If it all does end

[john32]

I have been a customer of fruit chat for only few months, its not the first time machines are crap, in 2001 was the end of jpm, people were saying how can we live without jpm, then came along vivid, then vivid came to an end, then it was barcrest, then extremes, then reds then £35 bellfruits & then £70 barcrests & electrocoins, now we have to be patient, i.e we can wait until the jp will go up, or we can complain how things are bad, or quit,
I for 1 will not quit, its about surviving, alot of proffesionals cannot take the heat when things are tough, its better for the ones that are here to
Stay & there will be only a few, some of us are the real proffesionals because we love playing fruits in the good times as well as the bad times.

[BFK]

I'm not sure what u mean Glendale. Why would I want to play if I haven't saved money???????

Like u, for the money. Because it beats the mundane 9-5 repetetive bullshit. Of course we're all in it for the money.

I personally still love playing machines, it's good banter and altho frustrating at times it's got to be better than most other ways of sourcing income.

Gettin back to the original topic, I don't understand the negative vibes. But it's the same doom mongers year in year out.

[BFK]

John32 - Thats the best post you've ever made!! Spot on!!

[ma71lda]

This initially seemed like a.....'If it all does end what will YOU do? (because I'm sorted financially and I just fancied rubbing your noses in it!)'....thread.

It all ended for me in November 2008, a month before my second child was born. I was about to be laid off due to my works being resited too far away for it to be viable me staying there. Because I'd only been there 18 months and I was a part-time employee I never recieved a hefty pay off but that didn't bother me as I had savings from my second income - fruits.

People may think giving up fruits just as you are about to be made redundant with a new family addition imminent, mortgage et al, as mad but it made perfect sense - I looked forward to an extended holiday and I was able to help the missus out alot more around the home too. Losing my wage would be tough but we'd have her maternity income, along with Tax Credits and my savings. We got by without going without.

Knocking fruits wasn't hard at all and in doing so I proved to myself I was a leisurely player, not an addict. Obviously I played a little bit for a while after because there were a couple of goodies but I very seldom got heavily involved and when my playables were resited I lost interest in playing. I also played alone so I wasn't letting anyone down and as a one-man-band I had no info to keep me going. The reason it was so easy to stop playing? It was during a dry period of the £35jp era and I wasn't enjoying it at all, I think the nail in the coffin so to speak was constant £10-15 tester boards to find the machine dead - £22 in an Italian Job (the extra £ went in due the frustration of having to see a board) only for it to be a £3, CoB bust board, this may have been the straw that broke the camels back. Good chunk of the profit made from the Hi-Lo sited next to it gone in an instant. I understand I have missed out massively in the last 18 months but that is life.

So, after making the conscious decision of k.o-ing the game I had to take stock of what I/we had to live off. As well as the afformentioned income I had savings of just over £25k and I worked out that if we lived reasonably well I didn't have to work for approximately 18 months. 2 years later I'm still technically unemployed and I haven't signed on once!!! Everything is done legitimately (Council Tax etc) and I'm virtually debt free, obviously I don't have the savings I once had but I'm still happy and those £'s were never going to be a retirement fund. As for having to 'cut your cloth', 'tightening ones belt' and 'living within your means', well, you sort of do but by no means live like a Monk. I worked out I need about £540 p/w to pay for everything before I have any money for luxuries - this includes the mortgage, council tax, nursery costs, food, travelling expenses, internet and tv, gas, electric, water etc. It sounds alot but it isn't.

I have worked....a bit lol. But it's hard having to do summat you don't like for really crap wages and the fact we have a constant stream of foreigners willing to do these jobs will always drive the minimum wage down. In the past I was fortunate to earn a decent wage because I was good at what I did, I grafted, I brought fresh ideas to my employers BUT I never had any formal qualifications for these positions. All I have is 8 GCSE's and National Diploma in Art & Design - not worth a w*nk really!!! I have briefly worked in a warehouse which wasn't the greatest. I worked in a bookies for peanuts but I enjoyed it until I had to work 5 lates including weekends for 4 weeks solid. This wasn't in the job description when I applied and when I challenged it they tried taking the p*ss sending me somewhere 20 miles away for the day...on my break I went to a stationers, wrote out my resignation and went home!!! I also help out a mate who set himself up in the financial game and I get £60 for each successful lead but now the missus wants me to get a 'proper' job. Yes, she likes to have her cake and eat it!!! I have an interview on Wednesday so we shall see what transpires from that.

