The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines

Cavey · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2016 10:59

MaliA wrote:

Isn't 80℅ "i'll keep 20p of every pound thatt goes in, the 80p is to pay out to punters to get more people interested". Then "how to beat the machine" stuff comes out to generate a "beat them at their game" feeling amongst punters and people put more £1 in and it keeps more 20p of that.

Otherwise, there would be huge varaition in machine takings week on week which I didn't see.

Oh trust me, for *some* people the payout is vastly over 100%, as Hearthly demonstrates above. There are those who have made tens, even hundreds of thousands over the years, believe you me.

MaliA · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:01

Cavey wrote:

MaliA wrote:

Isn't 80℅ "i'll keep 20p of every pound thatt goes in, the 80p is to pay out to punters to get more people interested". Then "how to beat the machine" stuff comes out to generate a "beat them at their game" feeling amongst punters and people put more £1 in and it keeps more 20p of that.

Otherwise, there would be huge varaition in machine takings week on week which I didn't see.

Oh trust me, for *some* people the payout is vastly over 100%, as Hearthly demonstrates above. There are those who have made tens, even hundreds of thousands over the years, believe you me.

Yes, from the 80℅ of the money it didn't keep.

Cavey · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:02

MaliA wrote:

Cavey wrote:

MaliA wrote:

Isn't 80℅ "i'll keep 20p of every pound thatt goes in, the 80p is to pay out to punters to get more people interested". Then "how to beat the machine" stuff comes out to generate a "beat them at their game" feeling amongst punters and people put more £1 in and it keeps more 20p of that.

Otherwise, there would be huge varaition in machine takings week on week which I didn't see.

Oh trust me, for *some* people the payout is vastly over 100%, as Hearthly demonstrates above. There are those who have made tens, even hundreds of thousands over the years, believe you me.

Yes, from the 80℅ of the money it didn't keep.

?

GazChap · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:08

Grim... wrote:

Even 3% is a fucking staggering amount.

Wikipedia lists their revenue for 2015 as near enough £1,514 million.

That's £45.4 million just from fruit machines.
They have 956 locations (again, according to Wikipedia)

I'm not sure how many machines are in each, but based on the few that I've been in around the country I'd say an average of 5 would be a relatively safe bet.
Nearly £10,000 per year, per machine.
~£150 per week, per machine.

MaliA · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:08

10 people stick a quid in.
Machine keeps £2
Persons 1 to 9 win nothing
Person 10 wins £8

Machine pays out 80℅

If machine wants to earn more money, it needs more people sticking £1 in. People like to win. Letting some hints tips and cheats out into the wild mean 20 people stick £1. 1 to 18 get nothing, 19 gets £6 and 20 gets £10. Machine gets £4.

Punters 19 and 20 taking money out ofthe machine doesn't alter its profitabity. It probably increases it, as 1 to 18 think they can do it, too.

The machine wants people to win

Curiosity · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:11

MaliA wrote:

10 people stick a quid in.
Machine keeps £2
Persons 1 to 9 win nothing
Person 10 wins £8

Machine pays out 80℅

If machine wants to earn more money, it needs more people sticking £1 in. People like to win. Letting some hints tips and cheats out into the wild mean 20 people stick £1. 1 to 18 get nothing, 19 gets £6 and 20 gets £10. Machine gets £4.

Punters 19 and 20 taking money out ofthe machine doesn't alter its profitabity. It probably increases it, as 1 to 18 think they can do it, too.

It doesn't alter profitability, but if each of those people put in 100 pounds, and one has rinsed the machine for a grand, you can see how the experience as a punter is a bit shit for those who are playing in the 0% zone.

GazChap · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:12

Incidentally, my knowledge of UK fruit machines (and how rigged they are) completely put me off using the slots while I was in Vegas. Even after I'd found out that every spin was totally random, I still couldn't bring myself to do it.

Curiosity · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:13

GazChap wrote:

Incidentally, my knowledge of UK fruit machines (and how rigged they are) completely put me off using the slots while I was in Vegas. Even after I'd found out that every spin was totally random, I still couldn't bring myself to do it.

Slots in Vegas are literally the most boring thing in the entire city.

MaliA · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:14

Curiosity wrote:

GazChap wrote:

Incidentally, my knowledge of UK fruit machines (and how rigged they are) completely put me off using the slots while I was in Vegas. Even after I'd found out that every spin was totally random, I still couldn't bring myself to do it.

Slots in Vegas are literally the most boring thing in the entire city.

In Iowa 2001, there were slots but no prizes because gambling machines were not legal there.

