LAS VEGAS _Twyla McFarland doesn't care about those rows of flashy machines encroaching on the old slot machines' turf at Circus Circus. She feeds silver dollars into the machine and bursts to life. Triple blue sevens are the goal, but any payout will do.
"I love it," McFarland says. "I've been coming here since 1979. Nothing beats these coin machines. Just that sound of them hitting the tray."
But it's a dying sound.
The gambling industry's biggest convention _ the Global Gaming Expo _ set up here last month at the Sands Expo Center, and there wasn't an old-fashioned one-armed bandit anywhere in the hall.
Next-generation machines on display invited players to make SuperLotto picks, book sports bets and track their fantasy football teams at the same time, just by spinning a video wheel. Hit a big jackpot and a machine will churn out the appropriate tax form for the Internal Revenue Service.
Some bet that nostalgia will always keep a few of the old-school slot machines in place. American Gaming Association President and CEO Geoff Freeman said that's no sure thing.
"I think it's dangerous to use the word 'always,'" he said. "The only 'always' is that things change."
For the last fiscal year, coin accounted for less than 3 percent of the $50.5-billion machine drop, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board. Just a few places on the Strip have machines that take and deliver coins now, among them the MGM Grand, New York New York, Bellagio and Circus Circus.
MGM Grand has only one coin machine _ a mechanical horse racetrack that invites players to insert quarters and then watch plastic horses jerk around a toy track as they bet an exacta.
Circus Circus has 30 coin machines, the most on the Stri. It's less than 3 percent of the casino's total, but General Manager Eric Fitzgerald said there is a core group of coin loyalists who insist on them.
"Those machines will be around as long as we can keep them working," Fitzgerald said. "It's become more and more difficult to find parts for them, but we have a few slots we can take parts from still."
Mark Yoseloff, executive director of the Center for Gaming Innovation at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, said coin machines can't keep up with the lifeblood that makes casinos run _ something called "the velocity of money."
He said that, as with banks, casinos' main product is cash. And having cash tied up for hours at a time in the bellies of machines on the floor _ it could be millions of dollars at a time in the old days _ is a big brake on profits.
Speed of spins also equates to more revenue.
"Machines today will get maybe 500 spins an hour or more, whereas in the old days, you were lucky to get 200 to 300 spins per hour," Yoseloff said. "It almost doubled the velocity of money."
The gambling convention began off with Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman presenting Vanna White with a key to the city. White's "Wheel of Fortune" TV show ignited the industry 20 years ago, inspiring a brand of "Wheel of Fortune" slot machines that took over casino floors. Over the years, they paid out $3 billion in prizes.
But even those machines are largely coinless now.
Even the sound of money clanking in trays has been replaced by machines that play recordings that sound like, but isn't, the spill of a jackpot.
That's not good enough for Judy Wells.
She was staying at New York New York but took a bus down the Strip to bet some cold, hard coin at Circus Circus.
The 67-year-old from Kansas City says it's a pilgrimage to the past. She started coming to Las Vegas more than a decade ago with her husband _ a time best remembered for their marriage at Hooters Casino.
The coin machines were still prevalent then, and it's where she learned how to catch the coins in her hand as the winnings poured out. Wells likes the straightforward nature of the coin machine. Spin and win. Spin and lose. Easy.
Tonight, her machine hasn't been exceedingly generous. But dropping three coins in the slot and watching the wheels whir to a stop, one at a time, still holds magic.
Down to a few coins, Wells looked straight ahead _ her face reflected in the machine's glass face, its whirring cherries and numbers reflected back in her glasses.
Either she'll get a payout and keep playing, or it will be time to get back on the bus.
Seven. Seven. Seven.
She claps her hands as silver coins flood the tray. A few players nearby nod with knowing smiles.
"You can't beat this," she says. "I needed that."