All I can say is I have no regrets doing what I did whatsoever. I had a great lifestyle at one point in my life, I have done and seen a lot of things and have been able to save a few quid along the way. There is life after fruits but don't be forced into any old employment as I know most of you have a lot more than me finacially and this gives you options, allows you to be more selective. Plus I couldn't have carried on playing as 18 months ago I was diagnosed with 'severe short term memory loss'. This could lead onto Alzheimers, who knows? One things for sure, back in the day I could name you every sited machine in every town I visited - pubs, clubs, bookies, arcades, you name it. These days I struggle to recollect the story of a film I watched the previous night or my whereabouts of the last week.....but I know where the Hot Stuff which I still play today is located lol.

I think you all have plenty of mileage left in your game but maybe not as many plentiful pickings.

Apologies for the ramble.

[betchrider]

Like I said,a good thread and some excellent replies!

[sir ratholer]

Matilda - your summary of my original post is definitely not true.

Being arrogant wasn't my intention. Merely an attempt of conveying my own worries and to see what others plans were.

[ma71lda]

Matilda - your summary of my original post is definitely not true.

Being arrogant wasn't my intention. Merely an attempt of conveying my own worries and to see what others plans were.

My very first sentence was very tongue in cheek which should have had a 'wink' emoticon next to it. I apologise if I offended you but I highly doubt I did. You need thick skin in this game.

When all is said and done mate you probably have a different lifestyle to most - nice house, brand new car and luxury holidays etc. You have become accustomed to the finer things in life and I'm sure this will continue for the forseeable, no worries.

You see, I don't have these worries because I've always considered myself to be a simple man. with a simple life and simple needs. But I do cover my arse by saying I'm the most intelligent retard you'll ever meet.

I'm still waiting for the day when there is an apocolypse, a la Fallout or The Book of Eli. This will really sort the men from the boys and materialistic (sp?) things will become....well....immeterial.

[Mystery_Plum]

This initially seemed like a.....'If it all does end what will YOU do? (because I'm sorted financially and I just fancied rubbing your noses in it!)'....thread.

It all ended for me in November 2008, a month before my second child was born. I was about to be laid off due to my works being resited too far away for it to be viable me staying there. Because I'd only been there 18 months and I was a part-time employee I never recieved a hefty pay off but that didn't bother me as I had savings from my second income - fruits.

People may think giving up fruits just as you are about to be made redundant with a new family addition imminent, mortgage et al, as mad but it made perfect sense - I looked forward to an extended holiday and I was able to help the missus out alot more around the home too. Losing my wage would be tough but we'd have her maternity income, along with Tax Credits and my savings. We got by without going without.

Knocking fruits wasn't hard at all and in doing so I proved to myself I was a leisurely player, not an addict. Obviously I played a little bit for a while after because there were a couple of goodies but I very seldom got heavily involved and when my playables were resited I lost interest in playing. I also played alone so I wasn't letting anyone down and as a one-man-band I had no info to keep me going. The reason it was so easy to stop playing? It was during a dry period of the £35jp era and I wasn't enjoying it at all, I think the nail in the coffin so to speak was constant £10-15 tester boards to find the machine dead - £22 in an Italian Job (the extra £ went in due the frustration of having to see a board) only for it to be a £3, CoB bust board, this may have been the straw that broke the camels back. Good chunk of the profit made from the Hi-Lo sited next to it gone in an instant. I understand I have missed out massively in the last 18 months but that is life.

So, after making the conscious decision of k.o-ing the game I had to take stock of what I/we had to live off. As well as the afformentioned income I had savings of just over £25k and I worked out that if we lived reasonably well I didn't have to work for approximately 18 months. 2 years later I'm still technically unemployed and I haven't signed on once!!! Everything is done legitimately (Council Tax etc) and I'm virtually debt free, obviously I don't have the savings I once had but I'm still happy and those £'s were never going to be a retirement fund. As for having to 'cut your cloth', 'tightening ones belt' and 'living within your means', well, you sort of do but by no means live like a Monk. I worked out I need about £540 p/w to pay for everything before I have any money for luxuries - this includes the mortgage, council tax, nursery costs, food, travelling expenses, internet and tv, gas, electric, water etc. It sounds alot but it isn't.

