Gambling

[Mr.Monkey]

Those that believe you can beat the bookies forever are onto a bad thing indeed.

Luck isn't guaranteed to run out, but then it is much closer to that than staying good forever.

 

[]SK[]

I know many people that have spent £xxxx on machines. One of my old friends used to have 10 credit cards with 11 banks. Every penny he could use on them was spent on machines. We used to goto the pub and all sit down bar him, he stood on the machines. He would also drink pints of Mild to save money. We could spend 3 hrs in the pub with him still stood at the machine. It really did become annoying. Last I heard of him was he was due in court and was going to claim he has a gambling problem. Doesnt matter how many times you can ask people if they ever up or down on winnings, they always seem to be even? Why would a pub landlord invest in a fruit machine if it was going to loose them money?

 

[caLLous]

The longest I ever stood at a fruit machine for was about 30 minutes. If I'm down at the end of it I'll always say I'm down.

 

[Chilly]

I know many people that have spent £xxxx on machines. One of my old friends used to have 10 credit cards with 11 banks. Every penny he could use on them was spent on machines. We used to goto the pub and all sit down bar him, he stood on the machines. He would also drink pints of Mild to save money. We could spend 3 hrs in the pub with him still stood at the machine. It really did become annoying. Last I heard of him was he was due in court and was going to claim he has a gambling problem. Doesnt matter how many times you can ask people if they ever up or down on winnings, they always seem to be even? Why would a pub landlord invest in a fruit machine if it was going to loose them money?

theres a machine (which according to my m8 cos i havnt the faintest idea of how to use em) in a loca cricket club that can be cheated (every time, guaranteed) if u know the special handshake or wotever. Hes always coming into town with loads of pound coins, it is an old machine tho so its prolly got a loophole for bets or summat.

 

[]SK[]

Most machines have certain 'cheats' to them, like holding down Cancel whilst on a wheelblast or something.

 

[caLLous]

Yeah, using cancel to slow a feature down is the most common cheat, then there are usually 4 or 5 other hidden features for each machine. Not necessarily hidden features, for example: if you take a Big Blaster on Grand Blaster Cash when you have a Lucky 7 on the reels, it'll give you an instant Megastreak. It's just things that you pick up as you play each individual machine.

 

[Mr.Monkey]

By law all gambling machines have to have a set payout ratio (ie amount in and amount paid out).
People that play on them alot (as one of my friends does) wait untill several people have played on a machine without winning. He then puts in about £4 and usually wins. I'm not convinced that it is worthwhile doing this, as he still doesn't always win, but it does increase the odds).

 

[]SK[]

Yeah the payout is stated on the machine. A machine does have to give out eventually so waiting for someone to fill a machine is a good idea. But then ive seen a it so many times "listen its dropping" so what its still taken £30 of your money. They then come to the table and feel proud theyve turned £50 into £20 coins.

 

[caLLous]

Heh, that's so true SK.

I work in a nightclub and have full view all night of the fruit machine I play. I can see what people are putting in, how much they're winning, what sort of "mood" the machine is in etc etc. If I see someone walk away with jack 20 minutes before we close, then I won't bother playing. But if they are getting pissed off with it and pumping coins in in the hope that it'll flip and start paying out, then that's the time to jump on. There's a terrible loop that irregular players get stuck in:

1) Put a couple of quid in and win a bit.
2) Put that back in and lose it.
3) Put some more in because you think you'll win back what you just lost.
4) Lose that.
5) Think "hmm, I'm actually quite down, I'd better put some more in to try and breakeven".

And on and on. Also having a key which tells you last payout, last bank etc is useful.

 

[xane]

I do remember running up about £10 winning profit on a fruit machine in an arcade one day (this was way back when £10 was worth a bit more), unfortunately this was all in tokens, when I decided to stop I was reminded by the owner that tokens cannot be exchanged for cash and I couldn't re-use them if I took them out the arcade, i.e. the only option was to pump them all back into the machine and let the owner win

The machine did pay out cash (10 pences) on wins of 30p or less, so I proceeded to put all the tokens back being careful to stop at 30p wins. Result was £13 profit, in cash Seems like a new strategy was born that day ..

 

[Doh_boy]

I don't spend any money on fruit machines but I spend loads on quiz machines. I prefer them since you generally take longer to loose your money. and there's the feeling that you've got at least a small chance of getting some money back.

I'm up, though, on fruit machines; I've put 3 quid in and got 5 quid back. In all my life that's all I've spent on fruit machines.

 

[rynnor]

I dont gamble personally - I prefer to fritter my money buying crap I dont need

However I do know a guy who broke the Old pools system - he was a scarily clever guy who before computers came in used to work out odds as a mental discipline.

In the old days there was no Pools panel to decide cancelled games - so in weeks in the winter with really bad weather the odds of winning used to really shrink - this guy worked out the point at which he could cover all the possible values for a reasonable sum - he had a contact in Liverpool who could put the forms in at the last minute - eventually a week came round when loads of games were cancelled and he cleaned up

Once the pools people realised they brought in the pools panel so that for cancelled games a random result would be decided - this prevented the odds from getting to the point where you could cover all combinations again.

So you can beat the odds but its pretty rare

 

[Tom]

I didn't win