Bell Fruit Gum Slot Machine

Bell-Fruit-Gum 5¢ Slot Machine, copyright 1910 by Mills Novelty Co., Chicago, 25” tall on wood base, (overall fair-good condition with no casting, loss, details have been repainted, no key). Ca 1910 Rock-Ola 25 cent slot machine/ one armed bandit, patented 1910, Bell-Fruit-Gum, cast metal upper, metal back with keys, wooden base, 15 3/4' x 15' x 25 1/2'.

Mills Novelty Company Slot Machine
Bell Fruit Gum Slot Machine Mills 25 Cent
Mills Novelty Nickel Slot Machine
Bell Fruit Gum Company 1910

Introduction to Why Slot Machines Say Bar

Why do slot machines say bar on their reels? Well, to understand why this tradition came to be, we’ll have to delve into slot machine history. First of all, these gambling devices weren’t always called slot machines. Slot machines were originally referred to as a one-armed bandit, then later in Great Britain as a fruit machine.

A slot machine gambling device is activated by pulling a handle or pushing a button. This can only be done after coins, tokens, cash, or casino credits has been entered. Consequently, reels with symbols begin to spin. When done spinning, the symbols shown lined up along pay lines are used to determine the payout, if any.

Reel symbols are often traditional, including stars, bars, numbers, and various pictured fruits. Fruits can include cherries, plums, oranges, lemons, and watermelons. The number seven is also very popular. And, finally, then there are bar reel symbols.

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Bar Reel Symbols

Fruit reel symbols were first used in slot machine by the Industry Novelty Company in 1909. This was quickly followed the next year by Mills Novelty Company of Chicago, recently inherited by Herbert Stephen Mills. But, with a slight addition.

Mills added the photograph of a chewing gum pack along with the fruit reel symbols. Soon after, these photographs of a chewing gum pack were replaced with a stylized bar symbol.

Slot machines have a very rich history. Within gaming device circles of the time, it was well known that Charles Augustus Fey of San Francisco refused to sell or lease the design of his first coin-operated slot machine, the Liberty Bell, which he invented around 1887.

So, how did Mills get the design from Fey? There are two theories. First, that Fey cooperated with Mills to spread the use of slot machines. After all, Fey is known as the “Father of Slots” both for his invention of the coin-operated device as well as popularizing its use.

The second theory is Mills somehow “obtained” a Liberty Bell as a result of a San Francisco saloon robbery in 1905. Less than a year later, Mills produced a new version of the Liberty Bell called either the Mills Liberty Bell or Operator Bell.

During my review of the history of early slot machines, there are also suggestions the bar symbol may have another origin story. It is generally accepted that the bar symbol is a stylized image of a chewing gum pack, as well as a company logo.

According to some historical sources, however, the company having that logo may have been the Bell-Gum Fruit company.

A Bit More History

As mentioned, slot machines have a very rich history, especially in their early days. Besides Why Do Slot Machines Say Bar, there are a few other interesting historical items of interest.

In 1916, another historic slot machine innovation created by the Mills Novelty Company was the jackpot. When a specific combination of reel symbols resulted from a bet, the slot machine would empty its coin hopper of all coins as a prize.

The Mills Novelty would later go on to produce slot machines with wooden cabinets, rather than the original cast iron construction materials.

Photos of early slot machines are online at Cyprus Casino Consultant, Casino Observer, the International Arcade Museum, and elsewhere. I especially enjoy photos of antique slot machines in my copy of Slot Machines: A Pictorial History of the First 100 Years by Marshall Fey, grandson of “the Father of Slot Machines” Charles Fey.

The Cyprus Casino Consultant website shows 4 slot machines on a waist-high counter top. They appear to have wood cabinets and are each perhaps 30 inches high by 18 inches wide. In metric, that’s about 76 centimeters by 46 centimeters.

Each slot machine is of the one-armed bandit variety, meaning they appear to are activated by first inserting a coin and then pulling a large lever on the right side of the machine. Each of these models appears to accept coins at the top, as well as dispense coins for winners at the bottom.

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The Casino Observer website also shows 4 slot machines. Two of these machines are some of the first slot machines, from about 1890, while two others are more modern, ~1940s. The two older slot machines receive coins, but only the poker machine appears to not be able to dispense coins. This poker machine has typical card suits as reel symbols and a cast metal-type cabinet.

