Quick Fact - Slots Semantics
Today In the U.S. we call them slot machines and one-armed bandits, but in Australia, they’re pokies and in the United Kingdom, fruit machines. Other names? Photo from freeimages.com: by Tijmen van Dobbenburgh
Category
Today In the U.S. we call them slot machines and one-armed bandits, but in Australia, they’re pokies and in the United Kingdom, fruit machines. Other names? Photo from freeimages.com: by Tijmen van Dobbenburgh
1825-1958 The hottest game in the Old West between 1825 and 1915, faro is pretty much extinct in the United States today. If you’ve never heard of it — and you aren’t alone there —…
1947 To keep players gambling at their clubs, Las Vegas, Nevada casinos boosted incentives with offerings such as double odds on craps, bingo prizes of $1,000 ($10,900 today), extra slot machine jackpots and brand new…
1950s The manufacture of slot machines, roulette wheels and other gambling equipment was big business in the United States until the mid-20th century when new federal legislation curbed it. In 1950, the Kefauver Committee, officially the…
1942 The Las Vegas, Nevada Board of Commissioners ordered all commercial slot machine owners to drop off to the local police station a master key for each of their devices to: • Ensure the devices…
1961 A Southern Nevada business offered to teach individuals, for a flat fee of $3,000 ($24,000 today), various ways to successfully cheat slot machines. Photo from freeimages.com
1913-1929 With various state bans on gambling and, later, a nationwide prohibition against liquor, many Americans, particularly wealthy Southern Californians, traveled to casinos in Mexican border cities to play and imbibe. “The great hegira* is in,…
1967 Nevada legislators proposed a bill that would disallow any future installation of slot machines in grocery and drug stores. It died, though, in the Senate Taxation Committee.
1965 The U.S. suffered a shortage of coins in 1965. And that led to decreased business for Nevada’s largest industry — gambling. Usage of half-dollars, common in casinos then for table games and one-armed bandits,…