50 free Slot Machines trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Slot machines bring in about 70% of the average American casino's income, and almost everything about them, from the cherries on the reels to the near-miss on the payline, has a story. This quiz starts in 1890s San Francisco and Brooklyn: the poker-drum machines that paid out in beer and cigars, Charles Fey's three-reel Liberty Bell, the copycats, and the fruit-gum vending attachment that put lemons and BARs on the reels for good. It then follows the technology: Bally's Money Honey and its bottomless hopper, the first video slot built around a Sony television, second-screen bonuses, virtual reels, random number generators and the ticket that replaced the coin. It also covers the maths and the world: return-to-player and PAR sheets, why the mid-size win is tuned to keep you seated, minimum payouts in Nevada and New Jersey, fruit machines and nudges in Britain, pokies in New South Wales, pachislots in Japan, the No Pokies senator, the $55 million jackpot a Vietnamese casino refused to pay, and the record Megabucks hit. Easy questions ask what a one-armed bandit is; the expert tier asks for patents, percentages and dates. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on slot machines, Charles Fey, Bally, IGT and related pages, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question. If you like this, try our quizzes on Las Vegas, casinos and gambling.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What nickname for slot machines refers to the side lever and a knack for emptying wallets?
One-armed bandit
Modern machines mostly use buttons and touchscreens; the lever survives as a skeuomorphic flourish.
Q 02What are slot machines called in Australia and New Zealand?
Pokies
The name is short for poker machines; officially they are 'gaming machines'.
Q 03What are slot machines called in Scots?
Puggies
The British call them fruit machines.
Q 04Roughly what share of an average US casino's income comes from slot machines?
About 70%
They are by far the most popular way to gamble in a casino.
Q 05On which card game was the 1893 Sittman and Pitt machine of five drums and 50 cards based?
Poker
There was no payout mechanism, so a good hand might earn a free beer or cigars.
Q 06Which two cards were usually removed from the Sittman and Pitt machine to help the house?
The ten of spades and the jack of hearts
Removing them doubled the odds against hitting a royal flush.
Q 07Which German-born San Francisco mechanic devised the three-reel slot machine?
Charles Fey
He was born August Fey and changed his name because he disliked being called Gus.
Q 08What was the first three-reel slot machine called, after the symbol that paid the most?
Liberty Bell
Three of the symbols in a row paid ten nickels, or 50 cents.
Q 09How much did three bells in a row pay on the original three-reel machine?
50 cents
That was the biggest payoff available.
Q 10Why could the slot machine's inventor not patent his device?
Gambling was illegal in California
Copycats flourished; the first, by Herbert Mills, appeared in 1907.
Q 11In which Bavarian town was the slot machine's inventor born in 1862?
Vöhringen
His father was a sexton at Ulm Minster and had fifteen children.
Q 12Which manufacturer produced the first copy of the original machine, in 1907?
Herbert Mills
By 1908 'bell' machines were in cigar stores, brothels and barber shops.
Q 13Why did lemons, cherries, oranges and plums appear on early slot reels?
The machines dispensed fruit-flavoured gum
An Operator's Bell machine came with a gum-vending attachment.
Q 21How many combinations does a three-reel machine with 10 symbols per reel have?
1,000
That is 10 cubed, which capped how large jackpots could be.
Q 22Which Norwegian mathematician patented the virtual-reel random number generator in 1984?
Inge Telnaes
The patent openly aimed to make machines seem to offer better odds than they do; IGT bought it.
Q 23What does RTP stand for on a slot machine?
Return to player
Machines are typically set to pay back between 0% and 99% of what is wagered.
What is the legal minimum payout percentage for slot machines in Mississippi?
Q 14The BAR symbol on slot reels derives from a picture of what?
A stick of chewing gum
The Bell-Fruit Gum logo was on the reels alongside the fruit.
Q 15Which Iowa cases about a mint vending machine teach 'ignorance of the law is no excuse'?
State v. Ellis and State v. Striggles
The machine occasionally gave extra tokens by chance, so the court called it a gambling device.
Q 16Which 1963 Bally machine was the first fully electromechanical slot?
Money Honey
Its bottomless hopper could pay out up to 500 coins without an attendant.
Q 17Which company built the first video slot in 1976 around a Sony Trinitron television?
Fortune Coin
The prototype was trialled at the Las Vegas Hilton.
Q 18Which company bought the video slot pioneer and its technology in 1978?
IGT
International Game Technology went on to become the world's largest slot maker.
Q 19Which 1996 WMS game was the first American video slot with a 'second screen' bonus round?
Reel 'Em In
Australia had the idea earlier with Three Bags Full in 1994.
Q 20Which TV game show has been one of the most popular licensed slot machine lines?
Wheel of Fortune
A 2024 class action alleged the machines were rigged; the maker denies it.
80%
Some states set the floor as low as 75%; New Jersey requires 83%.
Q 25What is the table of probabilities for a specific slot machine called?
A PAR sheet
PAR stands for Probability and Accounting Report, and they are closely guarded.
Q 26On which chip is a slot machine's payout software usually stored?
An EPROM
In New Jersey it carries a tamper-evident seal and can only be changed with officials present.
Q 27What is the light on top of a slot machine called?
The candle
It flashes when change is needed, a hand pay is due, or a progressive jackpot is hit.
Q 28What term for any slot machine fault comes from old electromechanical tamper switches?
Tilt
Modern machines have no such switches, but a door in the wrong state is still called one.
Q 29What is a payout made by an attendant, rather than the machine, called?
A hand pay
It happens when a win exceeds the machine's preset limit, usually where taxes kick in.
Q 30What does TITO stand for on modern slot machines?
Ticket-in, ticket-out
A thermal printer replaces the coin hopper and the barcode ticket is redeemed at a kiosk.