Mills Novelty slot machines

Who made Mills Novelty slot machines?

Mills Novelty Company was a Chicago manufacturer of coin-operated machines, run by the Mills family, that became one of the biggest names in early American slot machines. Where Charles Fey was a craftsman in a San Francisco workshop, Mills was a factory business: it built in volume, sold across the country and gave the three-reel ‘bell’ machine the look most people still picture.

This page covers the company’s history and its machines. For a shorter company profile with ownership details, see our Mills Novelty manufacturer page, and for the wider story start at our slot machine history hub.

From cigar vending to Mills Novelty: a disputed start

The business grew from Mortimer Birdsul Mills, born in 1845 in Canada West (now Ontario). In 1891 he received US patent No. 450,336 for a coin-actuated vending device, and the M.B.M. Cigar Vending Company was built around it. Exactly when that company started is not agreed. Wikipedia’s Mills Novelty Company article (opens in a new tab) puts it between 1891 and 1895, while the company itself later claimed an 1889 founding and credited Herbert S. Mills, Mortimer’s son.

Either way, by 1898 Herbert Mills was in charge, the name had changed to Mills Novelty Company, and the firm was operating from 125–127 West Randolph Street in Chicago. By 1926 it had a large plant at 4100 Fullerton Avenue.

The Mills Owl: the first upright cabinet slot machine

In 1897 the firm produced the Mills Owl, described as the first mechanical upright cabinet slot machine. Earlier machines were often counter-top boxes; an upright cabinet stood on its own, took up less bar space and looked more like furniture than a toy. That shape, a tall case with the play area at chest height, is the ancestor of the cabinets still found in UK arcades and casinos.

The Owl came before Mills built its own three-reel bell, so it shows the company was making gambling machines before it adopted Fey’s format. No reliable description of the Owl’s exact game turned up in the sources checked, so none is given here.

The Mills Liberty Bell slot machine: copy or collaboration?

In 1907 Mills produced its own Liberty Bell. Two Wikipedia articles tell this differently. The slot machine article (opens in a new tab) says Herbert Mills produced the first copy of Fey’s machine, while the Mills Novelty article says he ‘collaborated with’ Fey to make it. Fey could not patent his design because gambling was illegal in California, so copying was legally possible; whether the two men also worked together is not settled by anything we have found.

What is not in doubt is the effect. Mills had the factory capacity to build bells in numbers, and by 1908 bell machines were being installed in cigar stores, barber shops and brothels. The Liberty Bell stopped being one man’s invention and became a product category.

The Operator Bell and the gum behind fruit machine symbols

The Mills machine with the longest legacy is the Operator Bell, sometimes written Operator’s Bell. It added an optional gum-vending attachment. Because the gum was fruit-flavoured, fruit pictures were put on the reels: lemons, cherries, oranges and plums. Wikipedia also traces the BAR symbol to a stick of Bell-Fruit Gum pictured on the machine. The sources we checked give no firm year for the Operator Bell itself, so we leave it undated.

Other makers, including Caille, Watling, Jennings and Pace, adopted the same symbol set, and it became standard. The chain from Chicago gum to a modern screen looks like this.

1. Mills adds a gum-vending attachment to its bell machine.
2. The gum is fruit-flavoured, so fruit symbols replace or join the card suits on the reels.
3. A stick of Bell-Fruit Gum, shown on the machine, becomes the BAR symbol.
4. Rival makers copy the set, so fruit and bars become what players expect.
5. British manufacturers build ‘fruit machines’ around the same symbols.
6. Online studios reuse them on classic and retro slots today.

Each symbol has its own page: the cherry, lemon, plum and orange. Our article on why slot machines have fruit symbols tells the story from the British side.

Vending as cover: Mills machines and gambling laws

A gum or goods attachment was more than a sales feature. Some operators gave food or goods as prizes to argue the machine was a vending device rather than a gambling device. Courts did not always accept that. In Iowa, State v. Ellis (1925) and State v. Striggles (1926) treated certain vending-style machines as gambling devices anyway. The tug of war between machine makers and local laws is the subject of our history of slot machine bans.

The vending argument has a modern echo in Britain: the Gambling Commission has guidance on whether a prize machine counts as a gaming machine. The answer depends on how the machine works, not on what it is called.

Mills Novelty after the bell era: from Mills Industries to TJM

The company never made the jump to electromechanical and video machines that rivals such as Bally led from the 1960s; our page on electromechanical slot machines picks up that story.

Mills Novelty slot machine symbols and where they are now

The paying order on any modern machine is set by its designer, not by history, so check the paytable. Our explainer on what BAR means on a slot machine covers the symbol in more depth.

Myths about Mills Novelty slot machines

• ‘Mills invented the slot machine.’ Mills built on Fey’s three-reel design and on earlier card machines such as Sittman and Pitt’s.
• ‘The fruit symbols date from 1907.’ 1907 is the date of the Mills Liberty Bell; no source we checked dates the Operator Bell exactly.
• ‘Gum attachments made the machines legal.’ Some courts still ruled vending-style machines were gambling devices.
• ‘Old Mills machines paid more.’ There is no reliable payout data for them, and modern UK machines must display their theoretical return.

Mills-style fruit symbols on UK slot machines today

The fruit-and-bar reels that began with Mills are now part of British fruit machines and online fruit slots. The rules around them are very different. Every UK gaming machine sits in a legal category with fixed stake and prize limits; a pub fruit machine is usually Category C, at £1 a play with a £100 top prize, according to the Gambling Commission’s gaming machine categories (opens in a new tab). Online, stakes are capped at £5 a spin for players aged 25 and over and £2 for those aged 18 to 24.

If you own or want an antique Mills machine, our guide to collecting vintage slot machines explains how UK law treats machines kept at home.

Where to play fruit slots with Mills-era symbols

Our partner casinos list plenty of fruit-themed and retro slots, but lobbies change, so search for ‘fruit’ or ‘classic’ at the casino rather than relying on a named game being there.

PlayOJO offers new UK customers aged 18+ (excluding Northern Ireland) 80 free spins on Big Bass Bonanza with a first deposit of £10 or more; spins are worth 10p and winnings are paid in cash with no wagering. Coral gives 100 spins at 10p after a qualifying deposit and £10 of slot bets, and Ladbrokes gives up to 500 spins over ten days after £10 on slots. Terms apply and some payment methods are excluded. Slots cost money over time; use a deposit limit.

18+. Gambling should be entertainment that costs money, not a way to make it. Decide a budget before you play: plan a slot budget. Free, confidential help: National Gambling Helpline 0808 8020 133.