I have worked....a bit lol. But it's hard having to do summat you don't like for really crap wages and the fact we have a constant stream of foreigners willing to do these jobs will always drive the minimum wage down. In the past I was fortunate to earn a decent wage because I was good at what I did, I grafted, I brought fresh ideas to my employers BUT I never had any formal qualifications for these positions. All I have is 8 GCSE's and National Diploma in Art & Design - not worth a w*nk really!!! I have briefly worked in a warehouse which wasn't the greatest. I worked in a bookies for peanuts but I enjoyed it until I had to work 5 lates including weekends for 4 weeks solid. This wasn't in the job description when I applied and when I challenged it they tried taking the p*ss sending me somewhere 20 miles away for the day...on my break I went to a stationers, wrote out my resignation and went home!!! I also help out a mate who set himself up in the financial game and I get £60 for each successful lead but now the missus wants me to get a 'proper' job. Yes, she likes to have her cake and eat it!!! I have an interview on Wednesday so we shall see what transpires from that.

All I can say is I have no regrets doing what I did whatsoever. I had a great lifestyle at one point in my life, I have done and seen a lot of things and have been able to save a few quid along the way. There is life after fruits but don't be forced into any old employment as I know most of you have a lot more than me finacially and this gives you options, allows you to be more selective. Plus I couldn't have carried on playing as 18 months ago I was diagnosed with 'severe short term memory loss'. This could lead onto Alzheimers, who knows? One things for sure, back in the day I could name you every sited machine in every town I visited - pubs, clubs, bookies, arcades, you name it. These days I struggle to recollect the story of a film I watched the previous night or my whereabouts of the last week.....but I know where the Hot Stuff which I still play today is located lol.

I think you all have plenty of mileage left in your game but maybe not as many plentiful pickings.

Apologies for the ramble.

Lend us a tenner lol ops:

[Mystery_Plum]

For me it was always going to end at some stage. I'm surprised it has lasted as long as it has. Whether this latest news will fuck it or not doesn't really matter - the fact is, it will be as good as over soon and there will be barely any edge left aside from pinching a ton here and there in the arcades during the summer. The current climate is simply not sustainable. You can blame player saturation, higher jackpots, S16 machines, mobile phones, the internet, tooling, bent coders...it doesn't really matter. I don't really care either - I stopped playing for a living years ago, got on the property ladder, thought about the future and tried to get a career together.

In my opinion computers and the internet are the biggest reason why it's gone bad, for 2 main reasons - the spread of info and knowledge, and the offer of alternative ways of gambling. People would rather sit and do a $10 deepstack for a whole afternoon and evening than go out and lose a monkey or a grand in an Elvis. They would also prefer to go on Sky Vegas and play Reel King or Rainbow Riches at 94-95% for small stakes, rather than get dressed and go out to an arcade and play the same games on 90%. The same goes for betting - why go out to a shop when you can do it all online from your bed?

The internet has helped spread info like never before and helped entice new players to this miserable pursuit. You might also say that fruit machine emulation has in some way had a bad effect, although I'm not complaining in the slightest - I love playing some of the old classic games more than anyone.

I would imagine that the casino industry has a very bleak future because of the internet. We're already seeing evidence of this, with side-bets on Blackjack and now American roulette available at Gala Casino, where you can bet at 94.74% instead of 97.29%, with no half-stake back rule on zero. The purpose of these new 'features' is to get the house-edge up and get more money from the players - and the reason they have come in is because people know the risks more than ever before and don't surrender their money as readily as they used to. Take Blackjack - the house-edge is less than 1% if you play properly, and you can get this down to practically an even money game if you bother to keep half an eye on what cards have come out. In the past casinos haven't worried about this because a lot of people play so badly and give 5-6% of their bets away that this more than covers the effect of people who have learned the Basic Strategy of even a basic count.

Of course, today the number of people playing a reasonably correct game are in the majority because of the availability of the right inofrmation on the internet. Players are a lot more savvy and clued-up. They are aware of the risks they are taking. This means normal BJ makes less money, hence the need for these fucking stupid side-bets like Perfect Pair (6.79% edge with 6 decks), or 21+3 (3.24% edge). But of course, these bets slow the game down and reduce the expected profit per hour of a table in any case, so the effect is negligible. The solution - have 9 boxes per table instead of 7 so players are squashed together like animals.

