Scan: The Billboard 1931-12-19

At Ontario Pinfest I was gifted a box of old billboard magazines, from Mike Hanley of Church of the silver ball. They were fairly brittle and quite large, making them a formidable challenge, but a preservationist friend was able to take on this challenge and here is the first issue of that batch. This one is in 300 dpi, but the future ones will apparently be 600 DPI. thank you to F-T-BScans for the scan.

The Billboard December 19th 1931

 

I requested the final few pages of the magazine get rescanned at 600 dpi, and those pages are here. Those are the few coin-op pages, but this section of the magazine will quickly grow in later issues.

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This blog stands in protest against the USA's horrific attempts to eliminate trans people from society. Trans people have always existed, in every society, but the administration has embraced a moral panic, declared a war against reality, and says that trans people can no longer be allowed to exist. This includes making their healthcare illegal, censoring books and school curriculum from university level down to elementary school, and stoking the constant terrorist bomb and death threats against trans lives and institutions that don't also purge trans people.

This blog stands in solidarity with all of the youth who are being terrorized by a fascist president who has declared them to be threats that must be eliminated.

The USA is disappearing random brown people off the streets via unidentified masked men and shipping them off to notorious foreign prisons, all with no due process. Solidarity for all who are in the gaze of this American Nazism terror campaign against its own citizens.

Please read: 'Open Cruelty': Transgender Troops Describe Indignities as They're Kicked Out of the Military by Konstantin Toropin

Please read: Spain’s first out trans senator declares ‘F*** Rowling’ as she uses women’s bathroom

excerpts from The Bunco Book

A few years back I excerpted all of the Bunco Games To Beware Of columns I could find.  These columns were collected in The Bunco Book, released in 1986, a year after Gibson's death.

Adrian Seville graciously sent me scans from The Bunco Book that might be of interest, covering a few things absent from that earlier article. I will be including OCRed transcriptions of the articles to make them easier to translate to other languages.  The original Bunco Games To Beware Of articles came out around 1925, so these other articles are probably also 100 years old.

 

The Bunco Book by Walter B. Gibson

 

Cigar Counter Dice Games

PHOTO CAPTION: The player rolls the dice on the cigar counter. If he is lucky be may win something.

Cigar Counter Dice Games

How They Stimulate Trade and Fleece the Sucker

GAMES of counter dice are very popular, and whenever they are permitted they do a big business. This is true of certain hotels and other establishments in the Middle West. The game is played on the cigar counter, and prizes are given in trade.
There are various ways of playing the game. For example, a player may roll ten dice from a box. Before he begins, he chooses a number, like 5; or he can take two numbers, as 5 and 6. He pays a quarter for the privilege of choosing a number.
He rolls the dice ten times, and each time the Man behind the counter records the number of times the player's point appears. Suppose the player's point is 5. It may appear three times the first roll; twice the second; once the third; four times the fourth. The cigar man adds them up.
If the player's point appears 20 times in the course of ten rolls, he gets 50 cents in trade. If it appears 25 times, he gets $1.00 in trade; if it shows up 30 times, he gets $2.00.
Now there are six sides to every dice. If twelve dice were used, the player's number would appear 20 times in ten rolls. But with ten dice, his average should be between 16 and 17.
That is where the store makes its margin of profit. In the long run, most players will lose the quarter they put up. The cigar stand can afford to pay to the winners.
In checking up on one of these games, it was found that a lucky player, who had some real breaks, won about thirteen dollars after playing ten dollars on the counter. In other words, he got thirteen dollars' worth of merchandise for ten dollars in cash. The store could afford it, for the player was forced to take a lot of cigars and cigarettes, and the stand operated on a good margin of profit. In the meantime, other players were spending three, four, or five dollars, and getting from 50 cents to one dollar in return.
The above has been given simply as an example; there are so many different ways of counting up scores that it is difficult to trace them all. Sometimes the player rolls eight dice for a dime, and gets his reward in cigars. Only totals like 8 or 48 pay big prizes; numbers 9, 10, 11, 12 pay good prizes, as do 44, 45, 46, 47; but the middle numbers from 20 to 36 pay either one cigar or nothing. The great majority of the totals fall between 20 and 36. The game pays a good profit to the operator. Rolling eight aces or eight sixes may not sound very difficult, but those combinations show up about once in ten years.

