Question of the Day - 17 January 2025

We’ve consulted several historians, but have been unable to pin down when or where the practice of sitting while playing slot machines first took root. (As recently as 1960s Ocean's Eleven, you can see stand-up slot machines.) We do know that some casinos had already adopted the practice in the 1950s.

Gary Platt, head of the eponymous manufacturing company that now dominates slot-stool supply, recalls a fateful visit to Las Vegas in January 1959, at which time he was representing L&B Manufacturing. Based in Santa Monica, California, L&B specialized in booths, tables, and counter and bar stools for restaurants.

Platt was playing blackjack in Vegas "and noticed that the stools weren't nearly as well constructed or as comfortable as the bar stools that we manufactured. As a salesman, this looked like a new source of business, so I tried to call on the hotel-casinos, without any success. The answer was, 'We purchase all our gaming equipment and supplies from Paul Endy at Paul-son Dice & Card. I contacted Paul, had a great meeting with him, and learned that the stools must be narrower, so that seven of them would fit around a blackjack table. The seat also had to be shorter, so the player sits closer and, most importantly, the seat height must be 27 inches [vertical], so players are comfortable. I told Paul, 'These are all things we can do' and made him a few samples. Paul-son began to distribute our blackjack stools and did a nice volume of business for us."

Platt couldn't shake the feeling that if similar stools were placed in front of slot machines, it would increase time on device (the holy grail of casino floor managers). However, he always ran up against the same answer: It would make the aisles too narrow and there would be no room for players to walk past.

"I kept bugging Paul to find some small casino that owed him a favor and would listen to me. He finally called me and said to come up and meet with him," Platt resumes. "It was a small casino on the Strip near Flamingo [Road] and I can’t remember the name. I knew I’d get the same 'aisles-too-narrow' answer, so I came prepared with a large pad and a 12-inch square drawn on it, and told the casino manager that I would manufacture 24 stools with a 12-inch square seat and three-quarter-inch square-tube legs that went straight down so they wouldn’t trip the players. I’d drop them off and pick them up in two weeks: no cost, no obligation."

As a favor to Paul Endy, the casino owner reluctantly agreed to the experiment. Platt delivered the stools and two days later received a call from Endy: "How soon can we get another hundred stools?" The coin-in on the slots that had stools had been "astronomical." Over time, as the big boys in the industry adopted the practice, Platt's business boomed and casino floors evolved to have wider aisles and more seating.

Thus, like so many trends and traditions in the history of Las Vegas, a major change in casino design hinged on one owner sufficiently daring to take a chance.