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Introduction to Fruit Reel Symbols

Why do slot machines use fruit reel symbols? Well, to understand why this tradition came to be, we’ll have to delve into slot machine history. Slot machines are gambling devices. At first, they weren’t slot machines. Nor were they always fruit machines.

Reel symbols are often traditional, including stars, bars, numbers, and various pictured fruits. Fruits can include cherries, plums, oranges, lemons, and watermelons.

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One-Armed Bandits

Initially, slot machines were one-armed bandits. Later, in Great Britain, they became fruit machines. Why? Because pulling a handle activated it. That’s how you’d make a bet. Nowadays, of course, we can also push a button.

Bell Fruit Gum Slot Machine

Making a bet happens after entering coins, tokens, cash, or casino credits. Subsequently, the player makes a bet, and the reels with symbols begin to spin. When done spinning, the reel symbols shown lined up along pay lines determine the payout, if any.

Fruit Reel Symbols

The Industry Novelty Company, run by O. D. Jennings, first used fruit reel symbols. This moment in history was a time when legal restrictions on slot machines were beginning. For example, San Francisco banned all 3,300 slot machines within the city in 1909.

To circumvent these new laws on cash-paying slot machines, manufacturers began turning their gambling devices into chewing gum dispensers. They did this by replacing card number and suit reel symbols with fruit reel symbols.

After this change, the reels showed fruit symbols. As a result, any wins were various flavors of gum, as indicated by the winning fruit reel symbols.

Plus, every “bet” resulted in a win. Therefore, these machines stopped being betting machines an authentically became automatic vending machines.

A Bit More History

Before 1907, slot machines that paid out in coins had already existed for 20 years. Charles Fey of San Francisco invented coin-dispensing slot machines in April 1887.

Before 1887, slot machines were one-armed bandits. The game played was a form of poker. Winning combinations resulted in allowing the player free drinks or cigars.

Slots Fruit Machines Games Free

These machines usually had five reels with ten cards per reel. This collection of reel symbols totaled 50 cards from the standard 52-card deck. The two cards excluded were the Ten of Spades and the Jack of Hearts.

For those readers that play poker, you’ll understand that leaving these two cards out of the deck halved the chance of receiving a Royal Flush. This jackpot was the big prize.

Here are a few pictures of these antique slot machines at Cyprus Casino Consultant, Casino Observer, and International Arcade Museum.

Summary of Fruit Reel Symbols

Starting in 1907, Industry Novelty began turning out Bell Fruit Gum slot machines. Another early slot machine manufacturer, Mills Novelty Company, began producing them 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 still commonly used today. The bar symbol was a company logo of a slot manufacturer meant to resemble a stick of gum.

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By Jon H. Friedl, Jr. Ph.D., President
Jon Friedl, LLC

The Liberty Bell was the first variation of the modern mechanical slot machine we see today, originally being referred to as a 'fruit machine' or 'one-armed bandit'. Created in 1895 by Charles Fey (1862–1944), a car mechanic from San Francisco, the Liberty Bell's popularity set the standard for the modern slot machine; its three-reel model is still used today despite great advances in slot technology over the past several decades. The original Liberty Bell slot machine is currently on display at the Liberty Belle saloon in Reno, Nevada as a historic artifact.^[1]

• 1How it worked

How it worked[edit]

Each of Liberty Bell's three reels were imprinted with a symbol of a diamond, heart, spade, horseshoe, star and a cracked Liberty Bell. Once the player deposited a nickel, he could pull the lever on the side of the machine and the reels would begin to spin, stopping on any random combination of symbols. If the same symbol appeared on all three reels a bell would ring and the player would be awarded with coins. Three Liberty Bells offered the largest payout of fifty cents (10 nickels), which was ejected by the machine.^[1]

Payouts[edit]

The payouts for the Liberty Bell were as follows:

• 2 horseshoes = 5 cents
• 2 horseshoe + 1 star = 10 cents
• 3 spades = 20 cents
• 3 diamonds = 30 cents
• 3 hearts = 40 cents
• 3 Liberty Bells = 50 cents

Popularity[edit]

In 1907, with the growing popularity and demand for the Liberty Bell, the Mills Novelty Company began manufacturing the 'Mills Liberty Bell'.^[2]

In 1910 the company introduced a slight variation of the Liberty Bell, called the Operator Bell. Changes such as a gooseneck coin acceptor and fruit symbols to replace the traditional images became a standard for slot machines for decades to come, and over 30,000 of these machines were produced. In 1915 the company then began manufacturing a less expensive version of the Operator Bell, replacing the heavy cast iron machines with ones made out of lighter wooden cabinets.^[2]

In the early 1930s the Mills Novelty company made additional changes to their line of slot machines. First, they designed it so that their machines were much more quieter, which eventually gave the machines the name 'silent bells'. Secondly, they created a line of themed wooden cabinets each with its own unique design, the first being Lion Head released in 1931.^[3]

It was this time in the 1930s that slot machines saw a rise of popularity in America. In the late 1940s Bugsy Siegel added slot machines to his Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, initially as a way to entertain the wives and girlfriends of high rollers. Soon the revenue generated from these machines matched those of the table games.^[3]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abInventors.about.com, The History of Slot Machines-Liberty Bell.
2. ^ ^abSlot Machines Payout, Slot Machine History.
3. ^ ^abSlot Tips Guide, The History of Slot Machines.

Funny Fruit Slot Machines