It appears to be missing its one-armed bandit lever, perhaps due to damage, or it never had a lever. One older slot machine with coin dispenser capability is clearly identified as a “Liberty Bell”. It rests on cast feet located on each corner. The reel symbols show three Liberty Bells, but its “pay table” shows card suits – not fruit or bars.

The International Arcade Museum website shows a single slot machine. It’s a very old slot machine showing the symbol of the Liberty Bell on its front next to three reels showing Liberty Bell, bar, and fruit reel symbols.

This is probably a “Liberty Bell” by Charles Fey, but must be a slightly later version due to it having obvious fruit and bar reel symbols. It also has a cast metal-type cabinet and the distinctive “feet” of a Liberty Bell. It also has a small tray for coins, suggesting it has automatic payouts.

Charles Fey manufactured about 100 Liberty Bell slot machines for distribution in and around San Francisco. However, there are few of them remaining in existence. The scarcity of Fey’s Liberty Bell is a direct result of a natural disaster occurring shortly after their manufacture: the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

Summary of Why Slot Machines Say Bar

Starting in 1907, Bell Fruit Gum slot machines were manufactured by Industry Novelty Co. They were followed by the Mills Novelty Company in 1910.

The reels on these slot machines included cherry, melon, orange, apple, and bar symbols with non-cash payouts in the form of fruit-flavored gum, allowing machine owners to avoid prosecution under the anti-gambling laws of that time.

The cherry and bar symbols became traditional to slot machines, and are still commonly used today. The bar symbol was a company logo, originally a photo of a chewing gum pack before being stylized as a bar.

According to Virginia Code 18.2-334, slots of any age can be owned by citizens. This is a departure from the law in many states, where a machine must be at least 25 years old before it can be owned and displayed. Of course, there’s a big difference between being able to legally own a slot machine. Slot machines in virginia gas stations. A Virginia lawmaker carrying legislation to legalize casino gambling wants to ban unregulated slot-like games that have popped up in gas stations, convenience stores and bars around the state. Though the machines look and function like slot machines.

1-What Does the Bar Symbol Mean on a Slot Machine?

Slot machines have been around since the 1890s. You’d find these early slot machine games in bars and taverns in cities like New York and San Francisco. When gambling became illegal, these businesses started giving away candy and chewing gum instead of money.

Imagine going into a bar today and putting money into a slot machine with the opportunity to win a free drink or a cigar.

That’s what gambling in a tavern was like in the 1890s.

What does the bar symbol mean?

Think about what it looks like.

It’s a rectangle, right?

My first guess would be that the bar symbol on a slot machine symbolized a candy bar, but that would be too big. After all, keep in mind that the idea was to have prizes that were small, like coins.

The bar symbols on slot machines represent sticks of chewing gum — specifically, BAR chewing gum. (It was a popular brand of the Bell-Fruit Gum Company at the time.) They were in color in those days, and different colors meant different flavors of gum.

Slot machine makers still use bar symbols out of tradition, even though I’ve never seen a slot machine game that offers gum as a prize.

2- What Do the Fruit Symbols Mean on a Slot Machine?

Just as the bar symbol meant you were going to win chewing gum, the various flavors of fruit-inspired candy were prizes you could win. Cherry symbols meant winning cherry-flavored candy.

Apples meant winning apple-flavored candy. Oranges and plums, well… They meant you won dragonfruit and huckleberry flavored candy.

Just kidding.

Obviously, the picture of the fruit in question represented the flavor of candy you won.

And, again, the reason these symbols are still in use have more to do with tradition than anything else. People are just used to seeing these symbols on these games.

3- How Many Different Symbols Are There on a Slot Machine?

An average slot machine game might have about 20 symbols on each reel. This does NOT imply that each symbol has a 1/20 probability of coming up on a spin, though.

Modern slot machines use a random number generator to determine their results. These are actually random — they’re not fixed or rigged in any way.

The casino makes its money because the prize schedule for a slot machine game pays prizes in such a way that the game is inherently profitable.

Think about it this way:

Suppose you played a casino game where you had a 1 in 600 probability of winning, but when you won, you only got a payout of 500 to 1.

