The sheep go baa and I get barred

[kidgloves]

Well what can I say ? The title says all..I'm fuming..I'm flaming spitting feathers. My local arcade I have been visiting for 2 years has done the dirty on me. Now picture the scene...this is a place where I get on well with everybody...I mean everybody. The staff are all great..they even trust me to mind the shop at times whilst they go next door and get their tea from the chip shop. The players are all decent enough and I help out when I can if they ask how to play a certain machine/feature whatever. So the other day I'm playing a bar x 7 and well for want of a better phrase..getting my ass kicked (note that means I'm putting serious money into it), not just the odd few quid. Anyway the program goes belly up and starts alarming all over the place...nowt to do with me. The machine gets switched off and can't be sorted until the next day. Next day comes and I'm in there playing happily away until manager comes in and starts to sort it. It's taking a while so I nip out for a sausage cob and the staff know to hold it for me for when I get back. Next thing I'm back and there's some happy shopper type playing it...wtf?? The cashier says he put a sticker on it for out of order but the manager must have ripped it off after fixing the machine. As the manager is still in I look to him to referee..."has she got any credits in it?" der....know she's just looking at the pretty paintwork..."well better let her play it then". In disgust I walk out the place. I'm back in two days later after calming down to be told I can't play anymore because "people have been complaining" about me. Apparently after I left one guy said he couldn't win a penny in the arcade and it was all down to me...then lots of sheep herd together and another four customers bleat that they can't win either and it's all my fault. So the manager tells the staff to bar me. Now I'm the first to hold my hand up if I've done something wrong..but in this situation I'm barred for having more experience than other customers and their jealousy dobbing me in..bearing in mind I've helped them all out at one time or another and they know full well I'm a teacher..not a full time player so do have some kind of reputation and standing a little above the baseball and chav brigade. So there you go...pissed off and having to trawl more pubs than I want to all of a sudden. Don't trust anyone..ever..

[Topthelot]

if you miss the place then ask nicely if you can be let back in? otherwise cause some hassle

complain to local authority about under age kids playing there? moan to BACTA / Gaming Board about 'dubious' practises (wont do anything but they will call if hes a member and that'll shake him up a bit)?


could do something similar to what i did when having difficulties with a property letting company a few years ago - printed off 100 A4 posters with their logo and the words DONT TRUST in 50 font below. only took an hour or so to put them up around on lamposts, bus shelters, walls of their premises - Park Lane Properties, leeds. then i casually left 10 or so on their counter, waved and walked out. HA HA

took one of the trainee grunts several hours to scrape them off. dunno if it made any difference but it sure as hell made me feel a whole lot better

[Scott]

Which Arcade kid? Holland Park in wigston?

[Woolley]

Yeah I think its pay back time. Those two-faced punks deserve to be put in their place. That or wig and glasses time.

[niles]

sounds harsh, to be honest, how can they ban you for doing nothing wrong, cant be right that. if the manager aint there cant u go play anyway?

[Pedwrecker]

What if kid gloves is on the verge of streaking a machine then the manager shows up to say bye bye you're barred, therefore a loss of money

[niles]

hmmm, go incogneto!

fake moustash and some face paint till do the trick

[vinylweatherman]

That's why I started playing services in the early 90's.
I got kicked out of my local after 2 years by a new engineer. I got back in several month's later only to find that some small time crook player had 'taken over' and told me not to play 'certain' machines, not to help anybody - and wanted me to play for him for a small slice of profits (when I could play for myself and keep the lot!). I told him to 'go away' and he said he could get me barred. Sure enough, a month later I was barred on a trumped up charge. I was accused of THINKING of turning a machine off when the program had crashed. (Anyone in the computing industry knows this to be the correct first response in such a situation, before taking the thing apart). Only recently did I look into another local arcade, full of bloody lo-techs!

[Slotterman]

I got barred from the only 3 local arcades with decent machines a few years ago.There was also a similar situation in some other arcades where relatives of the staff kept things sewn up for themselves and 'outside' players soon find themselves barred,so I basically stopped playing in arcades about 4 years ago.
When it comes to playing locally I tend to stick to bookies.Unfortunately most of my local bookies(Corals and Ladbrokes) have replaced AWPs with FOBTs.
There is one with a single AWP very close by,and I've been regularly doing a certain machine in there-last week as I was just about to take the streak the manager switched it off 20 minutes before closing time from behind the desk.I obviously wasn't happy and moaned loudly to get it switched back on...they did so reluctantly but told me me not to come back as I was now barred!
First time 've been barred from a bookies...probably the last,as I now have no reason to go in the local ones.
I expect all the chain bookies will have removed AWPs by this time next year,arcades will be mostly lo-tech,and unless you like travelling,pubs will be the only places left to play in.

[a1056688]

Most bookies in the north east have resorted to one AWP and three FOBT's.

I believe the limit is 4 FOBT's and 0 AWP but most resort to a 3:1 ratio to keep the customers happy.