MaliA · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:16

Curiosity wrote:

MaliA wrote:

10 people stick a quid in.
Machine keeps £2
Persons 1 to 9 win nothing
Person 10 wins £8

Machine pays out 80℅

If machine wants to earn more money, it needs more people sticking £1 in. People like to win. Letting some hints tips and cheats out into the wild mean 20 people stick £1. 1 to 18 get nothing, 19 gets £6 and 20 gets £10. Machine gets £4.

Punters 19 and 20 taking money out ofthe machine doesn't alter its profitabity. It probably increases it, as 1 to 18 think they can do it, too.

It doesn't alter profitability, but if each of those people put in 100 pounds, and one has rinsed the machine for a grand, you can see how the experience as a punter is a bit shit for those who are playing in the 0% zone.

Undoubtably, but, y'know, that's the rub of it, as callous as that sounds. Nowadays there is a sticker, but not sure what that does.

GazChap · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:43

Curiosity wrote:

Slots in Vegas are literally the most boring thing in the entire city.

Not true - the "are you interested in a [thinly veiled attempt at a timeshare]holiday home?" guys are more boring

myp · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:55

GOATS

zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

MaliA wrote:

10 people stick a quid in.
Machine keeps £2
Persons 1 to 9 win nothing
Person 10 wins £8

Machine pays out 80℅

If machine wants to earn more money, it needs more people sticking £1 in. People like to win. Letting some hints tips and cheats out into the wild mean 20 people stick £1. 1 to 18 get nothing, 19 gets £6 and 20 gets £10. Machine gets £4.

Punters 19 and 20 taking money out ofthe machine doesn't alter its profitabity. It probably increases it, as 1 to 18 think they can do it, too.

The machine wants people to win

Thats the 'normal' for a non f*cked machine - for ones with emptiers or other things its more like - the machine has a £125 float (so £125 in money from the people who own the machine and various other punters over time).

Persons 1-9 put their pound in and the machine keeps 20% of their money for its profit.
Person 10 comes along and over the course of maybe around 30 - 50 quid takes all the money in the hopper / tubes out of the machine , the box at the bottom will have 20% of what he put in as 'profit' but there is nothing in the machine at all to pay out (they walk away around £70 up)

In the case of 'accounted for' cheats the machine will do all it can to claw back the money it has lost so persons 11-XXX put their pound in and win nothing
In the case of non accounted for cheats , person 11 comes along , puts in £1 and wins £2 , the machine shows empty and the bar / owner / whoever needs to give them money from 'elsewhere'

In the 90's I played a *lot* of machines but never really had any emptiers i just learned the machines , learned when and what to play for , and could hit the skill shots often enough to make money out of them especially when the other players did not.

I generally only found out about the emptier afterwards , but I'll see about writing up a few to explain whats going on if i get the chance to this afternoon - what i would also say is there is often a lot of skill setting up an emptier , and its often very boring to do.

And a very quick one to illustrate that - and i cant remember the damn machine name - it would be a 20p / £8 jackpot barcrest with a cannonballs / soldiers theme and a big feature board at the top.

Basically one of the features was badly coded - it was a skill stop on the number real and the number real went from 1 to 12 but not in sequence , you were supposed to stop it on 12 (or as close to as you can) to get the highest win.
The code also gave you a commiseration prize if you were unlucky to stop it on a 1 , it gave (i cant remember exactly but lets say) 20p and gave you another spin to try and do better.

So most people played , if they got that feature (which was pretty early) , they got a win , the end , or they were unlucky to stop on 1 and got the 20P and stopped it on something better the next time , the end.

However someone worked out that if you stopped it on 1 every time , it just kept going .... and going ..... and going .... so by standing there and hitting skill stops on the 1 , you could empty the machine , it would take a really long time to do but you could take everything from the machine just by hitting the 1 every time.

No idea if this was accounted for in the system or not

Another quick one :

In the upgrade from £10 jackpots to £15 jackpots there was an Ace (the brand) machine with a cowboy theme , one of the features on there was two numbers which would count up on a screen which would move up and down at random in 20p increments , you got what was shown on the screen at the end. The RED (special) feature version of this was a slow climb which on the £10 version always went up to £5 in each column to give you the £10 jackpot.

On the £15 version the bug was that it could not get to £7.50 on each column so instead it went to £7.60
It took those , added them together for £15.20, rounded up to £16 which it knew was not a valid win so put £15 in the bank and 'forgot' it had done that - next play it would still know it wanted to pay out so you could get the feature again , to do the same again.

This one was not accounted for , so the machine would get emptied.

MaliA · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2016 12:43

Over a week, the machine would still keep 20℅ of what went into it, though, wouldn't it? It wouldn't matter how much it paid out in that time*, and any float would be a possible cost of doing business and just anothe step to get to that 20℅ in the equation.

My focus is not on the one punter walking away with £50 or whatever, look at the whole.