In some of these games, the operator puts up bigger rewards, and makes it look possible for the player to win plenty, because the odds are lessened against him; in fact, they may be in his favor. Whenever you encounter a game of that type it is a safe bet that it is crooked.

IMAGE:
MAGNET DEVICE
PUSH BUTTON
IRON BOTTOMS
A concealed magnet beneath the counter gives the operator the hS advantage, and the player never wins.

How the Dice Are Loaded
In the first place, when a lot of dice are used, it is an easy matter for the man behind the counter to ring in one or two loaded dice. In fact, they can be in the game most of the time. Some players go after a certain number in the combination games and stick to it. If one of the dice is loaded against the player his chances are considerably lessened.
But the most common method is to use electric dice. The dice are solid ones, and three sides, say the low ones 1, 2, 3-have lead beneath them. The other sides-4, 5, 6-are made with a thin facing of iron.
Under the counter is a magnet device, as illustrated, with a switch button. Now when the electromagnet is not in use, the high numbers will show up most frequently. If the player is after 1, 2, or 8, the gamester lets nature take its course. The heavy lead sides of the dice make the high numbers predominate, as 1, 2, and 3 come beneath.
As soon as a player goes after 4, 5, or 6, the operator presses the button or the switch, and the magnet beneath the counter makes the high sides come down, so that most of the numbers are 1, 2, and 3.
The ordinary magnet is simply placed under a solid counter. But when a glass showcase is used, the magnet is camouflaged in what appears to be a humidor, used to keep cigars fresh. This is just beneath the glass surface of the counter, and it is innocent in appearance; but it does the trick every time.

Concealing Electro-Magnet
Sometimes the magnet is hidden in a sort of cash box, which rests on the counter and serves as a pedestal on which the dice are rolled. The concealment of the magnet is a simple matter, and anyone can handle the switch with ease.
In other games, the dice roll into a bowl, which is fitted up electrically. Here, again all the chances are against the player; the concealed switch does it all.
Tables are made for rolling dice; and electro-magnets in the table top control the special electric dice. The wires run up the big central table leg, and the switch may be out of the room. Such devices are used in gambling houses.
A confederate handles the button to help the gambler who is swindling the other players, in any kind of dice game they may choose.

Electric Transparent Dice
Elsewhere in this book, the loading of transparent dice is explained. The use of platinum in the spots is the method. To make transparent dice respond to a hidden magnet, the spots are also hollowed out and soft iron is inserted. Then the spots are repainted, and the dice are ready for use.
It is the best to stay away from all counter games or elaborate dice games where the player tries to beat the bank; for it is a sure thing that the odds of the game are naturally against the player, or that some secret contrivance is working in favor of the house. Generally the electro-magnet is the hidden device; and even the wisest cannot find it.

 

The Alluring Slot Machines

The Alluring Slot Machines

Mechanical Devices That Reap a Mighty Harvest of Unearned Dollars

THERE are thirty or forty different makes of gambling slot machines in existence. A classification of them would read like a catalog. They are set strong against the players and their construction is all in favor of the owner.
The slot machines that get the biggest play are those which take a nickel. The player drops the coin in a slot, pulls a handle and wheels revolve. In stopping they form different combinations which pay the player various sums and sometimes nothing.
The machines that are most popular deliver the money automatically. Sometimes they are played with checks or slugs which the player trades in for cash.
There is no need to go into the details of the mechanism of the usual nickel slot machine. It has supplanted many of the other machines and its mechanical operation and the percentages on the wheel favor the owner of the machine to an enormous degree. A man will buy a hundred-dollar machine and run it in violation of the law. If he gets away with it for a few weeks he doesn't worry if the machine is grabbed. He will have a big profit and enough over to buy a new machine.

