Slot Machines Are Not a Recent Invention

The popularity and demand for gaming machines continued to grow until 1891, when Sittman and Pitt, a company in Brooklyn, New York produced a new machines which worked along the same basic principles as a game of poker.

These machines sprang up in many of the city bars, but unlike the Liberty Bell, these machines could not pay out in money. If the customer won, their prize was in the form of a drink, free food and cigars or whatever else the establishment had put up as prizes.

There was also the capability for the management to rearrange the drums in these later models to ensure that players had less chance of winning, which was a facility that had not been available in the earlier models. The practice of paying out prizes in food products and drinks become quite common in a bid to avoid the laws against gambling in many of the states.