Bell-Fruit slot machines

Who makes Bell-Fruit slot machines?

Bell-Fruit is one of the oldest names in British fruit machines, the reel-and-lights cabinets found in pubs, arcades and clubs. The company has traded as Bell-Fruit Manufacturing Co. Ltd, Bell-Fruit Games and, by 2019, Bell-Fruit Group Limited. It is a land-based maker, so its products are physical machines placed in venues by operators rather than games you download.

Its story runs through three owners: the Cope Allman group from 1967, then (on dates no source we checked confirms) the German groups Gauselmann and Novomatic, and since 2019 the US-listed Inspired Entertainment. For the wider picture of who builds the machines in British pubs, see who makes UK fruit machines and our manufacturers hub.

From Counting Machines Ltd to Bell-Fruit at Leen Gate

According to a 1987 local history piece reproduced by the Lenton Local History Society's account of Leen Gate (opens in a new tab), a new firm called Counting Machines Ltd moved into part of the old tannery building on Leen Gate, Nottingham, in the early 1960s. It changed its product and its name as it moved into fruit machines, becoming the Bell-Fruit Manufacturing Co. Ltd.

In 1967 the company became part of Cope Allman International plc. By the time the 1987 article was written, Bell-Fruit had been in the business for about 25 years, had left the tannery for purpose-built premises across the road, and still made every machine at Leen Gate. The same piece called it the best-known name in the trade.

The late 1970s and early 1980s were hard. The workforce fell from more than 800 to under 300, which the article put down partly to the company getting its products wrong for a spell and partly to newer technology needing far less labour. By 1987 it described a full recovery, with a new model leaving the line roughly every eight weeks.

Bell-Fruit slot machines in the 1987 UK market

The 1987 snapshot is useful because it shows how concentrated British machine making was. Five major makers, all British, competed for an annual demand of about 60,000 fruit machines for pubs and arcades plus 8,000 to 10,000 jackpot machines for private clubs.

Prizes were tiny by modern standards. Under the Gaming Board for Great Britain, a pub or arcade machine could pay no more than £2 in coins or £4 in tokens for a 10p stake, while club jackpot machines could reach £150 for a 20p stake. Those limits came from the Gaming Act 1968 regime that ran until 2007. Our sister page on JPM slot machines covers the firm that led the field.

How Bell-Fruit machines changed: mechanical to microprocessor

The 1987 account traces fruit machine technology from purely mechanical, through electromechanical and solid state, to microprocessor control. Bell-Fruit kept a large research and development team of software and mechanical engineers, graphic designers, statisticians and marketing staff, and used continual market research to decide what players liked.

The statisticians matter. A fruit machine's maths (how often it pays, how much, and how features such as nudges and holds are offered) is designed on paper before a cabinet is built. On many British machines that maths is compensated, meaning the software steers payouts towards a target percentage over a cycle of play, rather than each spin being an independent draw.

Bell-Fruit also exported. In 1987 its machines were selling well in the Netherlands, had appeared in Las Vegas halls in the past, and faced bans in France, Belgium and Italy and strong local rivals in West Germany and Spain.

Known Bell-Fruit machines and quiz games

Individual model histories are poorly documented online. The Museum of the Game's Bell-Fruit listing (opens in a new tab) records Quintoon (1993). Bell-Fruit is also named among the leading makers of pub quiz machines, known in the trade as skill with prizes (SWP) machines, during the 1980s and 1990s.

• Quintoon (1993), recorded by the arcade museum database.
• Pub quiz and SWP machines in the 1980s and 1990s, alongside Coinmaster, Barcrest, JPM, Maygay and Ace-Coin.
• Category C fruit machines, analogue and digital, which were the group's main output by 2019.

Model names, release years and payout percentages for individual Bell-Fruit cabinets are not published in any source we could check, so none are quoted here. The machine's own label shows its target return.

Who owns Bell-Fruit now? From Cope Allman to Inspired

The ownership trail has gaps. Gauselmann Group said around 2008 that it had previously enjoyed success in the UK with Bell-Fruit and Mazooma Games, but the dates of that ownership are not confirmed. By 2019, Bell-Fruit Group Limited sat inside Novomatic UK's Gaming Technology Group, making mainly Category C machines and exporting to Europe.

On 11 June 2019 Inspired Entertainment announced it would buy that Gaming Technology Group, which also included Gamestec, Playnation, Astra Games, Harlequin and Innov8, in Inspired's own acquisition announcement (opens in a new tab). Completion was reported on 1 October 2019 in InterGame's report on the completed deal (opens in a new tab).

The price is reported two ways: the June 2019 announcement gave the euro equivalent of US$120 million, while the completion report gave €104.6 million in cash. Both figures cover the whole Gaming Technology Group, not Bell-Fruit alone.

Bell-Fruit does not appear under its own name in the Gambling Commission's business register. Inspired's UK machine licences sit with Inspired Entertainment companies such as Inspired Gaming (UK) Limited.

Where Bell-Fruit slot machines fit in today's UK categories

Since 1 September 2007 every British gaming machine falls into a category under the Gambling Act 2005. The Category C fruit machine, Bell-Fruit's main product, is the one you meet in pubs. Limits come from the Gambling Commission's gaming machine categories page (opens in a new tab).

A pub has an automatic entitlement to two Category C or D machines. See Category C for the detail and UK slot machine categories for the full table, including the casino-only B1 machines.

The Bell-Fruit name and the BAR symbol

The name sounds like a nod to slot machine history, and it is easy to assume a link that no source confirms. Wikipedia's slot machine article says the BAR symbol comes from a stick of Bell-Fruit Gum pictured on early American gum-vending machines, and that fruit symbols arrived because the gum was fruit-flavoured.

Those American machines date from the early twentieth century, long before the Nottingham firm existed. Nothing we checked connects the gum company to the British manufacturer; the shared name is best read as a borrowing of two classic slot words, the bell and the fruit. Our fruit symbol history tells the American side.

How to find out who made a pub fruit machine

1. Look at the top glass and cabinet sides: makers usually print their logo or name on the artwork or a small badge.
2. Read the information panel. It must show the machine's category and its target return to player as a percentage.
3. Check whether the panel says the game is random or compensated; that tells you how payouts are controlled.
4. Ask the bar staff who supplies the machine. Pubs usually rent from an operator, who will know the maker.
5. Search the operator or maker on the Gambling Commission's public register to see its licence.

Do Bell-Fruit machines pay out more than others?

No maker's badge changes your odds in a predictable way. Each machine's return is set by its software and shown on the label, and the law sets no minimum return for any category. A machine showing 85% would, over a very long run, keep about 15p of every £1 staked. If you play 100 games at £1, you put £100 through it and the long-run average cost is £15, although any single session can end far higher or lower.

Compensated machines can feel streaky because they balance towards their target over a cycle, but that does not make one 'due'. You cannot see where in the cycle a machine is, and the next player may collect whatever the cycle produces. Our page on fruit machine payouts shows more worked numbers.

Playing fruit-machine style slots online in the UK

Bell-Fruit cabinets live in venues, not online. If you like their style, online fruit slots borrow the symbols and sometimes the holds and nudges, and you can read whether fruit machines can be played online. Online play has its own rules: a £5 maximum stake per spin for players 25 and over, £2 for 18 to 24-year-olds, at least 2.5 seconds per spin and no autoplay.

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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.