Dude you've got a keen eye.
So that's called a IMP slot machine. It's from the 30's-40's and would have been located in bars across america. It was a penny cigarette gambling machine/gum ball machine. The reel has different brands of cigarette, and should you hit the jackpot then the bartender would have given you a pack of the winning cigarettes. The coolest part about it was that those types of machines were entirely illegal, so how did they get around that aspect? There was a flip down plate that covered the reel and looked like a radio dial (barely if at all haha). When you put in the penny to play and pull the arm the mechanism (regardless of the plate being over the reel or not) it will release a gum ball from the bottom left corner. It was how they would throw off Johnny law and say now it's a gum ball machine. Too funny and we could never pull that kind of stuff these days, it's so obviously it's funny but it also worked enough to fool people for awhile! I've got 2 of them, both cigarette reels, they also made a fruit reel (much less cool in my eyes).
So that's called a IMP slot machine. It's from the 30's-40's and would have been located in bars across america. It was a penny cigarette gambling machine/gum ball machine. The reel has different brands of cigarette, and should you hit the jackpot then the bartender would have given you a pack of the winning cigarettes. The coolest part about it was that those types of machines were entirely illegal, so how did they get around that aspect? There was a flip down plate that covered the reel and looked like a radio dial (barely if at all haha). When you put in the penny to play and pull the arm the mechanism (regardless of the plate being over the reel or not) it will release a gum ball from the bottom left corner. It was how they would throw off Johnny law and say now it's a gum ball machine. Too funny and we could never pull that kind of stuff these days, it's so obviously it's funny but it also worked enough to fool people for awhile! I've got 2 of them, both cigarette reels, they also made a fruit reel (much less cool in my eyes).