Gambling Machines

The gambling ingredient is the intoxicating, addictive substance of the slot machine trade. There's a dash of it in most amusement machines, but the one arm bandit is a hundred percent proof. Early contenders such as automatic payout "roulettes" with their single spinning disks were eclipsed by the arrival in 1905 of Charlie Fey's Liberty Bell. This machine established the iconic form we still recognize as bells, bandits or three reelers in America and pullers, fruit machines or more vaguely slot machines in Britain. Although legal strictures stifled their development here, several manufacturers made a business out of revamping and disguising bandits for the British market. Others, by shunning the ubiquitous three reels and fruit symbols, produced some delightfully novel games that the authorities could not easily identify as gambling machines.