Have you ever wondered why there are so many fruit slots? It turns out that in the 1880s, the first slot machines did not pay out money, but fruit-flavoured chewing gum. Cherries, lemons and plums symbolised the flavours of the gum, and these images remained on the slots even after the machines started paying out cash prizes 🙂
This is actually a quite interesting piece of information. As long as I remember there has been plumbs, lemons, watermelons, etc. I simply thought that they have been chosen because they are easy to recognize, and do not offend anyone.
Funny story, so they paid chewing gums instead of money at the beginning ?? That's odd indeed . Yeah fruits are fun to play with at slots , but I play mostly other slots , Egyptian slots . 7s , fruits in slots , interesting to know their origins in the slots
I've wondered about that a few times myself, and I'm actually working on a new piece of art right now with a casino theme and fruit-themed slot machines... (I'm giving away a spoiler here, but I think it'll be worth the wait!) Good luck, and thanks for the info, Igor! 🙂👍 🍋🍒🍊🍇🍉🍐🍎 🎰
monkeytilter said:
Slot machine - Wikipedia
Not necessarily the oldest ones. Those were more of a reaction to legislation than being innovative on their own.
The oldest ones were just classic gambling for money.
G0930
Captain Fathermucker, Satty Aficionado
Platinum Level
Japan operates thousands of Pachinko machines thanks to the same loophole.monkeytilter said:
Gambling is very restrictive in Japan so people let buy balls with cash and let player redeem their won Pachinko balls for real money.
Pachinko is BIG in Japan.
Today, most online casinos have gameshows with bonus rounds on pachinko machines
Haha, so fruit slots were basically the first ‘chewing gum machines’. Cherries = gum, lemons = gum, plums = gum… you were basically spinning for a chewable fruit salad. And here we are in 2026 fighting for mega jackpots, still staring at fruit symbols. Tradition is tradition!
Actually, fruit is the simplest thing you can use when designing slot games. To be honest, I think the reason for using fruit is pretty obvious: there are very few people who don't like it (I don't know anyone like that, for example). 🤔
I knew fruit symbols were old-school, but I didn’t realize they were originally linked to chewing gum. Kinda makes the cherries and lemons feel less random now. Funny how a simple design from over a century ago is still part of modern slots.
