fruit machine

a machine for playing games of chance

TRANSLATION

fruit machine = der Spielautomat (woerterbuch.info) --- GOOGLE INDEX fruit machine: approximately 1,600,000 hits

STATISTICS

IN THE PRESS

Thieves broke into a pub and stole money by smashing open FRUIT MACHINES and a snooker table.

(BBC News)

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As noted, young males seem to be particularly susceptible to FRUIT MACHINE addiction.

(Electronic Journal Of Gambling)

Did you
know?

fruit machine (US English, slot machine)
noun

- a coin-operated gambling machine that generates combinations of symbols (typically representing fruit) with certain combinations winning money for the player

(Compact Oxford English Dictionary)

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WORD ORIGIN

Fruit machines are commonly found in pubs, clubs, arcades, and some take-away food shops in Britain. They usually have three or six reels with fruit or other symbols printed around them. These reels are spun, and if certain symbol combinations appear, winnings are paid from the machine, or sub-games are played. Fruit machines are similar to casino slot machines, but have many extra features that offer additional opportunities to win money. However, the jackpots from these fruit machines are generally much lower than those found in casinos.

Fruit machines are often referred to as one-armed bandits or simply bandits. This name stems from the traditional single lever on the side of the machine that must be pulled in order to spin the reels and from the implication that the machine will steal your money like a bandit. Many modern machines have buttons instead of levers meanwhile. Fruit machines are also called AWP (Amusement With Prizes), a bureaucratic-sounding and less creative name.

The largest slot machine jackpot to date is $39.7 million dollars. The lucky winner was a 25-year-old software engineer visiting Las Vegas for a basketball tournament in March 2003. He turned his $100 dollar investment into $1.5 million dollars annually for the next 25 years.

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SMUGGLE OWAD INTO TODAY’S CONVERSATION
say something like:

"I was is Las Vegas last year, I sometimes wonder if fruit machines and their like are such a good idea for the youth of society."

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