*Again, the machines need to pay out to keep customers coming in. More customets is more money bet which is more of a 20℅ slice.

zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

MaliA wrote:

Over a week, the machine would still keep 20℅ of what went into it, though, wouldn't it?

That very much depends.

On a lot of machines what went into the cash boxes at the bottom was the 'overflow' when the machine was full , the amount in the machine that it was keeping was mixed in the hopper / tubes with everything else - in these circumstances that would be zero because the machine would have been emptied.

On other machines they really did put a percentage of everything that went in , into the box at the bottom , on those your 20% would still be there (although the rest of the machine would be empty).

Very much depends on the machine , and the year we're talking about.

For 'accounted' for tricks - your right - the owner will not lose - its just everyone else who plays the machine who does - if they never win out of the machine they will stop playing hence the owner will stop making profit at that point but until then it should not make any difference that someone took all the wins that the machine was due to do for the day at once.

MaliA · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2016 12:56

So, every £1 that goes in there, it takes a slice of it (20℅ because it makes maths easier, here) and the remainder is potential prize.

zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

MaliA wrote:

So, every £1 that goes in there, it takes a slice of it (20℅ because it makes maths easier, here) and the remainder is potential prize.

Your oversimplifying a bit but in some circumstances yes.

Hearthy's examples above with the Aliens machine for example - given they are accounted for the owners of the machines will still make the same profit - its just all the other players who will lose.

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Assuming we're not talking about 'free wins' that the machine doesn't account for at all, then yes, over time the end result would effectively be the same, namely that the machine delivers a profit of 20% of everything that's been played through it to its owners.

The issue with a 'doable' machine is that it can be pushed so far behind where it needs to be in percentage terms, that for everyone apart from the handful of people who know the method on it, its effective payout percentage can be damn near zero for an extended period of time - which was never supposed to be the case with AWPs (AMUSEMENT With Prizes).

I remember back in the day getting absolutely battered by £6 jackpot machines time and time again, wondering how on earth I could get so deep into machines with such a small jackpot and an alleged 80% payout, of course I only found out years later that many of the machines back then were either bent and/or poorly coded, to the extent that a small band of players travelled around making a very good living out of them.

Even then however, there were good days and good results for me (I was always adept at skill stops and skill features, and sometimes just got lucky of course) - which were enough to keep me going back for more.

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

zaphod79 wrote:

Hearthy's examples above with the Aliens machine for example - given they are accounted for the owners of the machines will still make the same profit - its just all the other players who will lose.

Although where a machine is on site for any length of time, the locals will soon learn that a given machine never pays out a fucking thing to anyone apart from the guy who comes along every few days to rinse it, and as such will stop playing it themselves.

Given enough visibility of these constantly twatted machines over time, you can end up with someone who just calls time on playing the machines at all - so lost revenue in the long run.

Anecdotally for example, the folks over at Jackpotty routinely report that the casual play of fruities in Spoons is almost non-existent these days.

Watch this guy get £300 (!!) into a Batman AWP in a Spoons a couple of weeks ago.... Incidentally this is one of the 'new breed' of AWPs that is very flat profile and by all accounts has no sneakery on it. Boring as fuck to play and doesn't seem to be doing it any cashbox favours either.

TheVision · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2016 17:01

So how do you actually work these machines to maximise profit then? I know it'll be different on all machines, but what's involved? Is it certain button presses or certain orders to things?

Give us an example of one of the easiest/your favourite.

Trousers · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 3073

He gave me a pretty simple one for a machine for me to exploit on the way back from the Isle of Man a couple of years ago. It didn't require much messing about on my part and I ended up leaving the ferry with about £200 in pound coins as there were two variants of the machine to plunder.

Posting such methods on an open forum would probably get him burned at the stake by the community though.

MaliA · **Posted:** Mon Nov 14, 2016 17:28

http://www.fruit-machine-cheats.com

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

TheVision wrote:

So how do you actually work these machines to maximise profit then? I know it'll be different on all machines, but what's involved? Is it certain button presses or certain orders to things?

Give us an example of one of the easiest/your favourite.

Right here's the Alien method, I honestly can’t believe anyone still has one of these out in wild and if there is one out there somewhere it’ll be covered by about three million players anyway.

Download and extract both zip files. (Note the emulator does not work on XP, and there’s a DX redist you need to have installed, most PCs will have it anyway but some might not if you don’t use it for games and shit, it’ll tell you what you’re missing.)

Install the MFME.ttf font, you may find it useful to have the reeels.jpg file open on your screen (you’ll see why when you’ve read the method). PacDrive.dll needs to be in the same folder as the MFME executable. The layout will also look nicer if you have the Lithograph font installed.

