Universal’s corporate ancestor, Bee Jay Products, Inc., was founded in 1936, in Kansas City by Mr. Joseph Berkowitz as a toy manufacturing company. Paper-based small games of chance were just a part of the company’s product line.

As Bee Jay grew, so did the company’s line of small games of chance, and the manufacturing of toys was gradually phased out. When Mr. Berkowitz died in 1962, the company was producing virtually nothing but small games of chance. The company has long been considered a leading manufacturer of "jar tickets" – small folded and banded slips of paper which contain winning and losing symbols, numbers and other configurations, which are used in numerous games.

At the invitation of Joyce Berkowitz, widow of the founder, Mr. Norm Wilner moved to Kansas City in 1962 to assist her in managing Bee Jay. Mr. Wilner – who owned and operated a competing company, Werts Novelty Co. of Muncie, Indiana – had been a highly regarded competitor by Mr. Berkowitz. Mr. Wilner continued to manage Werts while assisting Mrs. Berkowitz with her company. In 1963, Mr. Wilner and Joyce Berkowitz were married.

Bee Jay and Werts eventually merged, and Norm Wilner continued to supervise the growth of the successor entity, Universal Manufacturing Company, into an even larger manufacturer of paper-based small games of chance. In 1979, he sold the company to Mr. Delbert Coleman, Chicago, Illinois, who owns the company through his investment holding company, WNC Corp. After the sale, Norm Wilner was retained as CEO of the company until his death in 1990.