UK - General Fruit machine @ pubs

[sparkz]

Hey guys just something im wondering. Do many people here in the UK still play fruit machines?

Seems to me that the whole fruit machine setup in the UK is nothing but a greedy shambles nowadays.

The worst culprits are wetherspoons pubs.

Its no longer the days where you have a bit of extra change from a pint, play a machine and walk away a few quid up. The machines trick you into playing, give false senses of security and eat your wallet like you are nothing.

It really goes against anything the spoons name once was renown for.

It was the place to go for proper beer. Now half the beers have not conditioned correctly and taste a bit odd, the staff serving times are just ridiculous and worse still is the amount of £70 jackpot fruit machines lurking round every single corner just waiting for you to crack and put hard earned cash into.

Our local spoons now has 7 fruit machines.

The machines generally are tight as hell with just a 70% payout and often £15+ needed for a single board.

Its 1 thing being in control and not playing them but too often you see in front of you someone getting extremely lucky and putting a few quid in and hitting jackpot which makes it even more tempting to play some of them.

Can say recently I was ripped off by machines there. In my last 4 visits I have lost in excess of £600 on their machines.


For example problem gamblers tend to be the people with very little cash so they will go somewhere to have a drink which is cheap. Naturally they will go to spoons because of the prices but then what? they are faced with excess fruit machines and all that temptation. The local arcade barely has that many there.

[CasinoBeacon]

I hate Wetherspoons pubs with a passion. No atmosphere, usually really crappy service and sub-par food. I'm also an avid smoker and I dislike their anti-smoking stance (before the ban, anyway).

Re. pub fruit machines, they're shite these days. DOND and variants everywhere you look and you're right in pointing out that they can empty a wallet in a single session, even if you have £150 in there to begin with.

Quiz machines ain't much better but at least the amount you're gonna lose is limited.

[vinylweatherman]

Hey guys just something im wondering. Do many people here in the UK still play fruit machines?

Seems to me that the whole fruit machine setup in the UK is nothing but a greedy shambles nowadays.

The worst culprits are wetherspoons pubs.

Its no longer the days where you have a bit of extra change from a pint, play a machine and walk away a few quid up. The machines trick you into playing, give false senses of security and eat your wallet like you are nothing.

It really goes against anything the spoons name once was renown for.

It was the place to go for proper beer. Now half the beers have not conditioned correctly and taste a bit odd, the staff serving times are just ridiculous and worse still is the amount of £70 jackpot fruit machines lurking round every single corner just waiting for you to crack and put hard earned cash into.

Our local spoons now has 7 fruit machines.

The machines generally are tight as hell with just a 70% payout and often £15+ needed for a single board.

Its 1 thing being in control and not playing them but too often you see in front of you someone getting extremely lucky and putting a few quid in and hitting jackpot which makes it even more tempting to play some of them.

Can say recently I was ripped off by machines there. In my last 4 visits I have lost in excess of £600 on their machines.


For example problem gamblers tend to be the people with very little cash so they will go somewhere to have a drink which is cheap. Naturally they will go to spoons because of the prices but then what? they are faced with excess fruit machines and all that temptation. The local arcade barely has that many there.

What have you been smokin'

Seeing someone hit the jackpot tells me NOT to play it

I want to see someone being spectacularly UNLUCKY, and dropping their entire wallet into it. THAT would be the machine to go and play when they leave

They are nothing like they used to be anyway.

For me, everything went downhill in 1996, when after strict controls on stake and jackpots, they allowed 25p and then 30p stakes, followed by 50p and £1, and jackpots of £15, £25, £35 and now £70.

There has been a slight improvement, as games now allow players to select their own stake from 25p, 50p and £1. The problem with this is that the machines sometimes claim that you get "+6%" on the RTP if you select a higher stake, and others give you "enhanced boards" for higher stakes.

"enhanced boards" are bogus in any case, since you are paying up to 4x to get it.

I have even seen machines that have another trick to speed up the wallet emptying. This is the concept of a pre-gamble as to whether you even get to SPIN for your stake. If you play the game on "basic" where you get a spin every time, and then at the two "enhanced" levels where you get a spin 50% of the time and 25% of the time, but with enhanced wins, you will see that the spins are RIGGED to counter what you think would be the advantage of these enhancements.

One of these is "double value of trail numbers" and "4x trail numbers". You will quickly notice that the ONLy difference is that on "double numbers" you will get a "2" which is doubled to "4", whereas on "standard" you will just get a "4" straight off. With "4x numbers" you just get "1" multipled 4x to give "4" when the machine wants to give it.

The only advantage is for the operator, as playing the enhanced chance variants eats your money 2x and 4x as fast as "standard".

