- Mgm Lion's Den Slot Machine Machines
- Mgm Lion's Den Slot Machine Game
- Mgm Lion's Den Slot Machines
- Mgm Lion's Den Slot Machine Slot
Anyone familiar with the lore surrounding the famed Lion’s Share slot machine, formerly at MGM Grand, is aware of these “facts”: 1) The Lion’s Share slot machine was a hold-over from an earlier time in Las Vegas, and there was just one Lion’s Share left on the casino floor for years. Do the $1.00 Majestic Lions slots still pay off well at MGM. Last trip (1.5 year ago) we would play them for spending money. Had many $200 - $300 hits. Lion's Share is a three-reel progressive slot machine found at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Given how old the machine is, and the high rate of turnover in the gaming business, nobody seems to know for sure the history of the game. However, I think it can be said it is the oldest slot machine in the MGM and the jackpot has not been hit in many years.
February 8, 2014 -- Last night I took a turn playing the legendary Lion's Share slot machine at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Not surprisingly, I didn't win the $2,343,945.26. No one has won the jackpot on the progressive jackpot slot machine in two decades, which is why devotees consider it way past due.
For the uninitiated, the Lion's Share is the oldest three-reel slot machine at the 5,044-room MGM Grand. It's the last of a group of nearly fifty Lion's Share slots that were installed at the hotel not long after it opened in 1993. Although the Lion's Share is aging and outdated, it's the slot with the highest level of occupancy (daily time played) of all the casino's 1,900 machines. A local bartender advised me that there are gamblers who fly in for the sole purpose of playing it, which means that its vinyl seat is often occupied for hours on end—until said player falls asleep or is out of money. So one needs to be lucky just to find the first-come, first-serve seat open—to have the opportunity to insert bills and pull the old-fashioned lever on the machine's right side.
Though the Lion's Share takes $1 and $2 bets, one must wager $3 to have a chance at the $2.34 million jackpot. It's a simple proposition: One lever pull—or button push—one chance. And if you cash out, there is no ticket. You need to be paid out by an attendant, who walks over and counts out your money.
One might wonder why the MGM Grand hasn't retired the machine, as it has all its leonine brothers. Fact is that gaming regulations prevent the casino from removing the Lion's Share until it pays out the lump sum jackpot. (Some say the casino hopes for a jackpot, so it can be done with the difficult-to-repair machine; others believe the MGM Grand would like the winless streak to continue indefinitely, as the Lion's Share brings in fervent devotees and curiosity seekers alike.) Similarly, no one is quite sure whether the eventual jackpot winner will have a chance to take the machine home, as some claim.
Those obsessing about the Lion's Share have no shortage of opportunities to keep tabs on new developments. The machine has its own Twitter account and Facebook page, not to mention fan sites.
Example:Origins: The roaring lion appearing at the beginning of films produced by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio and in the company’s logo is one of the world’s most widely recognized mascots. According to a history of that logo, the choice of a lion as a mascot preceded the 1924 merger of Metro Pictures Corporation, Goldwyn Pictures, and
The logo was first designed for Goldwyn Pictures Corporation, in 1916. Howard Deitz, a Publicity Executive, chose to use a lion as the studio’s mascot, paying tribute to his alma mater, Columbia University. The inspiration was the school’s fight song “Roar, Lion, Roar.”
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“Slats” was the first lion used on Goldwyn Pictures logo from 1917 until 1924, first appearing on the 1917 release “Polly of the Circus.” After the 1924 merger that created MGM, “Slats” was retained and continued to appear on our logo until 1928. He appeared on MGM’s first release “He Who Gets Slapped,” starring Lon Chaney, in 1924.
As chronicled at The Silver Screen Affair blog, a number of different lions have been used for the MGM logo over the years, the most well known being Leo, who is MGM’s longest-lived lion and has been appearing on MGM films since 1957.
The MGM lion is prominent enough to have featured in urban legends, one of which we first encountered in 2004:
Lately, I’ve heard a neat Urban Legend about the MGM Lion’s roar.
It goes that the lion was originally meant to be standing proud and silent, but roared when two burglars rushed into the warehouse.
The burglars in question were Boris Regina and Karl Maninovsky.
Supposedly, Regina and Maninovsky would regularly rob banks and stash their loot at a warehouse a few blocks away.
One day, while the burglars’ warehouse was normally empty, MGM and their lion were recording there. The lion roared at Regina and Maninovsky as they entered, after which MGM stopped recording.
The lion then jumped off the platform and mauled Maninovsky, who died two days later. Regina ran out of the warehouse and got run over by a police car heading to the bank he had just robbed.
This tale was nothing more than an amusing fabrication, one of a number of invented urban legends presented in video form on the JKCinema web site:
A similar claim about the original MGM lion’s having “killed its trainer and two assistants” the day after he was filmed for the first MGM logo was promulgated by Factropolis.com, one of a number of sites whose raison d’être was passing off fictional factoids as real information. This claim is clearly not true, as the trainer of Slats, the lion first used by Goldwyn Pictures in 1917 (and subsequently by MGM) was Volney Phifer, a prominent animal trainer who long outlived Slats and passed away in retirement in the 1970s:
“Slats” was trained to roar on cue by Volney Phifer, Hollywood’s premier animal trainer, and toured the world to signify MGM’s launch. He was born at the Dublin Zoo and died in 1936. By that time
Simply put, none of the several lions filmed by MGM for use in their logos was involved in incidents that killed their trainers. All of those animals were handled by professional trainers who were well known in show business circles and whose deaths in any lion-mauling attacks would have been prominent news.
Although Slats was the first MGM lion, he wasn’t technically the first one to “roar” for the studio, as his career as MGM’s mascot spanned the silent film era. It was his replacement, Jackie, whose roar was first recorded for playback to filmgoing audiences:
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In 1928 a new Lion was introduced, “Jackie,” selected because he was a lookalike for “Slats.” The most famous MGM title he appeared on was “The Wizard of Oz” in 1939. However, that was not to be “Jackie”‘s most significant contribution to history. He was the first of our lions to be heard by our audience, via a gramophone recording, on
Mgm Lion's Den Slot Machines
Mgm Lion's Den Slot Machine Slot
: Slot Machine Cirque Du Soleil