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

 

[me_and_ed]

I wish I understood how to properly play these games (online, no fruities in Canada), I get killed always.

 

[baldidiot]

You know... I don't even remember the last time I was in a pub that had a fruity. Admittedly I don't really like wetherspoons & oneils so haven't been to one of those in a long time but none of the other pubs we go to in london have them any more - esp the independents and sam smiths.

 

[09237653]

Interesting programme about the state of UK gambling here (possibily only watchable by UK players as its BBC iplayer)

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[baldidiot]

Thanks, that was interesting. A very good point was made early on about allowing children to play the low stakes fruit machines at beach-side arcades -that was also my first introduction to gambling. It does seem a bit strange and not really common-sense.

Also interesting (for those that don't want to, or cant, watch the whole thing) was the research showing the difference in brain activity between problem gamblers and non-problem gamblers.

 

[Jasminebed]

Found a Youtube of same:

 

[Simmo!]

Thanks, that was interesting. A very good point was made early on about allowing children to play the low stakes fruit machines at beach-side arcades -that was also my first introduction to gambling. It does seem a bit strange and not really common-sense.

Also interesting (for those that don't want to, or cant, watch the whole thing) was the research showing the difference in brain activity between problem gamblers and non-problem gamblers.

Yes it started like it was going to be another "look how bad gambling is" thing while just selecting a few extreme cases but the programme got better and better, more interesting and eye opening. Agree that research on "near miss" was fascinating.

PS. Spooky at the beginning. I turned off a CD to watch that and the first track on the documentary was also on the CD I was listening to. I was trying to work out how my amp could be playing both at the same time LOL.

 

[LaHutti]

Very interesting video...thanks for posting that.

Found a Youtube of same:

 

[vinylweatherman]

Thanks, that was interesting. A very good point was made early on about allowing children to play the low stakes fruit machines at beach-side arcades -that was also my first introduction to gambling. It does seem a bit strange and not really common-sense.

Also interesting (for those that don't want to, or cant, watch the whole thing) was the research showing the difference in brain activity between problem gamblers and non-problem gamblers.

That's NOW, it was far worse when I was a kid in the 1960's and 1970's. There were NO restrictions at all on who could play "Fruities", whether or not they were at the seaside. I was lucky because there were none where I lived, so I had a week or two per year of access. Kids who lived in bigger towns and the resorts themselves had year round access. I also found that well into the 1990's kids would cycle into the Motorway services via the back roads (staff entrance) and play the onsite machines, which were NOT "low stake", but standard 20p games. Many also had the "streak pot" system, where every now and then a huge run of wins could be gained. This was something to chase after, and encouraged play even after a decent sized win in the hope that the big streak was near. It also drove a fear of leaving a machine in case the next player hit the streak right in front of you (this has happened to me, and I have seen it. I have done it to others, so I suppose it's fair ).

It is only recently that a real tightening has taken place, with strict requirements governing access to high stakes machines no matter where they are sited. It is now only the low stake and low prize machines that can be played by children, and even these are supposed to be policed by the operators to ensure that it is not children coming specifically to play the machines, but rather children with their parents enjoying a day out. Children are supposed to be challenged at seaside resorts if they are seen playing during school hours, and ejected if they are not on holiday or with parents.

Despite this, the bottom line is that children can STILL gamble, and I don't think restricting the stakes or prizes has much effect when it comes to getting the few "problem" personalities hooked from an early age.

There has been significant pressure from parts of the industry to prevent an outright ban on ALL play by under 18's, so the low stakes, low prizes, regime is a compromise. Seaside resorts considered a total ban on children would put them out of business, as not only would children not be spending their parents money on the machines, the parents themselves would not play because they could not take their children along.