Load the emulator (MFME.exe), go to File > Load Game, browse to where you extracted the alien zip file to, and load in the alien_mpu5.gam file which is in the £70 folder. Wait for the game to boot up and enters attract mode, you are now ready to begin.

You can click on all the buttons with the mouse, but using keys is a lot faster and easier.

Keys are:

0 - Insert £1 coin (you can also click on the notes to put notes in)
SPACE - Start
1- 2-3 - Hold/nudge reels 1 to 3
Q-A-W-S - Hi lo left and hi lo right respectively.
` - (Key to the left of 1) - Cancel
C - Collect
G - Change Game (stake)
B - Bonus Gamble
D- Step Down
T - Transfer

(You can redefine the keys to your tastes by going into Design > Edit Mode.)

Method follows.

MY WALL OF TEXT CRITS YOU FOR 8K.

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!

It's a bit complicated so I'll summarise as clearly as I can.

The basic principle is this, you can get the machine into a state where you can't get the face hugger (I'll refer to it as alien) off the bonus gamble until you get a win banked, so you just need to make sure that win is the jackpot. The feature 'Out Of This World' is a jackpot feature, so you use the 'no lose' bonus gamble to get steps + extra life + lucky seven to make getting to it possible. The machine doesn't block it as hard as it should.

(For the jackpot on Out Of This World you need to get a total of 18 in view on the hi/lo reel, I find the best one to aim for is the 8/10, as it's two steps after the 9/11+b which is a good sighter and you'll be used to hitting anyway.)

So here's the method.

1) Check that the game is boarding on 30p play, any win is what you're after, or even a hold after nudges for three different symbols counts. This shouldn't take more than about five or six quid. (It'll always be boarding in the emulator unless you've properly hammered it, out in the wild this was the test to see if the machine had been battered.)

2) Go up to £1 play and lose exactly £40. Don't collect ANYTHING or the bonus gamble trick won't work, avoid wins and features as this just slows you down, literally just lose £40 as fast as you can.

3) Go back to 30p play and play for a low win, preferably oranges/mixed sevens/single bars.

4) Now you are on the feature you are aiming to get to the 8 KOs square with three steps, extra life, and lucky seven.

You can't get aliened on the bonus gamble as long as NONE of the following are true - you have a hi/lo gamble available that can't be lost, you have £5 or more on the cash stack, you're above 8 KOs on the feature (imagine there's a 'line' straight across the feature board above the 8 KO level, so bonus gamble on Face Hugger, 8 KOs, 5 Star Strikes etc is OK, but 9 Reel Blasts, 5 Win Spins, Monster Cash etc is not).

The £5 cash stack and 8 KO line are simple enough, but the hi/lo gamble needs a bit more explanation.

Basically if you have a 1 or a 12 to gamble on, or you can step to a 1 or 12, or you have a no lose, or you can step to a 7 with a lucky seven, or you have a hint - you are considered to have an unloseable gamble and the bonus gamble will alien you if it wants to.

The problem with being aliened is it can give CASH OR BUST and any win at all (even a quid) will reset the bonus gamble and you need to put another £40 through to get it back to the no alien state.

Safe number combos you can always bonus gamble on are 10/4, 4/9 and 9/11+bonus - none of these step to a 1 or 12 even with three steps, but they do if you have a lucky seven so you always want lucky seven last.

5) With all that in mind use the bonus gamble as much as you can, always take extra life if you are offered super bonus as it's most reluctant to give extra life. Hopefully it will give you the three steps itself. Once you have the extra life and three steps, keep bonus gambling until you get reel skill, and land this on 9/11+b, you want lucky seven. (If you get a lucky seven anyway, then happy days.)

Be smart with using the bonus gamble, for example if you have no steps then you can bonus gamble on any numbers as long as you don't have a 1 or 12, once you've got a step then you can bonus gamble as long as 1 or 12 aren't a step away, and then same again with two steps. For example 5/7 has no 1 or 12 within two steps so you can bonus gamble on that if you have two steps, but not three steps as that can get you to a 1.

Do be aware that the machine will often make getting everything set up quite hard work. For example any time you get a no lose or a hint then you immediately have an unloseable gamble so you have to take a hi/lo at that point whatever numbers you have on the hi/lo reel.

You want the lucky seven last as 10/4, 4/9 and 9/11+b step to a 7. If you get given a lucky seven try to get rid of it if you still need bonus gambles to get the other stuff, it likes to alien you if you have a lucky seven as it's almost always possible to get an unloseable gamble set up.

It also loves to give reel skill when you don't want it, (i.e. you're already on 10/4 or 4/9), stop it on 10/4 or 4/9 again so you can keep bonus gambling - sometimes you will need to do this many times, especially when it's tightening up.

