Rising Jackpots

[DAD]

Can anyone tell me why fruit machine manufacturers think that £100/£500 Jackpots in a High St or Seaside Arcade is what punters want?

Many years ago during my time as a complete addict, arcades used to be packed out and on occasion people would be queuing up to play a particular machine.  The Jackpot back then was £1.

Nowadays on the very rare occasion I go in to an arcade I'm often the only person in there, maybe one or two others on a good day.   How anyone these days can afford to gamble is beyond me as you can do a months wages in a matter of minutes.  At least it took a good few hours to do my weeks wages back in the old days lol

Surely an operator would prefer 10 people playing a £10JP machine than 1 player playing one at £100!  Similar maths can be applied to other stakes and I'm sure the more people you have in an arcade the more money you make rather than fleecing one person for all they have and making their lives a complete misery.

Obviously the industry spends millions on making sure that the way they operate makes the maximum profit for them but I can't help feeling that they're shooting themselves in the foot and should be trying to attract the 'casual' player back into the arcades rather than concentrating on what I'd call the high rollers who before very long will be drained dry and putting the operators out of business.  In fact this is happening already as every day arcades are closing all over the country.

I say bring back lower Jackpots!!

What do you think?

[re-emulated]

It seems purely a greed thing.  How much can we make per minute per unit, it's a business after all.   

I played extensively from mid to late 80s.  I'm glad I was around when fruit machines where both original and playable with many different manufacturers releasing decent playable machines.  I'd love to go back to the 6 token era.

Are seaside arcades fun in this day and age?   Like you said arcades with 500 units, I definitely wouldn't call them entertaining, in fact they are extremely dangerous to problem gamblers.  We recently went to Skegness and I was playing some low stake (25p) Astra machine, there was a middle aged woman playing a Rainbow Riches, she got the Silver pot, I politely congratulated her and she told me she'd been playing it over the  last few days and had spent 3 grand on it.     

I don't think these machines should be in arcades at all, sure I'm ok having a 20 pound punt now and again but I've seen people playing these for hours on end chasing losses on a so called random machine.

J

[hit the six]

Never go near the arcades myself,  must be 5 years since i did,  but i concur that it is all about greed,
the manus don't care what the average punter wants.

an amusement arcade " should" be for amusement, and lower jackpot machines and not those 500s they belong in a casino. or a bonfire

my local arcade    which was buzzing (like most from that decade) from mid 80's till  about 2001   mostly were  £2 or  £4.80 jackpots, and real fun to play, is up for sale ( no chance of that getting sold) £265,000.

hardly anyone goes in there now, as people are fed up as it's mostly 500's and  party times/golden x machines.


one of my mates still goes in, and he was asking the owner if business was bad,
the owner replied " yeah it is i hate the sound of someone winning 500 quid"  i don't have much profit if that happens on a regular basis"

things will never be the same and more and more arcades will be closing.

on the other hand   mr p seems to be quite well with his arcades, and we know why that is.  FUN FUN FUN    not greed.

[spa]

For me 50p/£35 worked and £1/£70 worked. Both playing exactly the same with the same ratio.

Now £1/£100 makes it just that little bit harder to get a jackpot or more importantly, longer for the machine to recover once it has paid one.

Playing for fun it's 30p/£15 all day for me.

[re-emulated]

The golden years for me was 20p 4.80 jackpot era.  I spent a lot of time in seaside arcades around this time and if you had a bit of discipline you could really make a lot of money.  It wasn't only that though, the machines were extremely playable even at 20p 6 tokens.  The dynamics changed once the all cash machines started to come out. 

J

[Slasher]

The bookies have ruined it with their fobt bollocks really as the pub sector now needs to compete with the 500 jackpot games. If you're an average beer change punter and you see three machines side by side, ones 5 quid jackpot 10p play, ones 25 jackpot 25/30p or 50p play and ones 100 jackpot at 25p or 50p or £1 play, chances are you'll go for the one with the bigger jackpot as it looks more appealing. If there's 25 pound jackpot machines in pubs and you fancy a punt then why not pop in the bookies where sharking is irrelevant and there's a chance to hit 500 which is much higher?

While I agree, 100 really is too high for pubs, it's not just the operators at fault

[GreyNight]

I used to play machines in pubs a lot in mid 80's, win enough for chips and a pint and I was happy.
If I still played today, I'd lose my 60 odd quid a week for caring for my disabled wife, before I got 2 cherries up.
Perhaps I should have rephrased that last bit, oh well.

[nails]

just been reading a few of the replies, the answer is this -

it all boils down to the un-fair playing field left by the betting shops. The fact that betting has to be the primarly source of income seems to be swept under the carpet to the tune of £650 million per year in tax to the government. to even things out, BACTA (absolute waste of time, personal time to be a member, and money IMHO) pushed to get higher jackpots in a bid to see a fairer playing field.

manufacturers can only produce a jackpot that has been agreed by parliament, they have no say in this. If £100 jackpot is in force, they wont produce a £25 machine etc etc.

To make things worse, one of the idea to increase profits was the idea of either raising the jackpot to £1000, or include repeats!!  buddylove would have a field day.



Pubs these days are the worst places to play machines. all new nice and shiny £100 jackpot deal or no deals that you little or no chance or actually getting a jackpot. once in a while they produce a machine that's actually hard coded to give jackpots, but the rest - im afraid not. on top of this hard to reach goal, the percentages of around 78% doesn't help either. stay away if you ask me.

