United Coin Machine Co. was an American

slot route operator A Slot route operator is a company that owns and operates slot machines in several locations. By providing this service, many small businesses are able to provide slot machines that they could not otherwise afford to operate. As operators have gr ...

based in

Paradise, Nevada Paradise is an unincorporated town and census-designated place (CDP) in Clark County, Nevada, United States, adjacent to the city of Las Vegas. It was formed on December 8, 1950. Its population was 191,238 at the 2020 census, making it the fif ...

. It operated

slot machines A slot machine (American English), fruit machine (British English) or poker machine (Australian English and New Zealand English) is a gambling machine that creates a game of chance for its customers. Slot machines are also known pejoratively as ...

in locations such as bars,

convenience store A convenience store, convenience shop, corner store or corner shop is a small retail business that stocks a range of everyday items such as coffee, groceries, snack foods, confectionery, soft drinks, ice creams, tobacco products, lottery ticket ...

s, and grocery stores. For many years, United Coin was the largest slot route operator in Nevada.

History

United Coin was founded in 1958. Bernard Shapiro, who had owned a coin machine business in Northern California, and a small stake in the

Royal Nevada Royal Nevada was a hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Winchester, Nevada. It was owned by Frank Fishman, who leased it to various individuals during its brief history. The resort was designed by Paul Revere Williams, and construct ...

casino, started the company after the Royal Nevada went out of business.

Advanced Patent Technology Bally Technologies, Inc. is an American manufacturer of slot machines and other gambling technology based in Enterprise, Nevada. It is owned by Light & Wonder. The company was founded in 1968 as Advanced Patent Technology. It eventually changed i ...

purchased the company in 1979. In 1980, Advanced Patent reached an agreement to sell United Coin to Bristol Silver Mines Co. for $13 million in cash and stock. Advanced Patent withdrew from the offer three months later, though, saying that United Coin was now "more desirable". In 2000, United Coin's parent, now known as Alliance Gaming, agreed to sell the company for $112 million in cash plus $6 million in

preferred stock Preferred stock (also called preferred shares, preference shares, or simply preferreds) is a component of share capital that may have any combination of features not possessed by common stock, including properties of both an equity and a debt ins ...

to gaming developers Michael Luzich and Daniel Kehl. Alliance canceled the deal a year later due to increased profits at United Coin. In 2004, Century Gaming bought United Coin for $100 million cash plus $5 million in assumed debt. The company sold off its operations in Northern Nevada to another slot route operator in 2013, but then returned to the region in 2015, placing machines at a chain of sports bars. In July 2014, the company dropped the United Coin name and rebranded its operations in Nevada and Montana as Century Gaming Technologies.

References

External links

*{{official website, http://www.unitedcoin.com/, United Coin Machine Co. Companies based in Paradise, Nevada Gambling companies of the United States Gambling companies established in 1958 1958 establishments in Nevada Privately held companies based in the Las Vegas Valley