Generally speaking it'll let you gamble to 8 KOs on pretty much any numbers as long as you're not blatantly reversing (lower than a 4 for example), so don't be afraid to push on up the board when you have to. Remember you can't bonus gamble once you get above the 8KO line on the board, any higher and it can alien you.

6) Once you have all you need gamble to 8 KOs normally, it should let you do this as it doesn't see the threat yet. So you're at 8 KOs with extra life, three steps and lucky seven, hi/lo gamble to the left going with the number, this should win.

Now gamble right to Streak, this will most likely take the extra life (if it doesn't it can be done at least another two times). Now gamble again to Streak, this should win and 90% of the time you will be able to step to a 7 with your steps, which with the lucky seven is a no lose gamble to Out Of This World - jackpot! The only way it avoids this seems to be 10/3 which you'll get occasionally, but you can step > step to a bonus which often gives change number and changes to a 1 for the Out Of This World gamble.

7) Once you've got your jackpot off Out Of This World, return to Step 1! I often found the Aliens here had three jackpots in them, sometimes only two, occasionally four and on one occasion five. Profit per jackpot was usually £15-£25, and it'd take me about 10 minutes for each, so £60 up in half an hour was pretty much the benchmark - not bad going!

EXTRA NOTE - Not every board will let you get the setup you need, it's far better to just accept defeat on the board than risking an alien on the bonus gamble, so if you can't get to Out Of This World on the current board just let the game kill you off, it'll board again shortly. Getting CASH OR BUST off getting aliened will cost you another £40 if it gives an award.

EXTRA NOTE - Once in a blue moon it will alien you when it shouldn't. Very rare but does occur, you just have to suck up the fact it'll take another £40 to get the bonus back again.

EXTRA NOTE - The above method isn't the only way to do it, you can try different approaches with less than the 'full set' of extras, I've got to Out Of This World from the 9 Reel Blasts side for example, or with only a couple of steps and the lucky seven - just play around with it, even better as there's no real money at stake in the emulator

I've seen a video of a real one taking £73 for a board (!) after being properly caned, haven't quite managed to replicate that in the emulator, current record is £54

They do tighten up though if you get them on or slightly over percentage, and they'll mess you around for ages with bonuses you don't want, like hitting CHANGE NUMBER seven or eight times on the trot from the bonus gamble.

Helpful video -

Dr Zoidberg · **Joined:** 15th Oct, 2010 **Posts:** 5146

That really does sound like far too much hard work for me.
Thanks for the explanation though.

MaliA · **Posted:** Tue Nov 15, 2016 11:43

Cavey wrote:

MaliA wrote:

Isn't 80℅ "i'll keep 20p of every pound thatt goes in, the 80p is to pay out to punters to get more people interested". Then "how to beat the machine" stuff comes out to generate a "beat them at their game" feeling amongst punters and people put more £1 in and it keeps more 20p of that.

Otherwise, there would be huge varaition in machine takings week on week which I didn't see.

Oh trust me, for *some* people the payout is vastly over 100%, as Hearthly demonstrates above. There are those who have made tens, even hundreds of thousands over the years, believe you me.

Hmm.

Hearthy says £120 per hour is doable so that is
£120 * 8 hours a day * 232 days a year. That is £218,880 a year doing it non stop.

We know from the Daily Mail that in 2009 fruit machines made £2,170,000,000. If we take the value of this industry to be what the machines keep, at an average of 25℅ grossing up gives us £8, 689,00,000 running through the system. So, the total prize fund is one less the other : £6,510,000,000.

Divide that by the full time earnings calculated above and there could be 29,742 people doing this full time. They would use just short of 9 machines a day (261,000 machines divided by 29,742 people).

I don't think it is possible for 1 person to work 9 machines a day for 8 hours due to eating, smoking and traveling, so we can drop the income by about 20% and assume an hour and a half a day is spent faffing. This drops it to £175,104 a year which means there would be 37,178 people doing this playing 7 machines each a day.

These are many, many people.

If we say that 80℅ of the prize is taken by these dedicated players, it is still 28,096 people.

Drop it to three hours play a day, and the number jumps to 60, 875 people.

Obviously, these are very rough sums with lots of assumptions (mainly what the value of the industry is), but i like sums.

Trousers · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 3073

MaliA wrote:

Hearthy says £120 per hour is doable so that is
£120 * 8 hours a day * 232 days a year. That is £218,880 a year doing it non stop.

i like sums.

£222,720. You've done 228 days.

Actually can't help myself.

MaliA · **Posted:** Tue Nov 15, 2016 12:00

Oops.

228 is correct as weekends and hols and bank hols.

Squirt · **Joined:** 31st Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 6507

So, basically, you're saying there's plenty more cash out there and we should all go and earn 6 figure salaries emptying fruit machines right now?

