When was the magic 8 ball invented?

Alabe Crafts invented the Magic 8 Ball in 1950. Albert Carter, who formed Alabe Crafts with his partner Abe Bookman, created the functional component used in the Magic 8 Ball. He originally used it in his 1946 cylindrical Syco-Seer toy that housed two dice suspended in a murky liquid.

Carter died before Alabe Crafts transformed the Syco-Seer into the Magic 8 Ball. In 1950, Brunswick Billiards wanted to use the Syco-Seer in an advertising campaign and requested that Alabe crafts replace the cylinder with a sphere to make it resemble a billiard ball. The people at Alabe Crafts specifically chose to make it look like the eight-ball.