Why Do Slots Have Bars and Bells?

As the selection of online slots continues to grow and grow at an online casino, so do the number of symbols that can be found out on their spinning reels. These days there are many that come replete with 3D imagery or even characters that jump, wriggle, and explode on the screen. However, among all these new-fangled slot machine reel symbols there are some classic symbols that continue to endure. Two examples are the Bar symbol and the Bell symbol.

The Bell comes from the fact that the first ever physical slot machine was called the Liberty Bell, which was invented by American mechanic Charles Fey. The bell symbol on Fey’s ground-breaking machine was the game’s highest value symbol and the bell has been prevalent on slots ever since.

In addition, when a player won on this early iteration of the slot machine, a bell would ring all around to notify of their success (and pay out 50 cents) – no chance of escaping getting a round in, in the late 1800s!

Fey’s Career

Now for a bit more on the person whose legacy lives on almost 130 years later, and no doubt will continue for many decades more. Fey’s career, although it started in the farming industry, was working for a tool manufacturer, and therefore the understanding of the intricacies of how something functions would put him in good stead years later.

Eventually, Fey left his homeland of France, headed to America, and started working for the Western Electric Works company before finally starting two of his own companies: one dealt with electrics and telephones whilst the other, more aptly, was a slot machine workshop.

But Fey simply didn’t decide to one day open a slot machine workshop; he first took inspiration from his friend, and co-owner of the electrics and telephone business, Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Schultze.

A Slot Machine Revolution

Schultze revolutionised the slot-machine world in 1893 when he negated the need for an attendant to be present to hand out any winnings (only tickets and tokens) with his Horseshoe slot machine.

The reason for the horseshoe name is simply due to the icon being featured in the slot machine reels, with the horseshoe deemed a source of good luck and protection – something that remains true in many cultures today.

Taking this ‘good luck charm’ slot machine, Fey went one further in 1895 and enhanced the Horseshoe slot machine to allow automatic payments of coins – something that is commonplace in today’s casinos, worldwide.

This set Fey on his journey to eventually delivering to the gambling world the now-iconic Liberty Bell slot machine. Fey ended up installing and managing these incredibly popular devices throughout vendors in San Francisco. However, unfortunately for Fey, due to laws prohibiting gambling in California, he was unable to patent his brainchild, meaning many copied his invention.

Thankfully, the history books will always show that Fey was the first-to-market and remains a key figure in the foundations of gambling, epitomised by the memorial plaque that was placed in San Fran in 1894.

It reads: Charles August Fey began inventing and manufacturing slot machines in 1894. Fey pioneered many innovations of coin-operated gaming devices in his San Francisco workshop at 406 Market Street, including the original three-reel bell slot machine in 1898. The international popularity of the bell slot machines attests to Fey’s ingenuity as an enterprising inventor whose basic design of the three-reel slot machine continues to be used in mechanical gaming devices today.

What About the Bars?

As for the Bar, this symbol stems from a time when slot machines in the US were not allowed to pay out money but could still run on a premises if prizes were paid out in alternative rewards like sweets and candy.

It is thought that the Bar symbol depicts the candy that was handed out at the bar or counter of an establishment, which was done at the time because slots were prohibited from dispensing prizes directly to their players. Another theory is that the Bar symbol signifies chocolate bars or bars of chewing gum.

​​The chewing gum theory is widely accepted as the most accurate reason for the now-iconic Bar symbol, with many historical reviews confirming that the bar image is in fact the symbol used by the Bell-Fruit Gum company on their chewing gum – a stroke of marketing genius.

In fact, the reason for the adding of the fruit icons such as cherries, lemons and oranges was to highlight the different flavours of gum the Bell-Fruit Gum company offered, too.

Given the fascinating work of Charles Fey – by the way, he was originally born August Fey but changed his name to Charles and moved August to become his middle name – and the nostalgia linked to original sweet-based prizes, you hope, no matter what revolutions come in the gambling world, that it keeps true to what started it all.