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16557

Amazing! This could rescue the economy!

MaliA · **Posted:** Tue Nov 15, 2016 12:28

No. You should all give me a quid and I'll give you 85p.

I dunno. Are there between 20,000 and 60,000 people going around emptying fruit machines at such frequency? I can't see it myself, it feels like too many people and too much money. Maybe when a loss happens it is easier to decide another person did it in for you just before you got there not that you're playing a game with poor odds and wins are more down to variance than anything else.

Curiosity · **Posted:** Tue Nov 15, 2016 12:33

MaliA wrote:

No. You should all give me a quid and I'll give you 85p.

I dunno. Are there between 20,000 and 60,000 people going around emptying fruit machines at such frequency? I can't see it myself, it feels like too many people and too much money. Maybe when a loss happens it is easier to decide another person did it in for you just before you got there not that you're playing a game with poor odds and wins are more down to variance than anything else.

No my experience of playing fruit machines, which is limited, and of watching APOD and others play them, I've definitely seen that by no means are all machines being emptied by these 'pro' types.

That said, I have also seen people throw absurd amounts of money into them and get literally nothing in return, which would indicate that the machine is very much in 'recovery' mode. Whether this was caused by a lucky punter or a forced win is debatable, but I would certainly expect there to be a few out there.

MaliA · **Posted:** Tue Nov 15, 2016 12:47

Not in sufficient numbers to make a significant difference, no, looking at those sums.

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

I don't think you can distil the numbers down that simply, you've got to remember there are many different levels of player and a huge variation in the machines in terms of their vulnerability and/or appeal to players.

Some people undoubtedly have made a very good living out of the game overall, but I think their numbers are now in terminal decline as the number of exploitable machines is massively reduced from where it used to be. (The £70 era had a large number of bent machines to plunder, but they've largely sorted that shit out in the £100 era.)

But not everyone is a top-tier player, there are many sorts of player and many sorts of machines, and not all players will take on all machines or will play them optimally, or they might play machines they should avoid completely, or whatever. It's not just 'everyone who plays clears £120 per hour'. A lot of 'players' are ex-addicts who got some self-control and tricks to exploit.

Simple example would be when Trousers came over a couple of years ago he showed me the pictures of the machines he'd taken on the ferries.

IIRC there were 8 machines and they roughly broke down as follows:

2 x 'CATEGORY A' machines, pretty much free money and minimal risk of loss
2 x 'CATEGORY B' machines, good profit potential but higher risk, float of £200 required for safety, can be a loss
2 x 'CATEGORY C' machines, known to be OK but either a method I didn't know or 'box reading' required on DOND games which is a difficult thing to learn
2 x 'CATEGORY ARSE' machines, no known method to exploit, basic punt on 80% payout same as everyone else

As such when he went back he elected to have a go at the CATEGORY A machines only, as these only needed a float of £40 and I was able to explain the method to him in a 15 minute training session using a couple of pictures and diagrams to assist with the explanation.

A couple of months later I went away for a family break with Mrs H and Jnr, and the same machines were on the ferry, I'd gone prepared for the CATEGORY B machines and didn't mind potentially getting £150-£200 into them (which Trousers was averse to). Between the trip there and back I won enough to pay for the ferry and our hotel. I ignored the C and ARSE machines.

More clued up and/or box-reading players than me would have known the CATEGORY C machines as well, so they'd have had a crack at them too.

Some players might have made well on the A/B/Cs and taken a punt on the ARSES just for a laugh.

Imagine that sort of overall scenario repeated across the UK and you can imagine how some players make a good full-time living at it, some do it part-time as an income boost (I know a couple of guys over at Jackpotty who went through a phase of doing a 12 hour shift every Saturday driving around a decent chunk of Norfolk, they generally expected to clear about £400-£500 each), and all manner of variations on those themes.

Then you do still have people who play casually/addicted/whatever, who will lose in the long run.

So yes, some people do make a living out of fruit machines, but it's a very small percentage of the total pool of players IMO.

MaliA · **Posted:** Tue Nov 15, 2016 16:51

Yes, because when you work it through, it really isn't feasible for 28,000 people to hit 261,000 machines daily and take the money out of them and nobody fill them up. I had to work it through to make it clear in my head.

So, the next alternative is that the massive majority of the time, people lose due to playing a game with rubbish odds but wins are through variance. There are not enough people emptying the machines to significantly alter the chances of winning. There are some, but few and far between in the pool of players. So, either cheat, or bet on something else to win.

asfish · **Joined:** 5th Dec, 2010 **Posts:** 3353

MaliA wrote:

http://www.fruit-machine-cheats.com

Most of the machines he has listed there are very old, you might find them in the back of a seaside arcade but not in pubs.