American roulette in a European casino is a very crude and obvious way of trying to take more money from players, and it has no place in the UK. It smacks of desperation to be honest. I suspect that we'll start seeing 'BLACKJACK PAYS 6 to 5' on the tables fairly soon.

The internet has a lot to answer for, but then again you can see why people prefer it.

[redlinesman]

i'm going to say this one more time and then i'm not going to say it again until next time i say it.


leaner times for a while........yes

the end is nigh..........this a matter of opinion based the chatter of certain industry people whose jobs are not as safe as they once were.

while there is a demand for reel based percentage controlled awp it will be serviced.simple as that.

anybody who thinks awp will disappear over night has mental health issues. even if there were plans to have them phased out of pubs(AND THERE ARE NOT)it would take years .

..............and then you come to the plethora of agc's fec's etc. which make the government a tidy whack of revenue every year. somehow i'm unable to comprehend a way in which the government could phase an entire industry out. the knock on effect to the leisure and tourism industries would be staggering.

the outcome would reach far further than a few hundred pro players that's for sure.


if had the money i would take any bets on feck all of any consequence happening.

if people want to come on here posting cluey pessimistic pointers in the direction of the overnight death of a multi billion pound industry on the back of a tipsy chat with an industry pal,then they'll need to back it up with a government white paper befor i'll take a blind bit of notice.

everybody is entitled to their opinion, but it is just that....an opinion.

This isn't about the government phasing the industry out or it dissapearing overnight. What you have now should be safe but the future is bleak mainly because there are going to be some tweaks here and there which will basically wipe players out. You could possibly drag it out for a while as there places that house very old machines ie there will be the odd playable hanging around and you could possibly scrape something together. The main point here, is the game look likes it's finishing as we've always known it for the last 20 years or so. I always thought digitals would wipe us out but we've always relied on the fundamentals of the Cat C machine and this looks like is ultimatley going to be our downfall.

[Scott]

All we can do is wait and see what the future holds, if it ends tomorrow i've had some great times with plenty of laughs and some awesome money has been made, i've met some good friends who i probably would'nt have met without slotting. As for employment when it finishes? Who knows, something will turn up, i'll worry about that when the time comes

[mr lugsy]

almost every firm that's tried to force digital platform fruits onto the u.k awp market have had their fingers burned,some have even lost their shirts ....... Inspired etc.


any tweaks to the way fruits behave to wipe players out would basically have to entail measures to change the way they payout i.e progressively or randomly.

if the above were true i'm sure there would be more insight available on the subject and not just what you've hinted at.

let's see what the spring brings eh?

[uber-pro]

Whats this supposed new legislation then?

[trayhop123]

you've got to admit red-lies man (sorry m8 just playing ) ,,,,,,,,,, if your telling us that we are not losing percentage based gaming in the uk , or a total ban on pub sector gaming


then what the fuck else could possibly ''wipe us out overnight '' ?


there simply isn't another answer ,,,,,,,, and with all due respect m8 ,,,,,,, your gonna look a complete prick with no future cred on this site whatsoever

"" AS LONG AS WE HAVE PERCENTAGE BASED GAMING , DODGY PROGRAMMERS AND/OR HUMAN ERROR ,,,,,,,,,,THERE WILL ALWAYS BE THE PRO PLAYER ELEMENT ''''




tell you what ,,,,,, here's a question you've not answered yet ......

respect the fact you cant reveal exactly what this is ,,, yet

so answer this at least

1, why the secrecy ? , 2, who will this effect if revealed too early ? ,,,,,,, 3, and most bizarre ,,,,,,, what are the personal reprocussions to you , if you reveal this too early,,,,, in other words ,,,,,,,, whats the skin off your nose ? ,,,,,,,, will the boys be round to beat you up ? lol


ps , if this is one big wind up ,,,,,,,,,,, fair play , we all took a big bite ,,,,,

but with this topic , your crossing the line ,,,,,, playing with people's emotions ,

your telling the miners down the pit , that their jobs hang in the balance ,,,,,,,, ,,,,,, not funny m8 ,,,,,,

[sir ratholer]

Lee, I also have to say I was thinking the same in that I fail to see how any repurcussions could directly affect redlinesman if he posted his thoughts on what's happening in the future.

After all, it's not like barcrest or gamestec will send the boys round!