Fruit Machine Chat

Hi All,

I just wanted to let you know that we have released a range of Skill with Payout games on the BetFred website. See games room, skill games section.

The games do not follow the traditional SWP format of fluctuating difficulty depending on how rich the games is, but remain consistent for all players. The games also pay at a much higher rate than the very poor 30% of kiosks.

The games have only been live one week, but are paying some great jackpots, which far surpass kiosk game payouts. Our sports quiz dropped £600 yesterday evening and our pop quiz £377 on Thursday. Additional games are also being added this week....

It shouldn't take you guys to long to work out the best ways to play these games to give the highest chance of winning the jackpots, which drop frequently.

We hope you enjoy them and always appreciate feedback.

Simon @ Skill 4 Prizes

Miles better than the JPM toss on Ladbrokes - at least with this there is a real sensation that you could win, although your company name does not actually suit the chance based nature of this game when you've got to the money bit.

Having said that, it's a little bit of a con dressing the lives up as actual stake - I thought I was playing a game at £1 a go and had won £6 when I realised that it was £1 per life I was using, and the lives were directly related to how many 'shots' I had in the prize board. So I was actually playing a £5 game and won £6, not a £1 game. Also, don't kid me I'm in control of winning the jackpot because it doesn't look like I am.

This may be a/ confusing for punters and b/scare the shit out of them if they mistakenly play at £1 or £2 per game.

I've seen your logo before somewhere - did you do a game that had something to do with drag racing?

One final tip - sort your questions out - the two presidents depicted in Frankie Goes to Hollywood's 'Two Tribes' video were Ronald Reagan and Konstantin Chernenko - not Reagan and Andropov as you had for the correct answer. Last thing you want on a new quiz game is an incorrect question in the first 5 - makes me wonder how many other questions are 'incorrect'.

Not bad though. Best question based swp I've seen on the web so far, and I've seen some toss.

It wouldn't even let me register, so that didn't fill me with confidence. Playing on the no prizes option, I thought it looked pretty tedious really, but I'd like to play with a bit of cash so I can get a proper idea of what the game is like.

Hi Quiz Master,

Thanks for your feedback. I didn't mean to kid anyone when refering to winning the jackpot, their is actually a simple bit of strategy that can be used to increase your chance dramatically of winning the jackpots, providing you get through the skill element with all lives in tact.

The Multi Stake as Lives we just thought more appropriate and as the games can be played in fun mode for free, we would hope people will work things out before playing for real.

You are right, we made the drag game but sadly it was never given any kind of a real chance by the kiosk providers, which is often the way with the kiosk operators. We do like to try new things though, some will work and some just bomb, but that's life eh!

My business partner Huw Ford developed Quiz Master, Super Nudger, Maze Master, Maze Craze, Breakthru e.t.c for Coinmaster in the late 80's and 90's.

I'm pleased you think the games are quite good as alot of thought has gone into them. Sorry about the question, I will have that changed immediately. We use companies to write questions and they do check them through thoroughly (apparently) and then we do to, but I guess some will always slip by.

Once again, thanks for taking the time to provide feedback.

Simon @ S4P

Let us know when the word games arrive. And when I say word games, I mean Word Up.

skill for prizes they were the outfit that produced revamped old skool classics such as Breakthru & Quizmaster that lasted about thirty seconds on Gamesnet. As with the quizgame featured on LOVEITBINGO.COM (strike it lucky) the games are essentially glorified fruit machines if the demonstrators are anything to go by. skill element 1% luck 99%. The computer controls everything. Whether youre Einstein or Judith Keppel the result is likely to be the same. PLAY AT YOUR OWN PERIL. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

I played 10 games for fun tonight on 50p stake, i.e. 5 lives, 10p a life.

Got to the end with 4 or 5 live in tact every time and my biggest win? 51p.

Most occasions I got less than my stake back after qualifying for the final round with all my lives. Disappointing and would not encourage me to play for real.

On the flip side, in just 1 week over 20 people have won jackpots of between £10 & £50 on the puzzle games and four people have won jackpots of between £350 - £600. These are far greater returns than any kiosk based SWP's.

If a player is good enough to get through the skill element consistently with all lives in tact, then they should be able to work out how to dramatically increase their chance of winning the jackpots.

Traditional casino game players of for example Poker and Blackjack e.t.c can get good enough at their game to increase their chance of winning, but that doesn't mean they will always win. Our games are similar and over time the best players will reap more of the rewards.

'Cool' - you failed to add that whilst Gamesnet only released the 'old skool' games for a short time, the original versions developed by the same programmer lasted nearly 10 years in the market and were some of the highest performers. Times change though and now people often get suckered in by 'big brands' rather than good games.

However, I do respect your opinions. No game content provider will be able to please everyone, but thanks for the feedback anyway.

Fair enough - but most of the time its not a question of if the player is good enough. It's when the spoilers kick in. Do you know the population of Sweden to the nearest thousand Mr S4P? Didn't think so!

Hi Mat,

Our internet games don't use 'spoilers', the questions and puzzles are consistent across players. They don't fluctuate difficulty like kiosk SWP's.

Mr. S4P

Could you ask Huw if he created a "Countdown " game for the Commodore 64, must have been over 20 years ago?

Yes he did, old skool Com 64 games developer :-) http://www.c64gg.com/c20.html

they dont need spoilers as the second part of the quiz game is computer controlled. The best players will lose less than a normal person thats all.
I didnt mention the original breakthru and quizmaster as they bear little resemblance to the old skool versions. The coinmaster games were classics and even today they would be popular unaltered except in question content.Make a machine as tight as a gnats arse with low payouts and very difficult questions and it will generally be removed quickly from the cabinets. Perhaps you would be able to confirm that there was a hundred pound quizmaster before the programmers realised there were too few questions. In fact a stand alone quizmaster with a £100 jackpot and sufficient computer programmed protection would be popular , even today.stand alones can operate jpms £1000max millionaire lasted from around 2001- 2005 and must have generated a lot of money.

Well this has started a little conversation piece hasn't it?

It is the best SWP I've seen on the web. That doesn't mean I'd play it though, since I think that the comment about good players losing less often than bad players is correct. I can play Blackjack better than most people using optimal strategy and a little bit of card counting - this simply serves to makes me lose at a much slower rate than other people, so I don't play much.

This game doesn't need spoilers because it is not a game of true skill. The computer is always control of how much you can win. You can't beat the house edge.

It is better than the JPM crap. That doesn't mean it appeals to me though. I'm sure it will find a niche on betfred, with their type of customer. To be hinest anybody who regularly uses an online bookmaker instead of betfair needs their head looking at anyway.

Man Utd 2-0 on betfred 11/2
Man Utd 2-0 on betfair 6/1

Hi Cool,

When we looked at re-doing Quiz Master and Quiz Breakthru we actually fired up the orginal circuit boards with a very old monitor to see how they could be brought back to life. The graphics were so so dated that we felt they would not have been given a second look in today's market, (on par with a ZX Spectrum). Therefore, we decided on making a new front end for each and Breakthru followed the exact same game format of the orginal. Quiz Master was a little bit different.

The orginal Quiz Master was around for a short time with a £100 jackpot and was pulled. However, I heard this was because of the gaming board at the time feeling uncomfortable with such a version and it had nothing to do with the number of questions.

:-)