Slot Machine Piggy Bank Never Pays Out

When you go to a casino or elsewhere to play the slot machines, there’s a good chance you’re going to lose that day, and on a longer timeline it’s a near certainty the house will win. This machine, however, takes things in a different direction in that you always lose as there is no payout slot. Yet since it’s your machine, you — as “the house” — will always win. In other words, it’s a fancy piggy bank, that lets you bet “spin”three red 8x8 LED matrices to see if they end up matching.

The device is powered by an Arduino Pro Micro board, and it detects coins (any coin works) with an IR emitter/receiver pair. A 16x2 LED character display shows how many credits you have, as well as the bet for your next play, which is increased with a big red “BET” button. When you’re satisfied with your fake bet with real money, a green “SPIN” button starts things off, scrolling nicely through 10 symbols to see if they match up for a win.

Be sure to check it out in action in the video below. If you’re sufficiently inspired, code, print files, and a parts list are available on GitHub for you to build one of your own!