Children have never been able to play in the US, but there have been many successful "video arcades" there. Although not gambling, similar problems have arisen there too, with children spending too much money chasing the high scores, and the kudos of being considered a "legend". Video arcades would not be so successful now, because most gaming is done at home on consoles, and for free once the equipment has been bought. UK operators are backed into a corner, and must hang on to the low stakes machines at all costs, else they would have to move to a completely new form of entertainment offering suited to their premises, and outside of their field of expertise. I doubt many have even thought of what they would do if all forms of gambling at any stakes was made 18s and above.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Sorry a bit late to this thread

I'm a part-time semi-pro UK fruit machine (AWP) player, insofar as I make consistent profits on them and have done for years - albeit on a fairly casual basis.

A few key points:

1) UK AWPs are COMPENSATED, that is to say they actively seek out their target percentage and previous play does affect future play, the machine 'knows' what it's done before and also knows how far it wants to let itself be pushed at any given time. They are as far from random slots as you can possibly imagine.

2) They are vulnerable to manipulation/cheats/trickery to a frightening degree. In many cases, if you don't know what the 'shows' are (whether or not to play), and the 'tricks' thereafter (how to get the machine to pay out before it really wants to) - you will lose lose lose and you will lose horribly.

Sometimes these tricks/cheats/rips/traps are the result of coding errors, sometimes they're just outright corrupt and deliberately coded in.

3) There are large numbers of true pro players who will travel hundreds of miles in a day to seek out their preferred machines. If a 'good' machine is covered by a pro or two, no one else will ever get a look in.

There are plenty of videos of me jackpotting/mega streaking AWPs on my YouTube channel, note how the same machines seem to turn up again and again, that's not by coincidence.....

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Here's a £156 megastreak for example, remember that this machine has an RTP of just 76% and is COMPENSATED, so you really, really don't want to be playing this afterwards, or indeed until it's taken over £300 back.

Quite a nice raise for me though

 

[HadEnouth]

Fruit Machines are rigged and this site has alot of good information.

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[vinylweatherman]

Sorry a bit late to this thread

I'm a part-time semi-pro UK fruit machine (AWP) player, insofar as I make consistent profits on them and have done for years - albeit on a fairly casual basis.

A few key points:

1) UK AWPs are COMPENSATED, that is to say they actively seek out their target percentage and previous play does affect future play, the machine 'knows' what it's done before and also knows how far it wants to let itself be pushed at any given time. They are as far from random slots as you can possibly imagine.

2) They are vulnerable to manipulation/cheats/trickery to a frightening degree. In many cases, if you don't know what the 'shows' are (whether or not to play), and the 'tricks' thereafter (how to get the machine to pay out before it really wants to) - you will lose lose lose and you will lose horribly.

Sometimes these tricks/cheats/rips/traps are the result of coding errors, sometimes they're just outright corrupt and deliberately coded in.

3) There are large numbers of true pro players who will travel hundreds of miles in a day to seek out their preferred machines. If a 'good' machine is covered by a pro or two, no one else will ever get a look in.

There are plenty of videos of me jackpotting/mega streaking AWPs on my YouTube channel, note how the same machines seem to turn up again and again, that's not by coincidence.....

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Here's a £156 megastreak for example, remember that this machine has an RTP of just 76% and is COMPENSATED, so you really, really don't want to be playing this afterwards, or indeed until it's taken over £300 back.

Quite a nice raise for me though



I used to do the motorway networks before I got into the online scene. Things seemed to go downhill around 1996 with the £15 jackpot and 30p stakes. I hardly play at all, and when I have I see "dead" arcades, which means the machines see little action other than from the "pro" players.

I have only ever managed to force DOND to give a single £70 on the streak, and almost all seem to have been "done" before I arrive due to the "shows" they are giving, or not giving. It seems the £70 rarely repeats, and I thought legislation was introduced to cap this at 1x, for a max of £140. Good job the £250 hopper is in more general use now that all machines come with their own note changers.

It seems clear that a general "trick" exists for DOND, but it seems to have gone the way of the old Pie Factory trick, everybody knows it, and they all get hammered.

