Opening an arcade

[admin]

Ive often thought about opening an arcade.. Has anyone here done it?

Going into costs, how much do you all think it might take to open one?

Rents for a good sized shop arent a lot here in Hull. Then maybe 40 machines to go in it, 30 ebay type machines at less then £200 a piece and 10 more upto date ones.

Maybe £15,000 to for the initial outlay for machines. Another few K for furnishings etc. £25K ish and I think you could open a small arcade.

But then there are the gaming licences, I have little or no idea how much these would cost, anyone know?? Im guessing they are going to be very expensive.

Which machines are exempt, is it £8 jackpot and below?

A website link for this kind of thing would be great.

Do you also need some kind of license from the local council just to open an arcade?

Not looked into it much, but it would be something I would consider doing.

Ive managed to save up a bit of cash over the years and would like to get out of the 9-5 job.

[mjd]

Im not 100% guaranteed, but I think aswell as rent you wil lbe charged by the council for Business rates. (Probably not much, but its an addition to everything youve mentioned above) All businesses have their rateable Value, im sure Arcades are the same..


But other than that, everything you mentioned good Admin sir!

[admin]

Yeah, business rates are about 40% of the annual rent here.. Not worried about that side of things too much - used to own and run a computer shop so know most of the normal business costs.

Just really want to know what the gaming licenses are going to cost, and if im being realistic about machine costs.

[ssgtsnelly]

i was told the other day in my local that a S16 is £2000 a week for each machine.

not sure if this is 100% accurate but thats what the staff told me..

and going on the fact that the machine may take £4000 a day give or take its not a bad investment.

[Fruiter]

I thought about it once, my local was up for sale, including:

The building big enough for 30/40 machines all the way around

Stock room and office at the rear

2 bed flat above

35 machines, mainly £8/15

All licenses paid for 12 months

And he was asking 180k, bearing in mind the building was on a main road with around another 25 good shops on the same stretch is got quite busy, i reckon they made £5000 a week profit, then there was the rent of the flat above to collect too...

I would have gone for it but i was only 19 at the time and had just bought a house too


That was 4 years ago so no doubt it will have gone up considerably, especially the property value!


Anyway with regards to the licenses i think you're right either £8 or £5 JP machines don't need one or they are very cheap, but i know s16 licenses are very expensive, i can't remember how much and wouldn't like to embaress myslef by having a guess but they're not cheap!

[admin]

i was told the other day in my local that a S16 is £2000 a week for each machine.

not sure if this is 100% accurate but thats what the staff told me..

and going on the fact that the machine may take £4000 a day give or take its not a bad investment.

Dont know if thats true, but I was thinking more like maybe £800 per machine per year. I will have to find out more, but this may have "pissed on my bonfire"..

At the moment, this is all for research, but I would think I would be taking around 1K a day, or less, across all machines. I think £4000 a day on 1 machine is asking a bit too much!!

Theres another point, I assume I could add £4000 to my costs, to put £100 float in each machine.

[ssgtsnelly]

ah well you are most likely right Ad thats just what i was told..did seem a little high.

i reckon if you did get the right machines in then depending on the local punter type the possibilities are endless...

ive personally seen £5000 go into a S16 in a matter of hours with no JP..

almost seems unreal that people will do that..but if they do then you are laughing...

are there none of the big guns in your area then? ie quicksilver, showboat or the like?

you might have a niche market there

[tka]

I may be wrong but if a S16 pays 94% it would need £100 in to take £6 profit so if it is going to take £4000 it would need some fool to put £800,000. I don't know many people who can afford to gamble the best part of a Million every day


I have always wanted to run a pub with 5 SWPs- one of each of the main machines. But until I win the lottery it is only a dream.

[ssgtsnelly]

im confused now lol.

what i understand is if someone puts in £5g and dosent get a JP then that is all profit minus what is taken..say a £100 streak..

next player may come along and put in another £1500 and take a £500 JP so the machine pays out and is now only £5000-100+1500-500..which is £5900 profit...is that not right?

i know this machines meant to be set at 94% but surely the arguement is the same as AWPS at 78% you are not essentially deffinatly getting £7.80 for every tenner you put in...in the long run this % will be met yes..but if they are so called random how can 94% be always met..

sorry if this is a dumb thing to say but im a little lost...ugh tired. :P

[Fruiter]

I think someone's heard wrong at £4000 a day!

I was chatting to the guy who owns my local when he first invested in 4 s16's, i think he said around 2k per year each, but then he has to give a bigger percentage of the profits to the tax man or something like that??

[COASTERDESIGNERPRO1]

I think that sec 16s do operate in a similar way to £25 AWPS the % still works the same, i think that it works like this

£2 X 10,000 is 20,000

£20,000 to 94% is something like 18800 (bad at maths)

so £1200 profit. They calculate the %'s at the beginning and design the program around the percentage. Which is how it keeps within its %. So whatever number it picks out it still equals out to its % at the end.

I think the costs for a section 16 are around £2500 per year.
AWP buy and sell, operate and maintain licence is about £7500 per 1/2 years.

Licences from councils are about £250 per £25 AWP and £30 per £5 AWP.

This may have changed since i last read the info.

[Weyland]

It's all in flux until mid 2007 at the moment, but here's the interim arrangements (after traversing all the broken links on the uk government site!)

http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/Ga ... gaming.htm

[jiminy]

I may be wrong but if a S16 pays 94% it would need £100 in to take £6 profit so if it is going to take £4000 it would need some fool to put £800,000. I don't know many people who can afford to gamble the best part of a Million every day

You might be surprised how much people put through the machine - may just gambe a £20 note lost but you have to add on all the recycled wins that are added automatically to credits and usually played off as well, this accounts for the percentage.

[Dynamike]

Isn't a licence for a £25 awp £700ish? Look in pubs, they have their certificates displayed near machines quite often. Maybe it's different for arcades.

S.16s can take grands a day, they do in busy services, believe me, I've seen it with my own eyes. A smallish arcade in town however, unlikely in a day, maybe a week.

[Mattb]

Yes, pub licenses are about £760 a year for an AWP.

If anyone has been into York, the license for Gillys arcade is £36,000ish a year. They have a few S16s in there, about 12 £25s, a load of lo tecs, a few £5 JPs, a plasma party games, a few linked machines.

Probably around 60-70 machines in there. You'd need plenty of players in there to make it worthwhile....

Matt