Either she’ll get a payout and keep playing, or it will be time to get back on on the bus. But dropping three coins in the slot and watching the wheels whir to a stop, one at a time, still holds magic.ĭown to a few coins left and her fingertips covered with the familiar blackness, Wells looks straight ahead - her face reflected in the machine’s glass face, its whirring cherries and numbers reflected back in her glasses.Ĭrunch time. Tonight, her machine hasn’t been exceedingly generous.

Wells likes the straightforward nature of the coin machine. The coin machines were still prevalent then, and it’s where she learned how to catch the coins in her hand as the winnings poured out. The 67-year-old from Kansas City says it’s a pilgrimage to the past, when she started coming to Vegas more than a decade ago with her husband - a time best remembered for their marriage at Hooters Casino. She’s been staying at New York New York, but took a bus tonight down the Strip to wager some cold, hard coin at Circus Circus. Over the years, they paid out $3 billion in prizes.īut even those machines are largely coinless now quarter slot machines are analog in a digital world.Įven the sound of money clanking in trays has been replaced by machines that emit an otherworldly sound, pre-recorded, that sounds like, but isn’t, the spill of a jackpot.

White’s tie to the old Wheel of Fortune television show ignited the industry 20 years ago, inspiring a brand of “Wheel of Fortune” slot machines that took over casino floors. “It almost doubled the velocity of money.”įor those in a mood for nostalgia, the gaming convention kicked off with Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman presenting Vanna White with a key to the city. “Machines today will get maybe 500 spins an hour or more, whereas in the old days, you were lucky to get 200 to 300 spins per hour,” Yoseloff said. Speed of spins also equates to more revenue. And having cash tied up for hours at at time in the bellies of machines on the floor - it could be millions of dollars at a time in the old days - is a big brake on profits. He said that, as with banks, casinos’ main product is cash. Mark Yoseloff, executive director of the Center for Gaming Innovation at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, said coin machines can’t keep up with the lifeblood that makes casinos run - something called “the velocity of money.”

“It’s become more and more difficult to find parts for them, but we have a few slots we can take parts from still.” “Those machines will be around as long as we can keep them working,” Fitzgerald said.

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