The coding cheats seem to be available for a price, but if someone is willing to sell, not sure I want to be buying at that stage in it's life, as operators tend to "chip" machines much sooner after a problem emerges. In the old days, such tricks could survive for months. It seems the internet made life much tougher, and machine operators got to hear about the tricks sooner, without having to spot them being done on site.

The path to real gains seems to be getting in early, or even being the one to discover the trick.

I have often thought about doing another big tour of the services, but with it being so easy to travel the cyber highway and visit so many "services" whilst still in my pyjamas, and only feet from my bed, I just haven't got around to it.

I DID discover a trick for a few early Mazooma games, but it was more about following the "shows" and knowing what to do rather than making the machine pay "too much". I discovered that forcing out the jackpot also set off the streak pot, and it was far from obvious as it often did so via a "silent invincible" board following the forced jackpot, and where many players might have just taken the jackpot and walked. This "silent invincible" had to be played a certain way, as it was not a true invincible, and you could lose and kill the streak (or delay it) if you got it wrong. I never saw any one else doing them, pro or otherwise.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Fruit Machines are rigged and this site has alot of good information.

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I was the other half of the Fairplay campaign

Stu Campbell did the UK side of things, I pursued it here on the Isle of Man. (It's pretty obvious who I am if you read around the Fairplay site a bit.)

The interesting thing about AWPs is that once you understand how they cheat, they can become quite profitable.

The rigged high/lows for example, where the machine chooses the result AFTER you gamble higher or lower, can be turned against the machines with somewhat surprising results in certain situations, even today......

 

[vinylweatherman]

I was the other half of the Fairplay campaign

Stu Campbell did the UK side of things, I pursued it here on the Isle of Man. (It's pretty obvious who I am if you read around the Fairplay site a bit.)

The interesting thing about AWPs is that once you understand how they cheat, they can become quite profitable.

The rigged high/lows for example, where the machine chooses the result AFTER you gamble higher or lower, can be turned against the machines with somewhat surprising results in certain situations, even today......

Not necessarily good ones.


I have found a few machines that simply freeze once they have been tricked into giving a guaranteed jackpot or streak If you unfreeze them in the style of "The IT crowd", you lose the win.

There was a time when The IT Crowd could have made a fortune, but the item in question was usually inacessible due to the "security metal jacket" worn by many machines at the services, and trying it in a pub was far too risky because the landlord would be watching.

I now see notices reminding us that "Refill keys are illegal", and possession of one can get you arrested. I am sure 99% of players will say "WTF is a Refill Key", and the remaining 1% will say "sure, stand out like a sore thumb so that everyone knows what you are up to, and management kick you out mid force".


I see from the videos that arcades are VERY sensitive about filming, even though it has nothing to do with "privacy rules" if you only film your own machine.

What's wrong with a covert camera, they will never even know you are filming that streak, and the quality is just as good as a phone, if not better.

You may have better luck on a motorway services here on the mainland, as far as the duty staff are concerned "the machines are nothing to do with us". You might have to sweet talk the attendant though, but many services only use CCTV monitored from the shop, and are only concerned with keeping the under 18's out by triggering a recorded warning.

Where particular games get hammered, services well away from bigger towns and cities are the best bet, particularly the lakes

 

[CasinoBeacon]

Fruit Machines are rigged and this site has alot of good information.[/URL]

I took a quick look. The latest 'news' item was dated 31 March 2004.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

I took a quick look. The latest 'news' item was dated 31 March 2004.

The behaviour of UK AWPs and club machines, (anything that's compensated, basically), is still exactly the same as it was back in 2004.

The hi/lo gambles are still rigged, the machine still decides what number it's going to spin in AFTER you've made your decision. There are still blocks with unwinnable gambles, if anything, they're worse than they ever were as the jackpot on UK AWPs is now £70 with a legal maximum of two repeats (hence an effective £210 jackpot) - back when we did Fairplay the jackpot was £25 and the maximum streak was in the order of £100.

