Revisiting San Francisco's gamblin' past

The State Lottery re-introduced legal gambling to California in 1984, but that pastime was popular here long before then, especially in San Francisco.

Organizers of a gambling-machine exhibit, currently on display at the San Francisco International Airport, say that gambling in the City during the Victorian era was more open, and was conducted on a larger scale, than anywhere else on earth.

It’s ironic that slot machines are illegal here now, because the best-known style of machine -- the one with three reels, and an instant payout –- was invented in San Francisco.

The “vice devices” on display at the airport are on loan from The American Antique Museum in nearby San Bruno. KALW’s Steven Short recently toured the museum, under the guidance of its creator, Big Joe Welch.

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STEVEN SHORT: The first thing you see when you enter the American Antique Museum, in San Bruno, is a pair of larger-than-life slot machines designed to look like silent film stars Laurel and Hardy. Go upstairs and you’ll see perhaps a dozen other stand-alone character machines.

JOE WELCH: This one’s Clint Eastwood. I went down to Monterey. I thought maybe he’d be interested in buyin’ this. But he wasn’t. Huh.

That’s the museum’s proprietor--

WELCH: Joseph W. Welch, better known by everybody else:  Big Joe Welch.

Big Joe claims to own more slot machines than anyone in the world. And with over a thousand machines, there’s no reason to doubt this statement.

SHORT:  In machines.

WELCH: In machines.

SHORT: Not – not in prizes.

WELCH: No, no prizes. . . . No.

Welch has alert pale-blue eyes, set in a wide face. He’s eighty now, so he uses a walker or a gold-handled cane, when he’s not riding in his Nissan Cube electric car.

Speaking of cars, they were the first things that Joe collected, many years ago. But they proved too costly to store.

WELCH:   So I said, Hey, I ain’t gonna keep doin’ this. I’ll go out and buy a gumball machine! So that’s how it started, and it’s kind of grown out of whack over the years. I’ve been doing this for over forty years.

It seems natural that Joe would be a gamblin’ man. Is he?

WELCH:  No. I used to be but I don’t gamble any more. There’s no money in gambling at a casino.

Unless you own the casino, of course. Or in this case, the museum, as Big Joe soon illustrates.

Welch: Let’s see what else we got here….

We walk into a room that, at first glance, appears to be full of old liquor cabinets: impressive hand-carved oak ones, with elaborate cast-iron decorations. But they’re actually music boxes, with hidden cash payouts.

WELCH:  This is what they invented before they invented the 3-reel slot machine.

SHORT:  Can we work one of ‘em, just to see how it goes?

WELCH: Yeah.

Since this is a museum, you’re not supposed to touch the exhibits, but Joe agrees to let me work one of the machines. Maybe he’ll let me play this one for free?

WELCH:  No! Gimme a nickel.

SHORT:  Oh! Give you a nickel! Oh...

WELCH: Awright! Here we go! You get all that music, and entertainment! All that for five cents.

This handsome ancestor of the jukebox, known as an Upright, was popular in bars and cigar stores in the early 1900s, because it didn’t look like a gambling machine. But it lost favor when a smaller model came on the scene. The new one was about the size of an old manual typewriter, and featured three reels that spun around, adding to the entertainment. It was called The Liberty Bell.

WELCH: That’s the first slot machine ever built. That was built in San Francisco. There were only about fifty or so ever manufactured, starting around 1900. Everybody’s lookin’ for ‘em. There’s only about four or five in the world.

There might be a few more than that left, but not many.  And Big Joe certainly knows where two of them are: one is in his museum, and the other is on loan from here, at the San Francisco International Airport exhibit. But, of course, Joe has more to show me. We pass rows of elegant wooden and glass display cases, all filled with refurbished machines. Joe stops at one –- and for the second time -- holds out his hand. But I’ve learned my lesson!

WELCH: Here’s another machine. I need a quarter. This one talks.

SHORT:  I don’t know that I have a quarter...

WELCH: Okay. Well…

The lesson? Don’t gamble with the proprietor. Or as Big Joes puts it--

WELCH:  Don’t count on gettin’ rich here!

Unless you own the machines! In San Bruno, I’m Steven Short for Crosscurrents.

Ticketed travelers can see nearly a hundred vintage gaming devices in Terminal 3 (North) of the San Francisco Airport, now through the end of May, all on loan from the American Antique Museum. And you can see about ten times that many at the museum itself, on San Bruno Avenue, in San Bruno.