Slot inventor Gallagher always ready to get audience’s attention

I ask you what device Gallagher is famous for, and you say “Sledge-O-Matic.”

I ask Gallagher about getting to smash stuff again at the Golden Nugget, and all he wants to talk about is a different invention: U.S. Patent 7,972,210.

It’s not the Sledge-O-Matic.

Look it up, and you will see the patent issued to Leo A. Gallagher is for an electronic slot machine, “with improved entertainment replacing the spinning reels” with animated graphics.

Gallagher is frustrated with casino owners and slot machine manufacturers. “I can’t get anyone to listen to a guy who smashes watermelons,” he says.

But until they do, he will.

Last year at the Tropicana, he couldn’t. The comedy club couldn’t be mopped up in time for the next show, so audiences saw the comedian — who turns 68 on Thursday — drop one-liners, banter with the crowd and offer ways in which the self-proclaimed “smartest guy in the world” will “solve the world’s problems.”

As soon as he solves his own.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.