Chris & Dan's "One Armed Bandit"

Dan and I have a daughter and granddaughter in Las Vegas, so a very good excuse to visit there often!! Actually, neither one of us are into gambling but we do enjoy walking through the casinos - there is so much to see and always some type entertainment in the lobbys. And watching the gamblers is fun too. Just "people watching" in a casino is entertaining.

Dan does love old cars, music and fun things from the 40's, 50's & 60's.
We passed a store selling old slot machines on a recent visit. Finding one that was a late 40's model and retired from The Flamingo was quite interesting. It is a nickel slot, lighted and works!! Well, first he had to buy a gaming license in order to purchase it, then they had to research whether it could be shipped to Georgia, as all states do not allow them. It turned out that GA does if it is a 1950 or older model!! So now it is happily retired to our "HotRod House"!!

We know now why it was retired - it pays off WAY to often!!!!


I got great answers to the trivia about the slot machines. They are called "One Armed Bandits" because they have the one arm on the side and they take your money! Slot machines were invented by Charles Fry in San Francisco, CA. The 1st one was named the "Liberty Bell".
The "American Gangster", Bugsy Siegel, was associated with the early success of gambling in Las Vegas and brought the slot machines there mainly to entertain the women who accompanied the men poker players!! I read that now slot machines constitute 70% of the average casino income.

I will have to confess to my first casino experience. I had never even been in a casino until right after Dan and I met six years ago! He took me to Niagra Falls and right beside our hotel was a huge casino. Of course I wanted to see what it was like. He gave me $100.00 and told me I could play whatever I liked with it. I know nothing about cards or how to gamble but those fancy slot machines caught my attention - you could play a dime, quarter or dollar at a time and all you had to do was pull that lever. I figured this way, at least I could play longer before my money was gone and it didn't require any gambling skill. Well, after a while I got brave and would double the amount and before I knew what was happening, bells started ringing and dinging and coins falling out of that machine!!!! I won $380.00 and still had most of the $100 left. I was so excited - I told Dan I wanted to take my money right then and leave. I think he was surprised and thought I would end up losing it all, but winning $380.00 was exciting to me and I didn't want to lose it!!!

I didn't get hooked. I do enjoy the lights, watching the other people and the festive atmophere in the casino though!

OK, so much for slot machine trivia!!