One change the Fairplay campaign did achieve, and one that remains to this day, is that all UK AWPs have to have a sign on them that says, 'This machine is compensated and may at times offer the player a choice where he has no chance of success.'

 

[vinylweatherman]

The behaviour of UK AWPs and club machines, (anything that's compensated, basically), is still exactly the same as it was back in 2004.

The hi/lo gambles are still rigged, the machine still decides what number it's going to spin in AFTER you've made your decision. There are still blocks with unwinnable gambles, if anything, they're worse than they ever were as the jackpot on UK AWPs is now £70 with a legal maximum of two repeats (hence an effective £210 jackpot) - back when we did Fairplay the jackpot was £25 and the maximum streak was in the order of £100.

One change the Fairplay campaign did achieve, and one that remains to this day, is that all UK AWPs have to have a sign on them that says, 'This machine is compensated and may at times offer the player a choice where he has no chance of success.'

I thought it was 2 jackpots, not a jackpot + 2 repeats. This explains your £156 streak

The problem now is that the pro player needs far deeper reserves for a "force" than they did with the £25 jackpots. There is also a choice of stakes between 25p and £1. I see this as useful if you want to kill time on one machine whilst waiting for others to get a bit more play before going after them. Play slowly at 25p whilst checking out the others. I used to park my arse in the cafe with a coffee and something to read, but at a table with the best view I could find of the machines. Enforcement of the parking at services is far more aggressive because it is no longer done by the staff, but a third party that has an interest in charging as much as they can to make a profit. Some are even camera enforced, not even having an attendant to politely knock on the car window to remind you the time was almost up, nor one that would rarely be around off peak as the cost of employing one was more than the revenue that could be raised.

This limits single sessions to 2 hours or less, or pay £10 for the car park. Rarely have I seen offerings worth the tenner and 24 hour stakeout tactic.

Arcades are not much good, I kept getting thrown out

 

[ChopleyIOM]

There's really no need to monitor a lot of machines, as quite a few have pretty clear tells and shows.

Also, your analysis of how the different stakes work is a bit off.

Some machines maintain one overall target percentage across all stakes, whereas some split them across one or more of the stakes, and some even compensate play at one stake from play at another stake. (So for example, cautious 'time wasting' play on 25p stake could just be enriching the £1 stake.)

There's a whole family of current AWPs where the 25p and 50p stakes are linked, and the £1 stake is maintained separately. In addition to this, the machine maintains an invisible (to the player) streak pot behind the scenes, which is slowly added to over time from all stakes and can't be forced. (These machines also 'number' very clearly like the old JPMs used to do ages ago.)

This means it's possible (sometimes!) to:

1) Take a £70 jackpot on 50p stake
2) Take another £70 jackpot on £1 stake
3) Get lucky with the invincible pot and take £140 out of that too

It's happened to me a couple of times.

 

[vinylweatherman]

There's really no need to monitor a lot of machines, as quite a few have pretty clear tells and shows.

Also, your analysis of how the different stakes work is a bit off.

Some machines maintain one overall target percentage across all stakes, whereas some split them across one or more of the stakes, and some even compensate play at one stake from play at another stake. (So for example, cautious 'time wasting' play on 25p stake could just be enriching the £1 stake.)

There's a whole family of current AWPs where the 25p and 50p stakes are linked, and the £1 stake is maintained separately. In addition to this, the machine maintains an invisible (to the player) streak pot behind the scenes, which is slowly added to over time from all stakes and can't be forced. (These machines also 'number' very clearly like the old JPMs used to do ages ago.)

This means it's possible (sometimes!) to:

1) Take a £70 jackpot on 50p stake
2) Take another £70 jackpot on £1 stake
3) Get lucky with the invincible pot and take £140 out of that too

It's happened to me a couple of times.

Fixed stake was much simpler.

