Does what it says on the tin.
A very good video where waffleworth wasn't just waffle, full of salient points with much to absorb.
Going backwards here in order of topics, the £300 loss you took that time actually perturbed me on your behalf. Done it myself many a time but not since turn of the century and I never forgot the hollow feeling in my gut afterwards. The sense of being totally ripped off for a few hours' distraction, escapism and the feelings of gullibility and stupidity that followed. The opportunity cost in time and cash best sums it up.
Then the guilt at what someone else could have done with that money, someone it could have made a serious difference to. And this is from someone who could afford it on nearly every occasion so I can only guess at the despair of those exercising the same poor judgement as me, but where it had possibly consequences for their larder, valued possessions, mortgage/rent or kids and not forgetting criminal acts arising from addiction.
The economics of these places is not that of say a company selling a viral app for £3 to thousands of people making a little money from many, but making much from the few. Volume isn't coming from the retailer, but the end user. You only need to look at the breakdowns psychologically and financially broken punters have and the fact that only a very small percentage are ever prosecuted or have charges pressed for smashing the machines up. The only exceptions are where staff feel threatened or are assaulted; damage alone is seldom followed up.
That fact alone says much. A broken screen and an engineer visit is a trivial cost when someone is in the process of transferring thousands of pounds worth of their wealth to a company at a cost to them of a few hours of work from minimum wage staff and a kwh of electric. Then their reluctance to see the local papers reporting on a court case where the defendant cites family breakdown, financial destitution and stress because every 50 yards he walks there's effectively a casino with carefully structured games where you rapidly reach a point of irrevocable loss each session due to the pernicious maths involved. He has become an addict, a victim and reached breaking point.
That contrasts though with the carefully contrived image of fun, winning, free coffee and snacks that these premises purvey - I mean, how can this high street emporium of lights and sounds do that to someone? These are places of joy right? Let's agree to the police giving him a caution and keep it out of the realm of the court reporters....
I've been over the crass stupidity of the UK allowing minors of 10+ to play AWPs altogether, before. Even the grabbers of soft toys are gambling machines with a 'firm grab' once enough money has been lost in them!
Finally in my vinylweatherman-esque post, these random 90-92% multi-game cabinets. I have some big doubts about these things. For me, the maths of a random game paying a maximum (rarely) of 250x bet has resulted in a toxic, pernicious game structure. I carefully chose the word 'pernicious' here because many moons ago
@ChopleyIOM used it very appropriately when me and him plus a few others were noticing how quickly Netent slots got you to a point where balance recovery was near-impossible. This we established was likely due to the maths of a low-volatility slot with relatively low top wins and line pays. You would rack up the cost of that 4% house edge very quickly with a deleterious effect on your bankroll that would never be alleviated by a big win or sequence of medium-scale hits.
Well, watching those cabinet games' performance closely in his videos I believe 'Netent variance' has nothing on the way they play. These games seem to have found something hitherto I believed to be mathematically impossible: a way to somehow offer low line pays, strings of dead spins, poor features, a low maximum win yet somehow tied into short-term RTP deviation hitherto unseen outside the sphere of high-volatility games.
Choppers, if you never slip a note into one of these disgusting, scamming, diabolical pieces of sheer height ever again, you had a very good day when you made your mind up not to do so.