PICTURE CAPTION: Three aces give the player fifteen cents in return for Ava. But winning combinations are few and far between.

TABLE OF PRIZES
Royal Flush-pays $5.00 (Ace, king, queen, jack and ten of one suit.)
Straight Flush 2.50 (All of one suit in rotation.)
Four of a Kind 1.00
Full House .50
Flush (all of one suit) .30
Straight (all in rotation) .25
Three of a Kind .15
Two Pair .10
One Pair (jacks or better).05

Slot machines are the most ingenious of mechanical gambling devices. The player cannot see the interior and he plays it blindly. Why men of common sense will fritter away their cash on games like these is hard to tell. The more they play the more they lose.
When you play a slot machine the odds are not only against you, but the machine probably has much more money in it than you have in your pocket. A loss of twenty dollars may break the player, but it would take much more than that to break the machine and then the owner would put in more money. Once the machine gets ahead of the game it is finis for the player. He is bucking a game that has been devised to trim him.

Small Chances of Winning
About the only way to play a slot machine with anything like an even break is to start with a sum of about two dollars. If that is lost, quit. On the other hand, if the player should get well ahead of the game, he should pocket everything he wins, always keeping exactly two dollars to play with. As soon as he drops that two dollars he should quit- then he may walk out with some winnings. He can reduce the amount of playing margin from two dollars to one if he wishes as he gets ahead of the game.
But remember, this is not a method to beat a slot machine. There is no system that will bring results. A player may win a few dollars at the most. He is foolish even to play the game. The average person loses his head when he gets ahead of the game and won't quit. Once he is behind he keeps on playing to regain his losses. Plenty of pay envelopes have been emptied into slot machines. They are the greatest form of sucker bait ever invented.

A Look Inside a Slot Machine
If a player could study the dial of the regular slot machine he would gain some enlightenment. For this reason an illustration is given exposing the poker slot machine which is the worst offender of them all. It actually takes money under false pretenses.
The machine is illustrated here. It has five revolving wheels, each bearing different playing cards. As every gambler knows the game of poker it is easy to get players in this game. The rewards in the game are often cigars, but sometimes money is given. The chart at the top of the page serves as an example.
This looks good to the player and he will squander his money in hopes of connecting with a royal flush or a straight flush. But he is wasting his efforts, and if he thought matters over a bit he would see why.
In the first place, the player is misled. He thinks he is working on a straight poker basis with a chance of any possible combination. Now naturally the machine would not be made so that two identical cards would appear at once on different wheels. There are just fifty-two cards in a pack, and these must be distributed among five wheels that is, about ten different cards to each wheel. The picture with the rows of cards shows how this can be done. Each vertical row represents a different wheel. It will be noted that, while cards are duplicated on the same wheel, no card appears on more than one wheel.

IMAGE CAPTION: Poker Slot Machine. Each vertical row is curved to form wheel. Study the arrangement of the cards, and you will see that many of the large winning combinations are impossible to attain. Straight Flushes are eliminated and only one Four of a Kind can possibly appear.

Not a Chance for a Big Prize
Every time a nickel is dropped in the slot the wheels spin. One card appears from each wheel. Now where are the chances for a royal flush? There aren't any! Look at the layout of cards and you will see that two cards of one suit, such as a queen and a jack, appear on the same wheel. Good-bye, royal flush!
Look for a straight flush. You will find that it is also impossible with this layout. Where are the four aces? Two different aces appear on one wheel. That eliminates four aces. Most of the possible combinations of four of a kind are completely out of the picture, although it is possible.
Full houses are hard to make, and flushes are not easy. Look at spades, for example. The ace is the only spade on one wheel. In order to make a flush in spades that one particular card must appear. The possibilities of a flush in any other suit are also limited.
The player has a chance for some of the small prizes, but the percentage is greatly against him. He would be wise enough not to risk his money for the little prizes. What he is after is the big rewards, which he can never get.
As the mechanism is not on view the unthinking player does not realize what he is up against. During the course of many plays he will see practically every card in the pack. He will not note which wheel each one is on and he will think the machine is a fair one.