After my experiences from 1996 to around 2004 I thought the "good old days" were over, and so I have never really gone back to study the newer £35 and £70 jackpot machines.

I have always known that some machines cannot be forced, whereas with others it is easy and progress pretty obvious. I thought the higher stakes merely shortened the length of time needed for forcing, and didn't really think about the possibilty of cleaning up on 50p, and then reforcing at £1 for another pot.

It seems many places ONLY have the different variants of DOND, with little else other than the £500 machines. I also noticed on those rare short trips that almost every DOND was almost completely dead, and that the force was pretty easy, but only gave a flat £70 on the few occasions I tried it.

Interestingly, when seeing a machine that was last played at £1, and playing a bit at 25p, I got a nice run at first before it died. Maybe this was £1 play enriching 25p play

My main worry now is that whilst going around checking out the fruities, I will miss out on something FAR better online, such as a 10K streak off a £5 stake, which makes £500 off £2 and £210 off £1 look pretty mean.

Maybe G4 will allow me to have my cake and eat it

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Doing ridiculously well out of the AWPs at the moment, I pretty much have my own town locked down and generally get out once or twice a week to take the value out of the machines in the pubs here. (Only takes an hour or two, and the local ale is very pleasant, so it's not really a chore.) There is one other player around who knows what he's doing as evidenced by the state he's left a couple of machines in, but generally speaking it's all good.

It was the works do out in Douglas on Friday (home of Microgaming Headquarters!), which presented a fresh territory to me as we went on the compulsory pub crawl.

By the end of the day I'd comfortably paid for all my food, drinks, taxi home, and still had more money in my pockets than I'd gone out with.

I'd like to take the credit for working the buggers out for myself but I can't. There's a dude in the UK who uses AWPs as a second income and is happy so share what he knows with me (since we live hundreds of miles apart there's little risk of us stepping on each other's toes I guess ).

It's a breathtaking combination of what is clearly coding incompetence in some cases, but equally clearly just coded-in corruption in other cases.

Not all machines are 'doable' of course, but in reality it only takes a handful in an area to make it a worthwhile venture. Best thing with a lot of the machines is that the company behind them has stopped making traditional reel-based AWPs, so they'll never, ever, get rechipped.

 

[dunover]

Doing ridiculously well out of the AWPs at the moment, I pretty much have my own town locked down and generally get out once or twice a week to take the value out of the machines in the pubs here. (Only takes an hour or two, and the local ale is very pleasant, so it's not really a chore.) There is one other player around who knows what he's doing as evidenced by the state he's left a couple of machines in, but generally speaking it's all good.

It was the works do out in Douglas on Friday (home of Microgaming Headquarters!), which presented a fresh territory to me as we went on the compulsory pub crawl.

By the end of the day I'd comfortably paid for all my food, drinks, taxi home, and still had more money in my pockets than I'd gone out with.

I'd like to take the credit for working the buggers out for myself but I can't. There's a dude in the UK who uses AWPs as a second income and is happy so share what he knows with me (since we live hundreds of miles apart there's little risk of us stepping on each other's toes I guess ).

It's a breathtaking combination of what is clearly coding incompetence in some cases, but equally clearly just coded-in corruption in other cases.

Not all machines are 'doable' of course, but in reality it only takes a handful in an area to make it a worthwhile venture. Best thing with a lot of the machines is that the company behind them has stopped making traditional reel-based AWPs, so they'll never, ever, get rechipped.

