Fruit Machine Chat

My pal and I are embarking on a Glasgow MegaCrawl® in the very near future, in which we plan to visit over 20 pubs and play near 30 machines.

So what's the longest crawl you have done in pursuit of quiz-based glory, and how much did you win?

I once tried a partial Subcrawl in Glasgow, trying to play a machine at each stop rather than getting pissed. I could find sod-all in Goven and elsewhere some of the pubs were too scary LOL.

Back in the glory days (1992) I did a day in Manchester once, starting at 10 am in a bowling alley and finished at 3am in a nightclub. Cleared £700 after exes.

Best day in recent memory was a run around Leeds. Cleared £300 after a 13 hour day

I tend to go on a crawl most Fridays (If I can cadge it off work!), starting at 9:00 in the 'spoons and finishing at around 3am in a club. I'll admit I mainly tuck into AWPs, but still will always give Bully / DOND a go in each pub. Trouble is, after about 7 pubs, the booze is starting to have an effect! I usually get around 12+ pubs!

Talk about Binge-Playing!

In the really early days (late 80s - early 90s) it was possible to play about 30-40 machines in one day in Blackpool easily enough, given the arcades and piers as well as the pubs. However, you were always dealing with a few duff machines or pubs and had the added factor of the pubs closing in the afternoon - that was when having the arcades came into its own really. In those days of mainly £10 Jackpots I would still look to make £200 for a good day.

Nowadays I can't think of a single town where a crawl would be worthwhile or lucrative. If the ItBoxes had SOMETHING on them that was a consistent payer then maybe it would be a different story but that hasn't been the case for some time now. I tend to be much more targeted in where and when I play.

Do you quizo people actually make big profits. Do you have mtrs or are you just intelligent. You must have methods?

rollem wrote:Do you quizo people actually make big profits. Do you have mtrs or are you just intelligent. You must have methods?

Hi rollem

What are 'mtrs'? - meters/motors/...?

The answers to your questions otherwise are:

(1) Very few players make 'big' profits any longer on quiz machines. The modern machine has too many games that offer no realistic prospect of a decent win. On the up side, even if you aren't winning anything, you lose money much more slowly than on a fruit machine - a decent player or gang of mates should be able to have a good session of different games for little or no outlay, whereas you can put £50 through a fruit machine without even blinking.

(2) There are no 'methods' in the sense of anything that might be considered cheating, although a good player will sometimes get accused of learning all the answers, working for the machine company, knowing some secret sequence of button presses, and so on. You need the obvious things like a strong level of general knowledge, a good memory and to be able to read fast but other than it's mainly hard work and practice that gets you anywhere.

Good for the old days - a full day quizzing today would probably make sod all though?

Matt

Spot on Nil Satis!

mtrs - slang term for 'Emptiers', a word that genreally in the AWP community relates to being able to clean out a machine for minimal outlay, usually involving a suspect technique!!!

I thought it would be something like that. I must admit though, I was worried that the word was 'mothers' and that we boffins were being insulted!



P.S. Who or what does 'Catches of End' refer to?

---"OT continuation"---

'Catches of End' is the translation of the 'term' - 'Butt Plugs', as given by Googles' English to French, then French to English translation. It was suggested in another thread by a prominent member of the board (I'm pretty sure it was either MattB / Cardinal / VB / EWQ) Any of you recall?

For some reason the phrase just made me smile...

---"OT off"---

C'etait moi!

Mais, c'est de rien.

Ahhh - that's the man!

Haha sure. So theres no real profit. I apprechiate what your saying we all often gather around the quizo and have a couple of games of Bullseye as i see this as the best for a win. When offering 201 from the off its guaranteed the £3. I know that much, never had a win from DOND on it but come close. The game goldenballs is alright for a couple of quid also.

The thing is quizos do there job correctly in my mind, just how the fruit machine is supposed to be there for your pure entertainment. You put a couple in you get some entertainment.

Im afraid for me, and alot of others on this forum its evolved into something much more. The thing i hate worse is i get gagging for a gamble its never really about the money i love to play the machine and it takes up too much of my mind. Im sitting in the pub and il be clucking after awhile sometimes. Like tonight where i foolishly lost £25 then some random guy comes in and gets IM off £1 on a casino crazy. Ive been pissed off all night.

Rollem

I try to avoid the fruit machines although I will have an occasional game while waiting for someone to get off MY quiz machine and what I have certainly noticed is that over the years they have been programmed more and more to ENCOURAGE heavy playing - they do this by being very tight to most players and then suddenly splurging huge amounts of cash to one player. If the take is 80% then in the past it was more the case that overall you would put £10 in and get £8 back so you could play them more as 'entertainment'. Now they are deliberately programmed to take £100 in with little or no reward and then suddenly pay out £80 in one go. I realise that this is something of a simplification but it is I'm sure a pattern you will all recognise.

The main problems for me with this are two-fold - (a) you've got to be prepared to have a lot of cash on you and to potentially lose a lot before getting to the Mega Streak etc. (b) you have no real protection over an ordinary punter doing what the guy did to you last night and getting to the streak before you do. With quiz machines, although you can obviously lose money (otherwise they wouldn't exist!), you can't really lose it to anything like the same extent, and in addition no 'amateur' will ever be able to take a Jackpot out of a quiz game.

I hope this helps!