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[Wozza]

I found this document whilst browsing other forums, it makes an interesting read!

MY ARCADE: I CONNED 'SADDICTS' AND GOT RICH!

INTRODUCTION:

Hi, I’m Simon from Cambridgeshire; some readers may know me or even remember me. I'm new to this Internet stuff, so forgive the quality if you can. Since buying a computer I've researched fruit machines and having been out of the business now for several years, not much seems to have changed judging by the chat-rooms and sites I've seen.
Anyway, some of you may be enlightened or interested in my true and verifiable story. I thing some of you 'chatters' need to read it!!
I have now made (directly and indirectly) over half a million quid from fruit machines, and now for want of a better word, am gloating over my recent successes which you'll read further down the page!

HOW I STARTED IN ARCADE BUSINESS:

I did 'A' levels at a secondary school in Huntingdon, and took a Saturday job in 1984 at the amusement arcade behind the Bus Station in Huntingdon, which some readers may know. It was along the road to the Market Square, where near where the cinema now is.
Like most in arcades, I was paid piss-poor money; it was a job which has the same social status as you would get working in Mc. Donalds or collecting trolleys in the supermarket car parks.
The owner was an old tosser who didn't appear to have much time left. He thought I was a "nice bright young lad" and soon I was given more responsibility; by 1985 I was runing it for him!
I thought customer levels were a bit low and we had a visiting Engineer on call. The machines were Red Hot Poker, Triella, Frog-Hopper, Each Way Nudgers and Bell-Fruits with yellow 'Bellfruit' bars on for jackpots.
Once entrusted with the keys, I was soon carrying out setting and repairs etc. I could repair the electromagnetic slide-pulses, change settings and percentages by the little dip-switches on the boards and more! I was allowed to do the paperwork, advertise and advise players on how to operate the machines.
This was not unnoticed by the owner!

MANAGERSHIP AND MAKING MONEY:

Later in 1985 the owner was on his last legs and I was essentially handed control. His fat bloater of a daughter would come in occasionally and pick up paperwork Being a bit of a 'lad' I soon had my mates (and theirs) coming in, and losing money; turnover was up over 80% and I saw my opportunity.

THE PEOPLE:

I soon realised that most customers were the saddest and loneliest people on earth. I used to watch the retards put their wages in on a Friday evening, often losing £70 - 90 in a few hours. In minutes they would be a few tenners down, and when they finally got a poxy £3 token jackpot and accompanying noises, they would look around with proudly puffed chests to see who was noticing their 'skill prowess and triumph'!!
Gullible pricks.
Monday was pension day, so the old people would come in and play the noughts and crosses-type machines.
Thursday was dole-ites day and Friday and Saturday was payday for most, so they'd come in and lose their week's graft, often still from the brown envelope it was paid in.
I got to know most of them, always showing 'empathy and concern' at their predictable misfortune. I would give out 'condolence' tokens of 10 or 20p just so that they could try for "that last hold" to extend their weekly 'enjoyment' once their wages or Giro's were done!
They would leave red-faced and gutted, facing another weekend stuck indoors or begging and borrowing for a pint etc. I would even donate a cigarette when they skulked off, as the morons would've bought, with incredible foresight, only 1 pack of fags from their wages which they'd smoked in the 2 hours it took to lose the bastard!
They all thought I was "a good ol' boy" !!

PEOPLE: HOW THEY HELPED ME;

I knew by Christmas most of the f***wits by name. 90% were regulars (big losers), 5% were careful less-frequent players who had a slight modicum of self-control and usually wore glasses and had names like 'Jonathan, Kevin or Lawrence' who reckoned themselves 'clever' players. they merely lost slower than the 90%!!
The other 5% were passing players who'd lose a quick fiver and f*** off - I was especially 'nice' to these as I wanted them to join the 90%!!
With a free hand, I started to play the full machines after closing at night. I would open them and switch them up to 88% (when all the dip-switches wre down to the right). I would play tokens (which I filled in the short-payouts shett to obtain) and win out cash. This usually took merely 10-15 minutes per machine for a 'streak' of £20ish. I would then put them back to 72-74% which they were originally set to.
The clueless scum would invariably fill them up the next day. I was scamming up to £500 a week on top of my wages, and it was never noticed as the owner was still making marginally more than he had prior to my arrival. My favourite con was selling the cretinous customers tokens at half-price via the short-payouts sheet!

