Fruit Machine Chat

i guess we have all encountered obvious watchers. and i am sure we have all done it too.
was in a pub earlier which has two machines. this other fella i recognise was on the shitter machine so i played the paragon. before long he was on my shoulder pretending to watch the footie.
anyway.
after a bit, i had £20 in the bank and was bursting with piss so started up a slooooooow card game while going for a lightning jimmy. in less than a minute he was on the machine playing off my aborted game of magnificent 7s. extraordinary, especially given i could see him watching me and my pint was on the machine. so i put a flea in his ear.

He was probably hoping you would take sufficiently long that he could kill off the game, collect the bank and scarper.

Yeah I find its normally a gang of em though UP. Then one of them plucks up the courage to say something like 'You winning mate?' in passing, to which the answer is always 'No, no, not me!' This is all roughly translated as 'for fecks sake give someone else a go'. So I do. And what do they play- Monopoly. Always Monopoly.

Fuck me what was the other machine if the Paragon was the good one?

QuizMaster wrote:Fuck me what was the other machine if the Paragon was the good one?

That was Obvious Question 1. Obvious Question 2 was - Wouldn't if have been safer to at least collect the £20? - as someone has pointed out, you could kill a game and collect the bank in the time it takes to go to the loo in some pubs, given the trek up/down stairs that is often involved.

I'm assuming you wash your hands after going as well...

i didn't wash my hands on that occasion; have become quite adept at not pissing on my hands. (ew. just imagine if you play the machine after me, yuck.)

the other machine was/is one of those really old ind:es with rubbish like pairz and COQ (carry on quizzing).

i thought the chutzpah of jumping on a machine was enough, surely nobody would collect a bank and scarper?

hes got every right!- I cant bear people who leave a credit in the machine,talk to their friends or go to the loo or order a drink. Its an annoying practice that is particularly prevalent in casinos. Its not your money until its physically out of the machine(thats why apparently landlords can switch a machine off with your credits with impunity).

Some casinos and arcades provide reserved signs to hang on the the bandits while you go off for 10mins. You should carry your own around with you.

I'm afraid my sympathy is with the other player UP - annoying that he crowded you whilst you were playing, but I think he's got every right to have gone on the machine when you left it (I'm afraid that losing a machine while going for a pee is just one of the perils of solo SWP play). I'd definitely say it was a risky decision on your part to leave the cash in there - I wouldn't have faith in the average low-level SWP player to look a gift £20 horse in the mouth, I must say.

i'm staggered. this was 60 seconds while i drained the vein and a game was running (i often play something like WCS very slowly if there is any other business).
if i leave a note on the bar while the barmaid pulls a guinness, is he entitled to have that too? and how about rifling through the pockets of my coat hanging off the chair? here, have my car keys too, you'll find a few quid in the glove box and maybe a couple of stray coppers if you don't mind rummaging amongst the fluff under the seats.

You seem to be a very trusting soul sir. This is obvious from your historical posts. Your faith in human nature is as misplaced as your faith in the quality of Paragon. The most remarkable fact about your post is that there is a pub in Britain where two people actually wanted to play the Paragon.

Istenem wrote:i'm staggered. this was 60 seconds while i drained the vein and a game was running (i often play something like WCS very slowly if there is any other business).
if i leave a note on the bar while the barmaid pulls a guinness, is he entitled to have that too? and how about rifling through the pockets of my coat hanging off the chair? here, have my car keys too, you'll find a few quid in the glove box and maybe a couple of stray coppers if you don't mind rummaging amongst the fluff under the seats.

I think you're conflating the two issues Isty.

First question is "is he entitled to the cash you left in the machine"? Morally, the answer is no regardless of what the correct legal position is - you earnt that cash and were morally entitled to it before and after it was collected.

Second question is "is he entitled to play the machine after you left it?" to which I think the answer is probably yes - I don't think players are really entitled to reserve machines in their absence even if it is only for a minute or so. I'm not sure that leaving a credit running is fair either. It's up to players to time their bathroom visits around their machines.

If I'd have been him, I wouldn't have started playing your credit, but I'd have been pretty annoyed at your ruse of leaving a game running.

I'm told there are approaching 30,000 SWP units in Britain, seems to me this thread is paying a lot of attention to just one of them.
Unwanted attention/actions from other punters has always been a fact. I'd just walk 50 yards down the street to the next machine and get on with a stress-free life.

grecian wrote:

Istenem wrote:i'm staggered. this was 60 seconds while i drained the vein and a game was running (i often play something like WCS very slowly if there is any other business).
if i leave a note on the bar while the barmaid pulls a guinness, is he entitled to have that too? and how about rifling through the pockets of my coat hanging off the chair? here, have my car keys too, you'll find a few quid in the glove box and maybe a couple of stray coppers if you don't mind rummaging amongst the fluff under the seats.

I think you're conflating the two issues Isty.

First question is "is he entitled to the cash you left in the machine"? Morally, the answer is no regardless of what the correct legal position is - you earnt that cash and were morally entitled to it before and after it was collected.

Second question is "is he entitled to play the machine after you left it?" to which I think the answer is probably yes - I don't think players are really entitled to reserve machines in their absence even if it is only for a minute or so. I'm not sure that leaving a credit running is fair either. It's up to players to time their bathroom visits around their machines.

If I'd have been him, I wouldn't have started playing your credit, but I'd have been pretty annoyed at your ruse of leaving a game running.

I must admit that in "emergencies" I have resorted to the same tactic, but I would not consider leaving the money in the bank (perhaps that's a reflection on the nature of some of the pubs I'm prepared to go into). Normally, though, I would ensure any bathroom visit had taken place in the previous pub after I finished up on thei machine. I do think there's something of a difference between leaving the machine with credits in it to have a pee, which is a natural bodily function, and leaving the machine with credits to start an interminable conversation with your mates, which is just plain rude.