Slot Machines Are All Alike
As regards their effect on the player, all slot machines are alike. Every one is a tough baby to beat. Some of the larger machines, with six slots, are plugged on certain slots so that winning is impossible. Others have mechanical devices that help to rob the player. Yet the suckers keep on coming. In order to make these machines legal they are often introduced as vending machines. Along side of each machine is a container that delivers packages of mints; a package for each nickel. The candy resembles regular five-cent packages, but it is of a cheap grade. The man who owns the machine can let the mints go- his profits are big enough. This should convince some of the suckers that they are in wrong, but it doesn't.
Players seldom pay any attention to the mints as they are after money- not candy. So the latest model machines deliver mints on every play automatically, to prove that they are not gambling devices. The players get plenty of candy and the machines take in the money. If you try to beat one of these machines, carry a suitcase, All you will get is candy and you might as well bring it home as a souvenir.

Telling the Winner Beforehand
The cleverest improvement on the nickel slot machine was the device which told the player what he was going to win! This was done to prove that the machine was not a gambling device. Every time a nickel was dropped in the slot the wheels spun, winning or losing combinations turned up and a number appeared in a small hole telling just how many nickels the player would get on the next play.
Naturally, when a player approached the machine he would see the figure 0 showing, which would mean that he would lose his nickel. But what he wanted to see was the next number, which might be a winner. So he would waste his first nickel. Every time 0 would show up he would take another chance. If a number like 5 (meaning five nickels or twenty-five cents) would appear, he would lose no time in getting after it.
Just think this over. When a machine can be so constructed that it will tell the number that is going to appear before a nickel is dropped in, should any sane person believe that machine to be on the level? If it can tell one ahead, why not two, three, four, five or any number of successive plays? Yet these slot machines, which were legal in certain localities, did the biggest business in the history of the game. All of which proves that when Barnum said "There is one born every minute" he made a very conservative estimate.

Manipulating Machines
Sometimes a man who knows the game can manipulate the slot machine so as to make it deliver without putting in a coin. Other players put in slugs and take out nickels. Where machines must be kept under cover, the proprietor stays outside to keep watch, and if a clever player gets alone with the machine, he can make it pay. If the handles are pulled down to a certain point, and a coin is dropped in, the machines will sometimes repeat. It is possible to put a machine out of order; and sometimes their mechanism becomes faulty. Then the lucky player who has nerve and opportunity will take his toll from the contrivance. But this is not a frequent occurrence. As a rule, the owners are the boys who get the coin.

 

Facts and Figures on Punch Boards

Facts and Figures on Punch Boards

IMAGE CAPTION: The Poker Board is used as a "trade stimulator" in many stores.

PUNCH boards are one of the commonest forms of gambling devices now in use. Although they are barred from many localities, it is an easy matter to keep them out of sight when strangers are around; and in many places they are displayed openly.
These boards are kept in pool rooms, cigar stores, and often drug stores, where they serve as "trade stimulators," the idea being that many customers will spend money in the hope of getting something for nothing. Prizes are paid in trade.
For this reason, the average person supposes that he has an even chance of winning, and he is encouraged in this belief. For example, let us suppose a merchant has a 300-hole punch board, the charge being five cents a punch. The punch board is a "trade stimulator." It will bring in fifteen dollars more quickly than if the storekeeper resorted to straight sales. Therefore he should not object to passing out fifteen dollars' worth of merchandise for fifteen dollars taken in. The board costs him not more than fifty cents, or less than four per cent of fifteen dollars, and he can afford that discount because of the increased trade.
But in actual practice, things work differently. The man who plays punch boards regularly is bucking a losing game. The law of averages is against him, and the more he plays, the farther he goes in the hole.
If the reader thinks that a "trade stimulator" gives out full merchandise for the money he takes in, he can go and punch a 300 hole board from beginning to end, and see how he makes out. He will lose $4.50 on the transaction. If he is wise, he will read the figures given here and save himself time and money.
The board costs five cents a punch. The rewards on a poker board are as follows:

