A German immigrant Charles Fey created and developed the very first slot machine within the late 1800s in San Francisco. A metal box, which he called The Liberty Bell, had a window with three metal reels and stood on cast-iron feet.

These machines needed a nickel to play and had ten different symbols, creating a thousand possible combinations. A player won a whopping jackpot of 10 nickels if he lined up three Liberty Bells (compelling a number of winners to happily sing America, view site… the Beautiful).

In the 1940s, back when Bugsy Siegel laid the groundwork for Las Vegas gambling, slot machines were just an afterthought, a small distraction to keep most wives occupied as the husbands played blackjack or craps. Slots were described as one-armed bandits due to their poor odds.