SWP or not SWP?

[kidgloves]

I'm sure we've all had a go on one of those skill with prizes machines..you know the type..multi choice games from hangman to cluedo to spot the difference. I'm not actually sure but I assume they are classed as SWP's?
Then how do they get around the blatant impossible to break block when the machine is not ready to play....i.e. The other half and I like to play the game called 'wordzsearch' ..now as it goes this game isn't actually that difficult..find 7 words get a free game..8 words wins you a quid and upto 12 words for a fiver. The catch comes in the form of the time limit allowed to find the word...at best you have a very generous amount of time when it wants to pay..at worst the counter can get down to zero in real terms in less than 3 seconds when it doesn't want to pay. It makes me laugh that this is still classed as 'skill' because it's a million to one chance that you will find the word before the timer hits zero...no chance! As for spot the difference..the time bar disappears in less than a second sometmes on the higher levels! It reminds me of the crystal maze machines where to win the £5 you had to collect 50 or more gold tokens after silver deduction and it put 60 gold tokens on the screen and 100 silver when it didn't want to pay, and 100 gold and 60 silver if it had been played by munters for about £15 through. Seems as long as there is an element of possibility no matter how small of you winning, even though you've got no chance they can get away with it.
Still...crystal maze was a class pub game with your mates...I particularly liked the guide the ball round the maze ones where you just span the shit out of the tracker ball

[Slotterman]

Crystal maze is just about the only SWP that I know could be beaten through sheer skill.
The big problem with SWPs (correcty me if I'm wrong)is that they legally only have to pay out 50 or 60%..in fact I'm not sure that they *have* to pay out to any percentage at all.
I've heard of SWPs that only payed out 20%...I'm not sure if this is really true,but I can believe it.

[kidgloves]

I'm not sure what the 'payout profile' is...it seems to vary...you could go along the lines that seeing as it is 'skill' then you 'should' have an equal chance of winning every time, but we all know that this is rubbish. Some swp's are progressive...like crystal maze and some quiz machines..a very old one called treble top with samples from Dave Lee Travis had a £20 JP (we are talking 10-15 years back so this was very good)..but it did actually pay it when ready..you could force it to throw up a board where you had to score 201,101,101 off the dartboard which really meant answer about 10 questions correctly for £20..not bad odds in this day and age. Other machines, especially newer ones seem to just eat money...Hangman seems particularly bad, all the time, Cluedo is slightly better but gone are the days where you know you have a fighting chance of the JP...Hangmans are very obvious with their advertisments of the £40 JP..have you ever seen anybody get it? Has anybody seen someone get the million pound question right on WWTBAM? (and that is of course after it breaks the game rules and makes the very top questions multi part in the first place) I think I'll stick to no prize games cabinets just for the fun of it...I do quite well on the golden tee tournaments though...my claim to fame was once coming 6th or something like that in the monthly tournament and netting £130 for my troubles.

[annalcartwright]

I really like games like Wordsearch etc but the trouble is I lose more on the IT box than I would on the fruit machine and I've definately never got £75 from a quiz machine. The only way I can get anything for it is to watch people playing it all night and then go on wordsearch - usually they've put enough in that getting a £5 is pretty easy on the first go. Otherwise it's more like getting blood from a stone.

[Oversky]

Anyone ever play the SWP 'Space Invaders'? Had a £12 JP and I once managed to get £6 easily and took it, thinking it was 'a lot' at the time (ten years ago!). One version allowed you to rack up the points, while a meaner version reset your score to zero if you missed the flying saucer at the top. And it used to 'rain' with bombs when in a non-paying mood!

[Jolly Joker]

I once played millionaire and got to the top answer. If i remember rightly it was something to do with a river somewhere, not too difficult if you are any good at geography! needless to say i'm not so I didn;t win but i did take a guess at it just to keep the crowd entertained!

[kidgloves]

Prize space invaders was cool..it may have been on this forum already but I once got the £20 Jp out of it..sheer fluke..same night as I dropped the £200 out of a club adders and ladders off a hold after nudge on 3 triple bars of all things. Don't get much luck like that these days.

[big_bad_dan]

lol yeh, long gone are the days when u stick one pound into a machine and it drops a JP, everyone who plays fruit machines has wised up to when a machine is about to pay

[Carlovski]

lol yeh, long gone are the days when u stick one pound into a machine and it drops a JP, everyone who plays fruit machines has wised up to when a machine is about to pay

Nah, still happens. My usual favourite is when you hit the end of someones streak - they got a jackpot, and walked off, and you get the next 2!
Also don't forget a lot of people just put in there odd change, put in 3 quid then lose. If ten people do that in a row, than you have a fair chance. Not everyone who plays fruit machines is a fruit machine 'player'.
On the SWP front though, I have seen the Hangman £40 pay - takes a bit of guts (And encyclopedic knowledge). It is 'fair' though. If you get all the questions right, you will win. Haven't seen it do any 'Impossible' calculations either. Most I have got is about £15 - got to about 6-7 quid normally and then went for 'Wrong' letters till I got some '?' and got complete phrases. Bit Lucky really!.
The best one I have ever got was on an old Cluedo machine - Got the lot (Person, weapon, room) for JP, and then had a credit left. Got game continued (!!?) so only had to get into a room to get it again!
Sunday afternoons are usually a good time to play pub quiz machines, unless the landlord plays them after closing time, they tend to have been filled up by some quite thick/drunk people.

[jaspa]

Not sure if this counts as a "skillful" win or a cheat (don't get too excited though) . The better half and myself are self confessed Hangman Junkies and since it was pouring down during the local summer festival we sloped into town for a few adult beverages and a stint on Hangman . After 2 plays the machine crashed and was reset by the landlord . A few games later , same thing . The engineer type was called after the 3rd lockup which resulted in a reboot and the Windows 2000 logo filling the screen ??!!
The taskbar was minimised but a DOS box was viewable stating that the machine was pausing for 5 minutes due to a coin/payout fault . Engineer type turned up within about 10 minutes and simply closed the DOS box to complete the initialisation . Since it's still raining we decide to have "one more go" while finishing our drinks . To cut a long story short , the monster couldn't payout fast enough . Spending £1 on 2 plays after the reboot payed out £3 for only 100 points and a few games later a ? on the first question gave out £10 . This continued for around 4 hours or so under the watchful gaze of the barstaff and disgruntled drinkers wanting a game (like I'm really going to walk away from a money fountain !?). At one stage we had pound coins 4 and 5 high across the whole of the bottom of the screen . Eventually , at closing time , we walked out with roughly £150 profit (excluding 6 rounds of drinks and 40 Marlboro lights) . Sweeeet !
I've been keeping m eyes open for another machine exhibiting similar symptoms to play but no luck as yet . P.S. the machine in question was removed the following week ;(