Royal flush...$1.00 in trade
4 of a kind .75 in trade
Full house .35 in trade
Flush .25 in trade
Straights .20 in trade
3 of a kind .15 in trade
Two pairs .10 in trade
Any one pair .05 in trade
Last Hole Punched Wins $.50 in Trade.

Now note the artful wording of the rewards. The board does not say "full houses" and "flushes"- because there is only one full house and one flush in the board!
The actual rewards, and their total value are given here:
1 Royal flush .$1.00
1 4 of a kind .75
1 Full house .35
1 Flush .25
4 Straights .80
9 Threes 1.35
20 Two pairs 2.00
70 Pairs 3.50
Last hole .50
Total  $10.50

The owner of the board stimulates his trade, sometimes to the point of doubling or tripling his sales, and he gets $4.50, in addition. Deducting the $.50 for the cost of the board, his excess profits total $4.00
Now let's look at it from the player's standpoint. He is out to win. The 70 holes that pay 5 cents are "dead heads" that is, they neither win nor lose as far as he is concerned, although they give the merchant profit on a five cent sale.
For the player, there are just 37 winning holes out of 230. He and his playmates can spend $11.50, and they can win only $7.00. That means their chances are less than two against three- not even money. The reward on the last hole induces players to punch until the board is finished.
Sometimes, players refuse to punch a board after the big prizes have been "knocked off." When the storekeeper runs a board in this way, among a regular group of players, he is then entering into the gamble himself, and he will often fail to make his $4.50 excess profit except when the big prizes hold out to the end. Still the odds are slightly in his favor.
To offset this, there are board men who use marked boards. When they buy the board, a slip of paper comes with it saying "5-7," or some such number. The storekeeper counts five holes across, and seven down. He punches that hole himself, at the first opportunity, and out pops the royal flush. That means one dollar in the storekeeper's pocket, and the odds are increased against the players.
In discussing the poker board, we have considered the most generous of them all. In other boards the odds are much greater against the player. Some boards have 3000 or 4000 holes, and a large assortment of prizes is offered, amounting to nearly $100. But when we realize that the boards take in from $300 to $400 if they are played to the end, we see that the odds can be more than 3 to 1 against the players!
One of the latest punch boards has five colors, black giving one to one; red, two to one; green, five to one; blue, ten to one; and white, twenty to one. If the player bets a dime on blue, and punches a blue ticket, he gets one dollar. This looks big to the player. A bet on white and a lucky punch brings him twenty times what he paid!
This is the most deceptive of all boards, and is a great money maker for the owner. Most of the tickets are black- paying one to one and of course no one plays the black. A man may bet on white and punch a blue ticket. He gets nothing. The percentage of white, blue, green, and red tickets is amazingly small compared to the number of black ones. If a group of players would stick to one color all the way through the storekeeper would be the big winner. Only a remarkable succession of lucky guesses can break down his profits, and even then the black tickets will save him from loss. On the other hand, poor guesses will increase his profits, and he may take in $120 on a 1200 hole board without paying out more than $10 or $15.
These boards are sold for about $1.50, and the storekeepers get big returns for their money. Furthermore the color boards are good right to the last hole that is, good for the owner, but tough for the player!

 

How Gamblers Win At Poker

 

How Gamblers Win at Poker
Sleights and Tricks of the Sharpers - How They Work Together and Evade Detection

IMAGE CAPTION: The man on the right wants to see if the flush is a real one.

