Fruit Machine Chat

Seeing as there's been no posts for a while thought I'd share today's trip.

Pub 1: Actually stopped off for a mineral water. Surprised to see they'd had a Paragon installed. Won around £15. Gave up paying at £13 and I had to leave with the "IOU £2" note stuck on the display.

Pub 2: This was the main pub I was aiming for. Won about £9 and it gave me £3 then stuck up "IOU £6".

Pub 3. Machine there but switched off.

Pub 4: No machine anymore.

Pub 5: No machine anymore.

Pub 6: Machine there but switched off.

Great days indeed!!

I think a lot of Paragon's have been regreened into Bingo Express terminals. It's hard to find quizzers nowadays compared to a decade ago. I even saw one in a Spoons the other day, PM for location.

If it's any consolation, I had a worse day the other day.

At least u can never really do brains in a quiz machine tho.

Hence why nobody really gives a shit about them anymore!! Especially pub landlords!! One board on a 4 reel reflex=Quiz machine takings for a month probably. It's a no brainer.

BFK wrote:Hence why nobody really gives a shit about them anymore!! Especially pub landlords!! One board on a 4 reel reflex=Quiz machine takings for a month probably. It's a no brainer.

Yeah, think they died a couple of years ago when the designers went spoiler-crazy. Put off casual players for life. Pointless almost brought them back from what I've seen, but they messed that one up too!

i do part time for a leisure firm when im home from dog handling. i can safely say the storage area is 70% quiz machines. you are spot on.theyre not worth a wa*k financially anymore. only places that are just about feasible to site are a snooker club type of premises

I lost nine machines in a day on a run in a big midlands city-and that didn't include any Wetherspoons which have gone from being bankers to "as rare as rocking horse shit".

dog section wrote:i can safely say the storage area is 70% quiz machines.

That's very interesting. When I've been out on the road and found a machine has disappeared (sometimes from a pub which has had one for a couple of decades), I've always tried to be philosophical i.e. if a cabinet disappears from one place, they don't just take it out and shoot it, it moves somewhere else, and I've just got to find out where. Sadly, if they're just gathering dust in a warehouse, that isn't true, after all...

That might have been true in the past but it can't possibly be the case now. I've had a quick look at my records and I reckon that since about the start of 2012 I have lost around 70 machines in my immediate area (within about 30 minutes driving distance), and that is in an area with relatively few pubs actually closing. There may be one or two hidden away that I have still never found but there's no way that a new home could have been found for that many removals. This pattern will have been repeated, to a greater or lesser extent, in most if not all locations.

Has it occurred to anyone that the machines are moved away from areas where pros play them all the time to geographical areas where they dont go to? I went to a provincial university student union last week and there were 5 machines there.

They are all on ebay

warburton wrote:Has it occurred to anyone that the machines are moved away from areas where pros play them all the time to geographical areas where they dont go to? I went to a provincial university student union last week and there were 5 machines there.

There aren't any general areas where pros won't play, I can assure you of that. There may however be venues that are harder to access, like your example of a students' union, if they have reasonable security in place, or certain members' only clubs, and you do also get a few pubs in some areas that insist on you having student ID on certain nights. You may also get a pub in a rural area that is so removed from other locations that it isn't really worthwhile visiting it due to the time involved - rural areas are generally harder to cover in terms of identifying locations, and anyway rural pubs have never really had the same density of machines as urban locations in most cases.

Five machines in one place is something of a marvel however - that was rare even when multi-machine venues were more common.

Yes 5 must be truly rare. As I walk past the new Bucklesbury House development I lament for the days that Deacons sports bar not only had three units but they were all different providing convenient access to nearly all of the current content. It was pretty well covered though ....

also now noticeable is that the price for dongles/cards with a few thousand credits on are now fetching more dosh than the machine itself. make of that what you will,but i know what i believe the future is

Depends which Pubs really...

Plenty of Wetherspoons which I frequent still have them but maybe I'm just lucky although I do stick to city centres.

Fayre and Square, Hungry Horses and Flaming Grill Pub chains are worth a look if they're any in your area although they're hit and miss.