Captain Caveman wrote:
...What I've been saying for the last 10 years, basically. It is utterly scandalous that such flawed, bent devices are STILL around (only just, mind), purporting to be "the pub fruit machine" whereas actually, they are nothing more than a scam to fleece those ever-dwindling hapless punters at the expense of those "in the know".
They've rechipped that machine and its clones four times now, and they're still open to that kind of battering by the pros.
(The original machine was Alien (proper licensed job!), that Leprechaun's Gold is a clone of it, they all run the same code.)
Do note it's not a case of 'walk up and empty the machine', I've had the method on those explained to me and it's really quite complex and involved, especially on the P4 chip which is the one that machine is running there. Basically the code doesn't look far enough ahead and it's possible to trap it into moving to a jackpot feature square when it doesn't want to (and even then you have to do the feature right), with a combination of hi/lo steps, bonuses, and getting the hi/lo reel into the right position, at a point on the board where the code doesn't 'see' the danger coming.
As for the other clip I've just posted (the true skill one), I'm a little bit 50/50 on that line of machines (the machine in the clip is an Electrocoin called Dead Man's Treasure, but they made about five or six of them that are literally all just straight clones of each other) - on the one hand they do genuinely reward the skilful player, there are two features in the top zone that are jackpot capable, the reel skill feature you can see in that video, and also a reel stepper feature which requires knowledge of the reel strips and quick hands holding the reels as they step.
However, on the other hand they 'number' (i.e. you look for particular numbers on the hi/lo reel during normal play and that will tell you if it's going to offer one of the jackpot features or not), and they also maintain two separate pots for the different stakes, which isn't indicated to the player in any way whatsoever.
They also maintain a 'hidden' streak pot that will randomly just drop a £140 invincible board.
As such, for the player who knows everything there is know about the machine it's possible to get:
1) A skill jackpot on 25p/50p stake (in the form of a mega streak that can go for £80-£90)
2) A skill jackpot on £1 stake (in the form of a mega streak that can go for £80-£90)
3) Possibly trigger the £140 streak pot as well.
That brings the 'maximum jackpot' if you will to over
THREE HUNDRED FUCKING POUNDS on a pub AWP, which is absolutely mental. Needless to say the suck cycle on this family of machines is incredibly brutal, they can literally take £25 or more and not offer a single win of so much as 50p.
Make no mistake though, even today, there are guys making a tidy living out of the pub AWP, although competition can be quite fierce for the 'good' machines.