now in sales in Eugene. Since he was out of the business for about fifteen years, we thought Norman might have some unique insights into "then and now." We started our questioning there. PLAY METER: After being a way from the business for fifteen years, you must have noticed some significant changes when you came back. What were some of these? LITTLE: Naturally, there were a lot of ideas that