Those are the two!! - Amazing the things I forgot about for machines I spent so long on!
Thought of another short one for tonight...
During our Barcrest £15 JP's 'era (not long before they were upped to £25) we were either emptying or C/L a machine called 'Lotta Luck'
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These were that popular they were as common as maybe 1 in 5 pubs, we developed a strategy called 'checking' (lot of thought went into that one
) where my gaming buddy, the driver or I would go into the pubs in the area to see if the machine was there, thinking back, also made up all sorts of BS for the benefit of the bar staff etc.
If the machine was there a trip to the loo for a quick text or 'shall we have a drink after all' etc etc.
From this strategy we then built up 'routes' which we'd do a different one each day but only visit each individual route maybe once a week or once a fortnight depending on the amount of machines in that town/city. Closer to home ones also got 'bashed' more often.
One Sunday lunch we were in Telford in a pub call the Champion Jockey (I think!) walked in, nice and quiet, only a young girl serving, 2-3 punters at bar, perfect scenario for a hassle free raise.
I was into the Lotta Luck for about £20 (usually cost about £25 on average to get it flying for a return of anything between £80 and £125 (max hopper balance)) *not counting IOU's
Suddenly I hear this stern voice 'OI - Leave some in for my customers this week will ya!' turning around to see the stockiest barman I'd ever laid eyes on!
Feeling brave I replied 'We are your customers' as I held up my pint, this was met with a grunt and he walked off, I then turned my attention back to the machine.
After about 10 minutes, I was read to 'withdraw' from my machine which was at bursting point, my mate then returned from loo or fag (cant recall) and basically said, 'Get what you can, we got to get out of here'
Unknown to me the bar manager / gaffer had been 'rounding up the lads' who were now all glaring at me sat with beers at the bar.
Panicky and loss of concentration I accidentally took a JP which I did not want (needed centre streak) this then repeated (which kills machine quick but got me into small profit but stopped chance of an 'empty')
Grabbing about £35 in coins I dropped em in my pocket and we headed for the door (driver had slipped out and headed for car) Then sheer panic stepped in as these locals stood to follow us!!
I have never been so grateful for the gaffer also calling the Police who were outside waiting. They did a search of our persons in the car park, obviously revealing nothing as we did not rely on gadgets etc and after they were 'content' sent us on our way and help avoid a potential 'kicking'
Needless to say that pub was straight off our list and at that point we called it a day and got tanked up instead!