Most AGC's to have good payouts and also include a variety of older machines with £25 and £35 jackpots.


it WILL get worse, one day it will be £150 or £200 jackpots (or something stupid like £135 jackpot like the ridiculous £4.80 jackpot.) and all the time the £650 million in tax in creamed off, why the hell should the limit the spin amount.

[REEL WORLD SLOTS]

I THINK BETWEEN £4 AND £25 IS BEST FOR EVERYONE TO HAVE FUN , DUMB ARSE MANUFACTURERS

[vectra666]

First time I've read/found this topic.

But I was am still am a problem gambler, I suppose we all are!!
But arcades changed when the jackpot went to £70 aswell as the style of play, it's now just force, force, force for a jackpot. Mr casual like me will hardly ever make anything from that.
I stopped playing at around the £35jp before that my best times were the token era's some of the best playable machines were made in this era.
But today it's all about the government making money out of us sucker's, they're always be problem gamblers. People will always gamble, higher the odds the more you punt.
I mainly play online now, the slots are averaging 95+% and where on the mainland can you win £1500 like I did once for 50p. But the other side of that coin is the price of spins are unlimited I mean I watched banditslots lose £3k in 45mins last grand he was lucky but £105 a spin, as he also said he was Lucky wonky span in wilds for £6500
Here's the video if you don't want to watch it all, skip to where he loses the 3grand in record time around the 30 minute mark
https://youtu.be/GUjOXjNjwjI

[Slasher]

It's not the manufacturers pushing for a jackpot increase.

[MikeyMonster]

The golden years for me was 20p 4.80 jackpot era.  I spent a lot of time in seaside arcades around this time and if you had a bit of discipline you could really make a lot of money.  It wasn't only that though, the machines were extremely playable even at 20p 6 tokens.  The dynamics changed once the all cash machines started to come out. 

J

My Golden era was £10, £15 and £25 all cash, pubs everywhere - before the smoking ban - , and each having 2 or 3 great machines - these - especially in the initial £10 era were very player friendly AND the casual punter could still get a good game. This is when i changed from a losing addict, to a more addicted, but making money regularly punter.
Also, in  the £10 era, most arcades had a cash section and the rest of the arcade was still £6 tokens..... good times, especially on those busy bank hols.

I remember one easter sunday, where never mind busy, thier literally was not a single machine not being played in my local arcade - cleaned up massively on the monday.

I think pub limit should be reduced all the way back to £25 - then the machines can be reprofiled to be far fairer to the PUNTER

[cliffc]

For me 50p/£35 worked and £1/£70 worked. Both playing exactly the same with the same ratio.

Now £1/£100 makes it just that little bit harder to get a jackpot or more importantly, longer for the machine to recover once it has paid one.

Playing for fun it's 30p/£15 all day for me.

Hi

When I first went to the club with me old dad way back in the mid 70s that gives me age away, and this was at the time when it was £1 token then later it went up to £2 token, you could win £30 for a 5p stake, then shortly after that one of the 5p machines was replaced with a BFM electro £100 machine and it was only 10p a game and if you went in on a night you had to queue to have a go the game was still fun and you had a chance of a big win, I have to admit I only got the £100 twice in that machines life time in the club, but I was the 1st player on it and I won £25, so you can have a lager jackpot with a fun game but not a large stake, admittedly you would not see such a large JP frequency but the machine was fun, and you could get a good game for a couple of quid, me and dad would normally have a pound each in and share any big win. But the sound of 200 50ps dropping when you won the ton was loud the whole place knew you had hit the JP

[cliffc]

Never go near the arcades myself,  must be 5 years since i did,  but i concur that it is all about greed,
the manus don't care what the average punter wants.

an amusement arcade " should" be for amusement, and lower jackpot machines and not those 500s they belong in a casino. or a bonfire

my local arcade    which was buzzing (like most from that decade) from mid 80's till  about 2001   mostly were  £2 or  £4.80 jackpots, and real fun to play, is up for sale ( no chance of that getting sold) £265,000.

hardly anyone goes in there now, as people are fed up as it's mostly 500's and  party times/golden x machines.


one of my mates still goes in, and he was asking the owner if business was bad,
the owner replied " yeah it is i hate the sound of someone winning 500 quid"  i don't have much profit if that happens on a regular basis"

things will never be the same and more and more arcades will be closing.

on the other hand   mr p seems to be quite well with his arcades, and we know why that is.  FUN FUN FUN    not greed.

Hi

I have to agree with you and what you say about Mr Ps/ Reel Fruits full of classic machines all though he does have some £500 for those who want to play them, but the bulk of his machines are old classics on good jackpots and stake ratios, with High percentages, he must be making money from them or he could not afford to keep going, and indeed expanding his empire, opening a once closed arcade in Bognor.

[DaddyAl84]

I just dont get the drive to continue raising the stakes and jackpots on fruit machines. I must say its been a good thing for me, in my late teens and early twenties I dread to think how much I spent in pubs and clubs playing them, I could not go for a drink without hitting the machines. These days thankfully I rarely bother, and if I do it literaly is a few odd coins.

I would love to see a pub chain trial something different which was set to a lower stake and prize, focusing on amusement rather than high stake gambling.