Also a lot of his "cheats" are things that the machine does by design and are dependant on the machine being full and ready to pay out

asfish · **Joined:** 5th Dec, 2010 **Posts:** 3353

Quote:

Weird! The only pubs I *ever* see even a single fruit machine in are Wetherspoons/Chef and Brewer type affairs (which I never go into if I can avoid). I honestly believe that these days, and for a long time now, they are seen as rather seedy objects that totally lower the tone and, no disrespect to Hearthly whasoever intended, but frankly - tend to pull in the "wrong" kind of chav punter anyway

Went to the next village over from us yesterday as my sons school had a nice early Xmas Fayre

Dropped into the average sized pub on the high street for some lunch and that had 4 machines in there, all new with £100 Jackpots.

Nobody playing them, in fact the only interest shown was by my son who asked me what one of them was. IPhone came straight out for instant distraction

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Here's an easier method for you to try in the emulator, for a layout that has just been released, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. (Barcrest must have paid a big chunk of cash for the licensing rights.)

This is a far easier one to summarise than Alien, have a go!

1) Check that the machine is trail holding on 50p play. (It basically always will be in the emulator, this was just a test in the wild for whether or not it had been properly nobbled by another player.)

2) Go up to £1 play.

3) Play to get a board as normal, preferably not off a win exchange as will give a SAFE CASH value you don't want. Try to get in through the arrows on the outer board via numbers and bonuses.

4) Play the board as normal, once on the board you need to get an ADD AGAIN bonus and several NUDGE SHUFFLES, the number of NUDGE SHUFFLES you will require varies, so you need to use your judgement on this (explained below).

5) Whilst on the board you will get shots, you might get extra life icons or an extra life, you can go to the inner superboard and so on. The goal is to get the cash shots and feature shots close to where you can shoot jackpot or big money, whilst making sure you have an ADD AGAIN and several NUDGE SHUFFLES. The jackpot is a £70 cash award on the cash shots, the big money feature requires five big money icons which are Rebel Snowspeeder ships.

6) THIS IS THE TRAP IT DOESN'T SEE COMING >>> When you are close to snagging the jackpot or big money, (but not too close as it will simply kill you), land on a cash shot or feature shot square, now use your NUDGE SHUFFLES to get red boxes onto the winline, each red box brought onto the winline will eliminate a box from the award panel, the idea is to leave yourself within 1 or 2 shots of a guaranteed big money or jackpot. (Depending on if you're on a 1 or 2 shot square.) Remember you can nudge boxes using nudges as normal, or shuffle the reels with the Start button which can bring a red box either directly onto, or closer to the winline, than the reel setup you currently have.

7) Now use the ADD AGAIN bonus, this will immediately give you the same shot(s) again, and because you've just eliminated everything except guaranteed jackpot or big money in Step 6, that's what it has to shoot. <<< THIS IS THE TRAP IT DOESN'T SEE COMING

8 ) Yay, jackpot or big money, £70 minimum!

Once done they'd be properly on their arses for quite some time, as the win is accounted for, it was possible to leave them £40 away from a trail hold (see Step 1), let alone a feature.

Here's a video where it'll probably make more sense, as I'm getting close to the trap you can see me weighing up where the red boxes are and whether or not to nudge or shuffle. The number of nudge shuffles you have will instruct how close to the trap you need to be before you start using the nudge shuffles, as once you've used them it WILL kill you on the next spin.

NOTE - This was a standard issue Barcrest fuck-up when they upgraded the machine from a £35 jackpot to a £70 jackpot, the number of clangers they dropped was absolutely horrendous, a large number of their AWPs were exploitable post-upgrade.

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

One of my favourite old machines has just had a layout released for it, very entertaining sound package on this one

Not played a real one for about fifteen years or so!

http://www.fruitemu.co.uk/ib/index.php? ... guide-wdx/

zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

Hearthly wrote:

One of my favourite old machines has just had a layout released for it, very entertaining sound package on this one

Not played a real one for about fifteen years or so!

Pretty sure it blocked it correctly but there was an 'easy' jackpot with the stop and step on these wasnt there ? (I vaguely remember something about holding and pressing the middle button on a red bar or letting it timeout on another symbol for the jackpot).(*)

These are still in some arcades around the country but will all be set down to £5 jackpots and have a crappy profile where its £3 or £4 for a board to get £3 or £4 back

(*) now that i can check its if its the blue bar you let it timeout for the jackpot symbol , if its the red bar - you collect stop n step , press the middle button and then release and press it as quick as you can and it will jump to the jackpot symbol

it was an easy way to get quick money out them - when they were ready to go you played for the mixed bars and then for stop'n'step

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

As memory serves this was a clone of the Impulse fruit machine 'SPARTACASH' wasn't it?

