Casino Row

Coffee, tea or gambling chips

Singapore Airlines has long been known for its elegant, poised stewardesses, whose teeth and manners are polished by company-paid dentists and the airline's own training school. Last week S.A. became known for something a little less gracious: high-altitude gambling. An S.A. 747 jumbo jet took off from Singapore, bound for San Francisco, with one row of tourist-class seats filled not with paying passengers but with six slot machines.

For 50-c-, passengers could buy aluminum chips to use in the one-armed bandits. The machines were set by S.A. to pay out 90% of the take in winnings, which is above the 50% at some gambling casinos but about the same as payouts at Nevada hotels. After takeoff, 148 of the 330 passengers aboard requested time at the slots and attempted to line up the familiar combinations of bars and cherries. The jackpot payoff of $100 was signaled by three pictures of S.A.'s logo, a stylized bird. Said Toronto Psychiatrist Jon Ennis, a passenger on the flight: "Little old ladies trying to get to the lavatories had to push through the crowd around the casino." Alas, no one was able to try his luck at the machines for long, and not just because of the 15-min. time limit for each player. The slots, made mainly of plastic to get their weight down to 36 Ibs., vs. 150 for the standard slot, broke down eight hours into the 23-hr, flight. S.A. reluctantly had to close down casino row.

If the two-month-long trial of the slot machines proves successful on the Singapore-San Francisco run, S.A. will install them on the remainder of the airline's fleet of 16 jumbo jets. Airline officials profess that they are not endorsing gambling, only providing their customers with a different form of in-flight entertainment. It is also one that could help make up for revenues lost to seat-occupying passengers.

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