Build a Chocolate Coin Slot Machine for Your Haunted Halloween Casino

Halloween is all about individual self-expression, unlike most other holidays that force you to adhere to traditions like bunny-based propaganda or ritual gluttony. The costume you choose to wear, how you decorate your house, and which candy brands you eat first all say a lot about you as person. Therefore, building chocolate coin slot machines must mean Alanswx is a gambling addict. If you are too, you can follow his tutorial to build your very own haunted casino game machines.

Okay, to give Alanswx a little bit more credit, his family is actually going for a Casablanca theme to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the film’s worldwide premiere. The film takes place in a nightclub/casino in the titular city of Casablanca, so slot machines were a natural fit for the theme. And, because this was for Halloween, chocolate coins were far more appropriate than useless inedible tokens. If you are going to build your own slot machine, however, make sure the chocolate coins are uniform in size so the mechanisms don’t jam.

The frame of each machine is built from 2x2 framing boards, and that’s skinned in laser-cut plywood. Inside is a Raspberry Pi 3 with an Adafruit Servo HAT that drives inexpensive hobby servos. Those actuate the 3D-printed mechanisms that dispense the chocolate coins. The slot machine reels are displayed on an LCD connected to the Raspberry Pi via HDMI, and the GUI was programmed in Python with the kivy framework. Sure, this may be an elaborate way to celebrate a holiday, but it’s more interesting than pretending to be Irish for a day.