Like many games, Fortune Telling Machines rose to popularity in the 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression. Though most people didn't have oodles of money to spare, what they had they would gladly give up for a few minutes of hours of mindless entertainment. Compared to standing in the bread line, getting your fortune told for a mere penny seemed like pure bliss.

Early fortune tellers were relatively simple, like Mystic Pen which wrote out a fortune for the player and dispensed it out of slot. An Answer from Beyond was another machine that 'responded' to a player's questions with a picture of a mummy inside the cabinet.

The games became more and more elaborate in the next few years, including life-size mannequins inside wood and glass cabinets that looked and talked the part of a fortune teller. These dummies were decked out in the finest Gypsy accoutrement and waited with an inscrutable expression until the coin was dropped. Then they came to life, pointing to props like tarot cards or a crystal ball, moving and eventually allowing a little printed card with the fortune to fall out. It was enough to make you a believer in the Occult.

Fortune teller mannequins were usually women but men were not uncommon, and even animals could read what the future held for curious players. They stay in fashion throughout the war years and the 1950s, but evolved to include less elaborate machines, like the "Swami" napkin holder that appeared in The Twilight Zone episode "Nick of Time" and creeped the heck out of a young William Shatner.

New technologies brought new advancements to the field of fortune telling machines, showcased in the Madame Morgana model. Here, a woman's face was projected onto a blank, head-shaped screen and once your coin was in, Morgana started to talk, directly to you or so it seemed. You wouldn't discount her reading, not if you knew what was good for you.