THE picture shows Mr. A. Sapp (center), playing cards with Mr. Sharp and Mr. Sharper, who are swindling him out of his hard-earned cash by teamwork and cooperation.
When a victim with money falls into the clutches of two unscrupulous gamesters he is sure to lose his bankroll and he is generally separated from it under conditions of good-fellowship during a friendly game with high stakes.
Two crooked gamblers can wreak havoc in a game with one, two, or three players against them, for they know how to perpetrate many clever swindles that cannot be detected.
The first game, illustrated above, is called "Spreading the Cards," and it is done very artfully in the course of the evening's play.
First of all the gamblers have a system of signals simple and natural signs that enable them to tell each other what they hold in their hands. In a friendly game they can often put over many bits of deception, and this is one of the most effective:
The gambler on the reader's left has held a four flush or a three flush (four or three cards of the
same suit). He has called for one or two cards on the draw, but he has not filled the flush. Instead he holds just four cards of one suit.
He immediately signals to his confederate that he needs another diamond. The confederate (on the right) has the needed card and signals back O. K.
Note the small explanatory drawings which show what takes place. The man with the four flush palms the undesired card with the back toward the palm of his hand. The other gambler palms the diamond with the face of the card toward his hand. Then he drops out of the game and tosses his four remaining cards into the discard, where no one realizes that only four cards have been dropped.

IMAGE CAPTION: The player with the four-flush palms off the extra card. Then he throws down the four diamonds leaving them squared together.

The sharp with the four flush bets his hand to the limit and then throws it on the table when the showdown comes. He says: "There is a flush. That wins!"
In throwing the alleged flush on the table he does not spread it but leaves the cards clustered together. The sap has only three of a kind, which loses to a flush.
The moment that the fake flush hits the table the sharper on the right says:
"Let's see all the cards spread them out!"
Suiting the word with the action he extends his right hand with the palmed diamond and spreads the four flush along the table to display the cards. In doing this he drops the palmed card, which makes the fifth diamond needed in the flush. Sure enough, there is the flush and the man on the left takes the pot.
In the meantime he deposits his extra palmed card on top of the pack.
This same system is used to fill a full house or four of a kind. The sharpers work it back and forth whenever necessary, but they do not employ it too often during one game.
This swindle is a favorite with gamblers who travel on steamships between Europe and America. They appear to be good fellows and get into plenty of card games, where they pay their passage money and expenses and also put money aside for future use.
Other stunts are used by these players. Suppose one man is dealing and knows what the other has. The dealer waits for the draw and in picking up the deck palms a couple of good cards from his own hand and drops them on the pack when he picks it up. Then in dealing to his companion, who is on the left, he gives his confederate the cards needed in a most natural and offhand manner.
By their simple system of signals these sharps can tell if they cannot aid each other. For example, one man holds two aces. The other has no aces. That makes a bigger possibility of the other aces being in the pack, so the man with two aces draws and tries to fill. In brief, they are playing two hands cooperatively, and that course is sure to win in the long run as it gives a real advantage over the other players.
If the game is supposedly a friendly one, the sharp with the lowest hand will drop out, and as he is no longer in will act indifferently. He knows what his pal is holding and he often manages to glimpse the hand held by the sucker. Immediately he signals his partner to stay in or drop out.
These are the methods which enable gamblers to win.

IMAGE CAPTION: The confederate adds the extra diamond to the four-flush when he reaches forward to spread the cards across the table.

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This blog stands in protest against the horrific eliminationist policies being enacted by the USA to remove trans people from society.  Trans people have always existed, in every society, but this fascist administration has declared a war against reality and says that trans people can no longer be allowed to exist.  Trump's executive orders say that trans children should be abused at school, in their home, in public, and at hospitals.  Trump's orders are a decree to destroy all traces of trans existence from society, and that all trans people are subhuman threats and liars who should not be allowed to exist publicly.  He is attacking children, he is attacking families, and he is delighting in his sadism.