Another trick is that on a £1 stake you will not be happy with wins of £4, but will press on for more, whereas if you hit £4 from a 25p stake, you are more likely to consider it worth taking.

I have played a few of these machines on the 25p stake, rather than the so called "better RTP" £1, and have won MORE this way, mostly because I tend to take the more modest wins, rather than press on for a worthwhile multiple of my stake.


If you are after trying your luck with the change from a pint. Drop the stake right down as far as it will go, and hope to hit a couple of boards. Then take anything over £2, remembering that most machines round UP to the nearest £1, so a £2.20 prize is actually £3 already, and is not worth gambling up to £3, which the machine will allow you to do.

The games rarely "streak" now because of the £70 jackpot, so there is less incentive to "chase" or "force" the game.

[Flyer187]

In city centres, particular where I work, the Wetherspoons are full of fruity players who spawn camp them for hours on end.

I've come to learn that they aren't waiting for a big win anymore, in terms of how they used to force them previously (Mega Streaks), but are now just looking to double their wager every hour (£20-£40 in, £40-£80 out every hour).

The game has changed lol

[vinylweatherman]

In city centres, particular where I work, the Wetherspoons are full of fruity players who spawn camp them for hours on end.

I've come to learn that they aren't waiting for a big win anymore, in terms of how they used to force them previously (Mega Streaks), but are now just looking to double their wager every hour (£20-£40 in, £40-£80 out every hour).

The game has changed lol

That's what I was thinking. It seems that if someone tries to force a big win when it isn't ready, they don't get far, but if you come along and just try to take a bit back, say double £20 to £40, you can do this by taking a run of short wins when it is giving plenty of boards.

I have tried this, and it often works, but I have recently found machines where all the value has been sucked out, but have not seen it done. I tend to play on the motorway services, rather than pubs, as they are not so easy to get at by the majority of "pro" players, young, out of work, and NOT in possession of their own transport. Many at the services used to rely on either sharing a car with a "gang" of such players, or working alone (like me), but having to hitch hike to the next venue.

Having a car gives a player full control of when & where they play, and can also return to a prospect some hours later without having an argument with the others. Also, if you are working with others in a loose alliance, you find they all play against each other, and none of them comes out ahead. They are also more obvious when "spawn camped" at a particular venue, warning most other players away.

Online casinos have made many players move away from pubs, arcades, and services. When I have ventured back, the places are now "dead", whereas in the 1990's you would often bump into the "regulars".

The most recent changes may have slightly reversed the decline, as now you can vary your stake between 25p and £1, whereas before the operator set the stake, and often it was only a choice between 50p and £1, or £1- take it or leave it. The RTP is much the same as before, between 70% and 78%, with 72% to 74% being the most common. Most of the streaks have gone too, as instead you just get a single £70 jackpot as your "streak", which is not as interesting as 5 minutes worth of the machine "going mental" and chucking out wins almost every spin.

[Flyer187]

The economic conditions have played a big role in the decline too, people don't have the disposable income they did 15/20 years ago (my heyday of fruities was in the days when some great games came out like Roller Coaster).

[KasinoKing]

The most recent changes may have slightly reversed the decline, as now you can vary your stake between 25p and £1, whereas before the operator set the stake, and often it was only a choice between 50p and £1, or £1- take it or leave it. The RTP is much the same as before, between 70% and 78%, with 72% to 74% being the most common. Most of the streaks have gone too, as instead you just get a single £70 jackpot as your "streak", which is not as interesting as 5 minutes worth of the machine "going mental" and chucking out wins almost every spin.

I'm glad to hear that from an expert - I was wondering if it's just me!

There's a gastro-pub I visit about once a week just to have a go on their fruity (Can't remember the name, but it's just yet another DOND clone). I've caught it a little too early, but still managed to get it to pop twice recently, but both Mega-Streaks only paid a small amount over the £70.
I noticed it has a 25p option too, but surely everyone know that just means 4 times more empty spins than when playing £1?
I always play max bet.

KK

[Flyer187]

Take It or Leave It by any chance KK?

[Johnny's Arcade]

Pubs are closing down right left an centre. No one seems to play the pub machines any more. ALL the arcades I have seen recently are also dead. Very sad.

[immortality]

Pubs are closing down right left an centre. No one seems to play the pub machines any more. ALL the arcades I have seen recently are also dead. Very sad.

It's the same here, you maybe get aroung 8-9 people going into to my local casino(and bingo,there are alot of machines there too fruit machines included)during the day, people around here cannot afford to play much anymore, as we have the highest unemployment figures in the whole of the UK, no work=no money