A symbol display apparatus for game machine includes lined up plural reel units. Each reel unit has double reel structure composed of an outer reel and an inner reel. Inside the inner reel, backlights are disposed. Peripheries of the outer and inner reels are so colored lightly as to be semitransparent, so the outer and inner reels make an object disposed inside indistinct but transmit light. Inner symbols arranged on the periphery of the inner reel are printed with light color. When the inner and outer symbols are overlapped, the backlight emits white light. Color of the inner symbol illuminated with the white light does not affect adversely to appearance of the outer symbol. When the inner symbol is displayed through a transparent portion provided in the outer reel, the backlight emits light color of which is correspondent to the inner symbol for displaying the inner symbol emphatically and clearly.