This blog stands in solidarity with all of the youth who are being terrorized by a president who has declared them to be threats that must be eliminated. 

Ins and outs of the arcade

I have been getting lost in the scanning, and I've been neglecting to update about my own projects. Things are all moving quite slowly right now because I am dealing with some significant chronic pain issues. As a result, most of what I write here is dictated these days. So far so good.

My friend Rob took on my Mills high-top slot machine. I had posted on the local board that I was looking for a technician to clean that out and replace the grease and he happily took it on. The machine played quite well, but the reels did not spin as fast as they should. That in turn can affect the randomization, even if ever so slightly. Plus is more satisfying to see the wheels spin multiple iterations before stopping.

Rob went above and beyond, buffing every surface to a beautiful shine, in addition to removing the 76-year-old grease.

There was a crack in the the nickel escalator glass. I finally got a new piece of glass cut.  The specifications I sent in: 2mm thick x 32mm tall x 155 mm long.  It sits well, but it's a bit tight vertically. If I ordered again I would ask for 31 mm tall.

installing new glass for the coin escalator

Now that the slot machine is home, my friend is borrowing my coin pusher. :)

Bally Heavy Hitter is a new arrival. First released in 1948, an etching on the lockdown bar seems to suggest my copy was made in 1951. It is a teeny tiny pitch-n-bat.  it has a delightful back box animation, where balls represent the players and you can watch them move around. You don't control when the pitch is happen, the ball will get ejected that you the moment it settles in the shooter. The game apparently has a three minute timer, but I've never been able to it play for that long to test that. Maybe I'll try with a glass of one time.

I have shuffled things around on the prewar table side.  I am loving this lineup. Things will be more streamlined when the items I am selling (see below) are gone.  Lucky Ball is a new arrival, and I plan to do a post about the work on that machine.  I have the Redgrave bagatelle on display and soon enough my Rock-Ola World's Series will come home enjoying this lineup.  oh and I suppose I should eventually talk about that red pachinko up there as well, that's a very special one.

Rollygame is also now the lineup. I had a piece of Lexan cut to act as a dust cover. It's not a perfect seal or anything, you can see the gaps at the ball basins at the front for example, but it will help reduce potential damage and minimize the dust. It is a really fun game, and probably the best Corinthian game out there? Plus the fact that it is a prewar Japanese game makes it very special for me.

note the shooting gallery cork gun on the wall.  more on that later

To make room for the new arrivals, I have a bunch of stuff that I'm selling. Please email me at thetastates@gmail.com and/or reply here if you are interested in purchasing any of these.  Located in Ottawa Canada, that is just one hour north of the Ogdensburg New York border. Shipping is a possibility, provided you arrange it.

• SOLD 1932 Cloverleaf by Gottlieb
• SOLD 1934 Signal Jr by Bally
• SOLD 1935 One Two Three by Coin Craft Canada
• SOLD 1968 pachinko (single shot)
• SOLD 1930s 9-hole English bagatelle toy by Hamleys
  
• SOLD 1930s miniature bar billiards toy from the UK
• 2 Pachinko history documentary VHS tapes (unreleased)
• SOLD 1931 Base Ball by Pace
  
• SOLD 1926 New Target Practice by Mills Novelty Co
  
  

SOLD

SOLD

SOLD

SOLD

SOLD

SOLD

SOLD

SOLD

For my readers in the USA:  A moral panic has taken hold of your country, and the incoming administration has promised maximum cruelty to millions of Americans by designating trans people as undesirable and unworthy of human dignity and health care.  I am continuing to blog about my hobby, but need to constantly grapple with the horrors of institutionalized bigotry working to destroy the lives of my friends and family down South.

Please read this post by Julia Serano: LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back

Protect Trans Kids flag as seen in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

scans: parts catalogs from Sega, Chicago Coin, and Bally

Bunch of rare parts information...

