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Sega History
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History of Sega Slot Machines

Sega was founded in 1940 as Standard Games in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, by Martin Bromely, Irving Bromberg, and James Humpert to provide coin-operated amusements for American servicemen on military bases. Bromely suggested that the company move to Tokyo, Japan in 1951 and in May 1952 "Service Games of Japan" was registered.

In 1957, Service Games promoted itself as having "New Mills slots machines and parts. Building of any kind to your specifications. Machine in stock or made to order. Offices and manufacturing in major countries around the world."

Martin Bromely, a genius coin machine savvy professional, took Mills engineering drawing and samples set up production in two countries that had no prior exposure to the coin machine industry, yet had largely low labors and manufacturing costs. Bromely picked Japan and Spain, and proceeded to produce the Mills "Hightop" for American service bases throughout the world, with the Japanese facility serving the South West Pacific and Pacific Rim, while Spain handled Germany and Western Europe. Service Games was the perfect company name, but Bromely wanted something simpler for his offshore operations. Taking the first two letters of each word he came up with the name "SE-GA." Part of the charm was that it sounded Japanese, or even Spanish. By the end of the 50s, with the British market opening up, Sega made a pitch for the business, approaching the Bally distributor in England with a proposal to appear in their booth at the 1961 show. By this time Sega Enterprises, Ltd. of Tokyo, Japan, had both their "Hightop" copy and an indigenous Sega line of Mills-mechanism Bells in a restyled modern cabinet, plus the MINI-SEGA, a copy of the Mills countertop VEST POCKET.

The Sega machine is an absolute copy of the Mills machine, but it had advanced cabinet styling which was very attractive. Also the copy of the Mills machine "Hightop" was something like 100 pounds below the selling price of the Mills. Purchasable for about half the price of the original, Mills could hardly compete, with Sega taking the major portion of the world mechanical Bell business, moving into Nevada in the middle 1960s with the Service Games advertising now touting the fact that they were a Sega distributor. Back To Sega


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