Crikey! An old thread dug up from the archives. I remember the Fairplay Campaign and didn't know Chopley was involved. So this old thread has been a revelation. The irony here is that Chopley was campaigning against fixed characteristics of slots of the AWP variety which if he had succeeded would now have killed his golden goose. Funny how things turn out. Many players railed against the Fairplay campaign fearing that if it succeeded we could end up with just random games, N. American style.
Was in a large Weatherspoons last night. 5 AWP's. In one hour, I saw not a coin go into them, no-one watching them and them being used to rest against. Funny how things have changed. On the way there to meet friends, I passed an amusement arcade. I haven't been in one for over 5 years. Empty, the cashier drinking coffee with a friend, looking bored witless. How things have changed.
I know who Chopley really is but have never met him AFAIK, merely by personal messages, but he was 'a name' a few years back that cropped up frequently on the web/fruity scene. I know who VWM is and have seen him but don't believe he would know me. It's years since I smashed an AWP up or poured acetone into one, and all the better for it.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Crikey! An old thread dug up from the archives. I remember the Fairplay Campaign and didn't know Chopley was involved. So this old thread has been a revelation. The irony here is that Chopley was campaigning against fixed characteristics of slots of the AWP variety which if he had succeeded would now have killed his golden goose.

If you can't beat 'em join 'em and all that

 

[dunover]

If you can't beat 'em join 'em and all that

Evidently.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

This is what a 'smashed' UK AWP can do after it's been, well, smashed.

This is on £1 play with a £70 jackpot (so just 70x stake, although it is possible to play it at 25p or 50p per play as well), it costs £73 to get the smallest win on the paytable, and it lost on the first gamble..... (Imagine 73 consecutive losing spins on a random slot.....)

I had a guy ask me in one the local pubs the other week what the 'trick' was on the machine I was playing, as he observed, no one apart from me ever takes the jackpot out of it.

The best advice I could give him was 'Don't play this machine mate'.

 

[dunover]

This is what a 'smashed' UK AWP can do after it's been, well, smashed.

This is on £1 play with a £70 jackpot (so just 70x stake, although it is possible to play it at 25p or 50p per play as well), it costs £73 to get the smallest win on the paytable, and it lost on the first gamble..... (Imagine 73 consecutive losing spins on a random slot.....)

I had a guy ask me in one the local pubs the other week what the 'trick' was on the machine I was playing, as he observed, no one apart from me ever takes the jackpot out of it.

The best advice I could give him was 'Don't play this machine mate'.



This explains the dearth of players I mentioned in W'spoons last night. Where's the enjoyment in that? 70 is one week's unemployment benefit in the UK. I know he had won as there were coins in the tray even after the 73 had gone. This video demonstrates the utter stupidity of playing AWP's for the majority of people. Thing is, the less people who play them, the slower the turnaround for those whom make a regular few quid from them.
One day we'll look back on this craziness and wonder how it came about, and was ever allowed to continue so long.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Crikey! An old thread dug up from the archives. I remember the Fairplay Campaign and didn't know Chopley was involved. So this old thread has been a revelation. The irony here is that Chopley was campaigning against fixed characteristics of slots of the AWP variety which if he had succeeded would now have killed his golden goose. Funny how things turn out. Many players railed against the Fairplay campaign fearing that if it succeeded we could end up with just random games, N. American style.
Was in a large Weatherspoons last night. 5 AWP's. In one hour, I saw not a coin go into them, no-one watching them and them being used to rest against. Funny how things have changed. On the way there to meet friends, I passed an amusement arcade. I haven't been in one for over 5 years. Empty, the cashier drinking coffee with a friend, looking bored witless. How things have changed.
I know who Chopley really is but have never met him AFAIK, merely by personal messages, but he was 'a name' a few years back that cropped up frequently on the web/fruity scene. I know who VWM is and have seen him but don't believe he would know me. It's years since I smashed an AWP up or poured acetone into one, and all the better for it.

Where did you see me? and when?

 

[ChopleyIOM]

This explains the dearth of players I mentioned in W'spoons last night. Where's the enjoyment in that? 70 is one week's unemployment benefit in the UK. I know he had won as there were coins in the tray even after the 73 had gone.