It'd make sense as Maygay had properly lost the plot with AWPs by now IMO, so copying an Impulse game - (who were masters of the craft on the £15 jackpots, their game style didn't translate well to the £25 JP I never felt) - and giving it the full Simpsons license treatment was a smart move.

That DX looks fucking awesome if you play it in fullscreen windowless max mode in a darkened room.

zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

Hearthly wrote:

As memory serves this was a clone of the Impulse fruit machine 'SPARTACASH' wasn't it?

Yip , I also think it 'numbered' the same was as JPM's of that era

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Party Time Deluxe 'DX' layout now released, may be of interest to devilman

(This needs four instances of the emulator running simultaneously, as the real machine was based on three slave machines and one top box machine, all of which were capable of functioning independently of each other.)

On a wider note the layout releases have been coming thick and fast since the release of the new emulator, featuring everything from ancient electromechanicals, through olde worlde MPU3 (much beloved of Cavey), right up to recent Scorpion5/ADDER5/other modern techs running £70 jackpots, and everything inbetween.

Personally I think a lot of the best AWPs were released in the £15/£25 era, which has been well served in the past but also a whole load of previous unemulated machines running on the EPOCH tech can now be emulated too.

I've been spending far more time playing emulated fruit machines than anything else for the last couple of months....

Attachment:

wipeout.JPG

Grim... · **Posted:** Sat Dec 31, 2016 22:34

I fucking loved Wipeout.

Wiiiiiipe-out!

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Grim... wrote:

I fucking loved Wipeout.

Wiiiiiipe-out!

Just unzip both files, load MFME.exe, and then Load > Load Game > and browse to the Wipeout£15.gam file in the Wipeout folder.

Grim... · **Posted:** Sun Jan 01, 2017 2:02

Attachment:

Screenshot 2017-01-01 01.01.11.png

DavPaz · **Joined:** 27th Jun, 2008 **Posts:** 38458

Millennium bug

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Erk, sorry, just make sure PacDrive.dll is in the same folder as the MFME.exe executable. (File attached again below.) I included it in the emulator download for Alien a couple of pages back but forgot this time.....

Also, everything is available for free from sites such as:

http://www.fruit-emu.com/
http://www.fruitemu.co.uk/ib/index.php?/index
http://www.desertislandfruits.com/forum ... p?/portal/

All the sites ask for is registration, any donations beyond that are voluntary.

If you've got an FTP site or similar I can upload my current 'new' FME collection to it for you (i.e. everything released since the new emulator was released). It currently runs to 1.5GB. As you can see Wipeout is one machine in the 'EPOCH' tech folder.

Attachment:

fmenew.JPG

Attachment:

EPOCH.JPG

Grim... · **Posted:** Sun Jan 01, 2017 15:17

That worked, cheers.

Impressively, I don't have a public FTP solution.

Grim... · **Posted:** Sun Jan 01, 2017 15:18

Is there a save / load state button? Google doesn't want to tell me if there is.

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Grim... wrote:

Is there a save / load state button? Google doesn't want to tell me if there is.

Whenever you load a new game in, or quit out of the emulator, it automatically saves the game's state out to the .ram file in the game's folder, (you'll note the 'modified' date and time on this file changes when you quit out, or load a new game), this is the emulation of the battery backed RAM that real fruit machines have. (You can check this by quitting out of the emulator with some money in the bank, or credits left over, and then loading the game back in.)

Google won't help you much with MFME, it's basically all the work of one chap and always has been, the documentation for it is basically in his head but of course much has been disseminated out to forums and the collective FME hive over the years.

Any questions I'll be happy to help, or the folks at the forums of the above listed sites are all very friendly and helpful. The emulator's author is most active at fruitemu.co.uk but also fruit-emu, and is receptive to questions or comments.

Also note that you can control the games with shortcut keys, which is much recommended as opposed to clicking on everything with a mouse.

Standard ones are:

SPACE = Start

1/2/3 = Hold/nudge reels 1-3 (or 4 in the case of 4 reelers)

` = Cancel/Collect

Logically beyond that

E/X = Exchange
A = Autonudge
T = Transfer
F = Feature

And so on

In Wipeout's case for the hi/los it's

Q/A = Hi/Lo left
W/S = Hi/Lo right

All reconfigurable on a game per game basis by going into Design > Edit Mode and then right clicking on the component/button you want to edit.

For the best visual effect go to Window > Borderless > Full Screen Max or press F3.

Be Excellent To Each Other

The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
Also, gambling talk and stuff.

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Be Excellent To Each Other

The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines Also, gambling talk and stuff.

Who is online

The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
Also, gambling talk and stuff.