one-armed bandit

An antique one-armed bandit.

From one-armed (“having only one arm”) +‎ bandit (“one who robs others in a lawless area, especially as part of a group; one who cheats others”), referring to the fact that the machine is operated by a single handle, and “steals” money from losing players.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌwʌnɑːmd ˈbændɪt/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌwʌnɑɹmd ˈbændɪt/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: one-armed ban‧dit

one-armed bandit (plural one-armed bandits)

1. (originally US, gambling) A gaming machine having a long arm-like handle at one side that a player pulls down to make reels spin; the player wins money or tokens when certain combinations of symbols line up on these reels.

• one-arm bandit

• fruit machine
• poker machine, pokie, pokie machine
• slot machine

• multi-armed bandit

• slot machine on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “one-armed bandit, n.” under “one-armed, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2019.
• “one-armed bandit, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.