But a percentage goes right back to the house.”īack when there were slot machines in every saloon or speakeasy, companies such as Bally Manufacturing, F.W.
“The principle of the machine is to give the pretext that, if you play it, you’ll get money back,” Lewis said. There are more, in various stages of disarray, in his workroom in the back.
There are spinning wheel devices, push-pin Bingo games and a wooden Indian with a torso consisting of a golden one-armed bandit. There are old “3 Jack” machines, which direct tossed pennies through a field of pins to possible payoffs in little pockets at the bottom. Lewis has a collection of several dozen in his showroom on San Gabriel Boulevard, one or two of them dating back to the last century.