Chicago Coin Parts and Supplies Catalog 1948-06

Chicago Coin Parts and Supplies Catalog 1949-04

Service Games Nevada Inc Parts Price List 1958-04-15

Sega Parts Catalog 1965

Ticket Instructions For Bally Ticket-Vending Skill Games

The above has the code "MISC-4007" on the cover.  I am unsure if that means 1940.

scan: Amusement Machines by Lynn F Pearson (1992; 2010)

This is a small pamphlet/book with a quick history of British arcade machines, first published in 1992.

Download the PDF at archive.org

Amusement Machines by Lynn F Pearson (1992; 2010)

Chesapeake Beach Park Bingo Bell Big-Ten & early mass medal machines

I am unsure where it at all quite started and who was the first.  

In the late 1950s and through the 60s the UK would produce a number of mass gambling machines.

In the 1970s,Taito, Sega and others promoted MiMo systems: Medal In Medal Out systems, where customers could purchase medals to play gambling games with, but there was no cashing them out.  (There were places that used these machines illegally to gamble for cash, of course, but the vast majority were legit medal parlors)  Medal games are still a huge force today within the Japanese market, and any gambling or game fan visiting Japan should spend time in a medal parlor.

Multi-player gambling devices have always been a staple.  Some of the earliest slot machines were designed to accept multiple nickels to allow multiple players to bet at the same time.

1904 Peerless Floor Roulette Slot by Caille
7-way action means 7 coins can be played, by 1 to 7 players.

But what these machines did not have were separate stations for each player.  Everyone could crowd around, but there was a single point of access to betting.  It would only be later that each player could have their own separate spot where betting and payouts were handled separately for each.  Only with separate interfaces do I truly consider them as multiplayer/mass gambling machines.

Caille even butted up against legislation that would limit the number of machines on the floor, creating double (or even triple) machines, but I still do not consider these quite as mass gambling machines as each player does not have their own console.

1904 Mills catalog: The Mills Twins
12-way action, allowing nickel play on one side and quarter play on the other.  (betting a quarter in 1904 would be like betting $35 today)

Post-WW2, while the USA was cracking down (and cracking skulls) on gambling, the UK permitted low-stakes gambling in their arcades, producing a number of marvelous multiplayer gambling machines.

Penny Roulette by Whittaker

Japan began importing these machines in the late 1960s, and by early 1970s we find advertisements showcasing the possibilities of operating these machines within Japan.  Due to gambling laws there, the machines could not be used for gambling, and the idea of a "medal parlor" was born: customers pay ('rent') medals to play the elaborate gambling machines, but they couldn't exchange the medals for currency.  It was just for fun, and advertised as high-class civilized entertainment that gave a taste of the mystique of gambling.

Carnival Plaza System flyer from ジャパンオーバーシーズビジネス (Japan Overseas Business)
All of the machines advertised were imports from then UK.

By 1974, Japan was making their own mass gambling machines.  Nazox2016 discusses Japan's first domestic medal machine here. (archive)

an example of Taito MiMo machines circa 1975

In the USA markets one of the inadvertent key innovators was Maryland in the 1950s.  From Lemons, Cherries and Bell Fruits by Dick Bueschel:

6 Bells by Ramsdell

Here is a webpage that has a brief (legalese) summary of the Maryland laws pertaining to slot machines.  The pages linked to within do not work, but this page could be utilized to look up the legislation elsewhere.  (archive)

10-player Winterbook console by Ramsdell

This is all preface for an amazing machine that recently came up on Facebook Marketplace for a 1960s Chesapeake Beach Park Bingo Bell Big-Ten.  (this is posted in the Coin Op Connections group, so you might have to join that first before seeing)

The seller says it is 16' long, 61" tall, and could be split up to just use 5 machines if so desired.

Each player had their own control console for betting and their own payout chutes.  But there was only a single set of reels, which all 10 players played simultaneously.