Do you see how that would be profitable for the casino?

You’d lose $1 on 599 spins, but you’d win $500 on the one spin, for a net loss of $99.

Such a game would have a house edge of around 17%, on average.

The payouts on a slot machine game are more complicated than that, but it’s the same principle.

4- What Are the Odds of Winning on a Slot Machine?

Here’s the thing about slot machines:

You don’t know what the odds of winning are.

And, to an extent, the odds of winning are irrelevant. What you’re really concerned about is the payback percentage.

That’s a ratio that compares the odds of winning with the amount you win. Over time, it represents the long-term average of how much money the casino will win from you on each bet.

Most slot machines have a hit ratio of about 1 in 3 or 1 in 4.

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So it’s fair to see that on most slot machines, your odds of winning something are 3 to 1 or 2 to 1.

The problem is that the payouts aren’t commensurate with these odds of winning.

Also, slot machines pay off bets on an X for Y basis rather than an X to Y basis.

In blackjack, your payouts are in addition to what you risked. Bet $5 on a blackjack hand and win, and you get a 1 to 1 payout, or even money. You get your $5 bet back with $5 in winnings.

Gambling machines, though, pay back with odds on a 1 “for” 1 basis. Bet $5 on a spin of the slot machine reels, and you get $5 in winning in exchange for your $5 bet.

The machine acts like it’s a win, but the reality is that it’s a push.

This is also one of the reasons slot machines measure their odds using payback percentage rather than house edge.

When a slot machine game has a 90% payback percentage, it means that on average you get back 90% of each bet. Place a $5 bet, and you’ll get an average of $4.50 back over time — which means you’ll lose 50 cents per bet on average.

And that’s just the average including any jackpots you win. If you play in the short-term and don’t see a jackpot, you’ll usually see a lower payback percentage until you get some winnings and catch up.

5- Which Slot Machine Has the Best Payout?

How do you know which slot machine has the best payout?

Borderlands 2 cheat engine slot machine download. The short answer to this question is easy enough:

You don’t.

You have NO WAY of knowing which machine has better payouts than the other machines. In fact, you can play an identical slot machine next to the one you started on and be facing a different payback percentage.

The casinos have no rhyme or reason in terms of where they place the higher and lower payout machines.

In the long run, it doesn’t even really matter. If you play a negative expectation game long enough — and slots are ALWAYS a negative expectation game — you’ll eventually lose all your money.

Mills Novelty Company Slot Machine

Stop worrying about which slot machine has the best payout.

Worry instead about how much fun you’re having — or not. If you don’t enjoy a specific game, move on to another game.

6- Why Are They Called “Slot” Machines?

Bell Fruit Gum Slot Machine Mills 25 Cent

They’re called slot machines because you put your money into a slot to play.

When they were first invented, slot machines only worked on a literal coin-in and coin-out basis.

Now, of course, most slot machines work by accepting bills and spitting out a piece of paper with the amount you’re owed on it.

But we haven’t changed the name of the games.

Also, it’s not called a slot machine in other countries, always. In the United Kingdom, they’re called fruit machines. In Australia, they’re called “pokies,” which is short for poker machines.

That last nomenclature comes from their original nature — the first slot machines, which predated the machines that gave away candy — used playing cards to produce random results instead of symbols on metal reels.

Mills Novelty Nickel Slot Machine

7- Who Invented the Slot Machine?

According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, as well as many other legitimate sources, Charles Fey invented the first slot machines.

He born in Bavaria but was making his living as a mechanic in San Francisco when he invented slot machines in 1894. It didn’t take long for him to be doing so well that he started a factor to produce more slot machines.

The first 3-reel slot machine with machine-generated payouts in real money was invented in 1898, also by Charles Fey. The Liberty Bell, which most modern slot players would recognize as a real slot machine, came along in 1899 — another Fey invention.

There are only 4 Liberty Bell machines still extant.

Also, it didn’t take long for other companies, like the Mills Novelty Company, to steal Fey’s invention and start making money from their own versions of it.

Finally

Those are the most accurate and concise answers to some of the most common questions about slot machines and their symbols on the internet.

What other questions do you have besides what do the symbols mean?

Bell Fruit Gum Company 1910

Leave me a note in the comments, and I’ll respond with an answer if I can.

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