This is on his own machine, the guy owns what is basically his own personal arcade in his gamesroom. A lot of the AWPs in there are genuinely for amusement (classics from the 80s and 90s), but he's not averse to buying a modern AWP to completely master it, get out in the pubs to smash the same machine to pieces, and sell his own on when he's done with it. (It also helps that for each 'base machine' there will usually be several clones of it, with just the name, theme, artwork and sounds changed, the machine and code itself is identical.)

AWPs are definitely in decline though, although the jackpots go up to £100 next month......

 

[vinylweatherman]

This is on his own machine, the guy owns what is basically his own personal arcade in his gamesroom. A lot of the AWPs in there are genuinely for amusement (classics from the 80s and 90s), but he's not averse to buying a modern AWP to completely master it, get out in the pubs to smash the same machine to pieces, and sell his own on when he's done with it. (It also helps that for each 'base machine' there will usually be several clones of it, with just the name, theme, artwork and sounds changed, the machine and code itself is identical.)

AWPs are definitely in decline though, although the jackpots go up to £100 next month......

That's a good way to research methods and emptiers. It can cost a fortune otherwise, but in most cases it was knowing the right people that got you the emptiers whilst they still worked. Finding one yourself was a great coup if you were the first to discover it, and could control the information. I tended to befriend other pro players, and sometimes I was given information. Not all of it was good though, plenty of tin foil hat wearers offering information that didn't stand up to rigorous trials. I also tried to piece together what was going on by playing nearby machines and taking a sly glance or two to my left or right. Some players would not carry on if anyone was playing too close to them, and it was often obvious that they were stalling in the hope that you would go away and let them empty in private.

My early success was based not on emptiers, but on mastering the old "skill climb" features, which allowed me to drive the machine over RTP such that no one else really had a chance on the skills, and then waiting for the RTP to lower such that the skills became easier again. I then noticed a few obvious precursor patterns to the streaks, which along with a check for "backing" when inserting coins helped me decide whether or not to force.

The end of my "golden era" was when these skill climbs became "rigged", but easy(ish) for all, followed by the end of the streak precursor patterns that resulted from the much higher jackpots in terms of multiple of stake.

The tricks and emptiers are still around, but who fills the machines up again? I too have noticed hours go by without a single coin going in a game, especially in pubs. It's not so bad in the services, but even there I don't see crowded gamezones all feeding machines like I saw in the 1990's.

I did think of buying a few machines to research play, but I don't have the room to have more than half a dozen at most, and the ones that are best researched are the new releases, and they are not cheap!


It's a shame they don't release copies for free online play as a promotional tool, as this would be another way to research the games. It IS possible to research play all the MGS AWP offerings this way

 

[dunover]

This is on his own machine, the guy owns what is basically his own personal arcade in his gamesroom. A lot of the AWPs in there are genuinely for amusement (classics from the 80s and 90s), but he's not averse to buying a modern AWP to completely master it, get out in the pubs to smash the same machine to pieces, and sell his own on when he's done with it. (It also helps that for each 'base machine' there will usually be several clones of it, with just the name, theme, artwork and sounds changed, the machine and code itself is identical.)

AWPs are definitely in decline though, although the jackpots go up to £100 next month......

.....and exponentially the play generally will decrease in turn. As it has done since the 1996 stake rises began the trend as VWM says.

 

[dunover]

Where did you see me? and when?

Sir Ben Ham. Chieveley Services. Early noughties.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Sir Ben Ham. Chieveley Services. Early noughties.

I do not get the Sir Ben Ham reference

Although I did occasionally play at Chieveley, I tended to focus more on the M1 and M6, and the main M4 services.

I would almost always have been carrying a plastic carrier bag, and would always have a car. The car gave me an advantage as it seems many regular faces I saw relied on getting lifts, or were locals who came in from a nearby town. I could gain information from the South, and be using it at Southwaite and onward into Scotland in a couple of days.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Well if they will keep bringing these supremely doable machines over to the Isle of Man, I'll keep having my free money out of them

Easy £100 raise on this one, only had to put a single credit in to see if it was in a doable state or not.

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