MY PROGRESS AND PROFIT:

By spring 1986 I'd saved up over £14,000. My problem was 'laundering' all the coins in banks so my Building Society didn't notice vast amounts of coinage! By summer the owner's health (told me by his porker of a daughter) was bad. She told me he had a five year lease with 28 months left. This was paid quarterly, and I think flabby was counting her inheritance, thinking 'cash' and not 'shitty arcade business'! To cut it short, the stock of machines was audited at £3,500 and the lease was £7,000 per annum. Eventually I signed an agreement to take over the lease and buy the stock for a total of £10,800. Not bad in 18 months, and I'd won the f***er from his machines! I basically made their solicitor believe I'd borrowed the money from a bank, with the useful acquisition of some Barclay's Bank headed notepaper!

HOW CUSTOMERS MADE ME RICH:

At first I felt slight pity for the losers, who you'd probably call addicts. I soon realised they were hopeless cases and that I should make hay while the sun shined, so to speak. I would change machine %ages every 48 hours as I'd previously noticed how predictable they were on the same settings; one machine considered 'good' on Thursday, would therefore become 'terrible' on Friday and so-on. This kept the players on their toes.
I always had a popular machine where the slide-pulse would be 'doctored' so as not to pay coins out reliably. This meant I could take more cash and refund the players with poxy tokens which they could only really lose in other machines.
Very few ever walked out of the place in profit - yet they always came back again and again. The machines were always well maintained, with lights working and clean with the volume set just right. I'd cancelled the cleaning lady and engineer by then due to self-sufficiency. I had one lady who worked part-time when I had outside business or wanted a day off to spend my profits.

ADDICTS MADE ME RICHER STILL!!;

Seeing the addicts come in at the end of the week almost gave me an erection! My adrenalin would rise and I'd breathe quicker - I knew in a few hours I would be £50-100 richer. I really couldn't believe how easy it was to make money once I owned the place. I was clearing £1,300-1,700 a week, almost £2,000 a week within a year of taking over.
I paid the lease in advance within the first 3 months each year, so for 9 months I was virtually operating on total profit!
There were further 'benefits' though; the sad-addicts (saddicts) were often flogging me stuff for tokens to play machines with. They shoplifted (I presumed) bottles of whisky, perfumes, cigarettes, packs of Duracell batteries, aftershave, boxes of chocolates, you name it! Virtually all my shopping needs, except food and petrol, were met by saddicts. I paid £3 worth of tokens for a (then) £7 bottle of spirits!
The stuff I bought was either sold on for profit or used for presents - I even sold the saddicts fags full-price from my 'stock'!
The weaklings would often sell personal possessions cheaply for a few quids-worth of tokens. I had an almost new £110 racing bike for £25 of brass tokens, jewellery, Zippos and ghetto blasters - you name it! I would keep them in the store/spares room at the back and sell them back to the saddicts when they had the cash, normally for 50-100% profit. Some, like bikes, I would sell in the small-ads of the Hunts. Post and make good money.

ABUSING RULES:

I soon partitioned the back room into a small 'private' parlour with 3 cheaply purchased 5p play £60 jackpot machines. Next to them would be an open machine with tools/parts around it. This would show the Gaming Board chaps (they only ever visited once) that it was a 'repair service' I was running, which included club machines!
The really sad thing was that certain saddicts were made to feel 'in the know' and privileged for being allowed to play on the 'premium' machines!! They lost their lucre even quicker. On occasions they did drop the 'big one', I mysteriously ran out of notes; an addict with £60 of coins in his pockets - yes, straight back out onto the other machines and gone in a few hours!! Jeez, like swets from a baby!

I had all the machines on wiring rings in groups of 2 or 3. Whenever players had go a decent bank of £20+, I would simply quickly flick the power off and on, just enough that it affected the machine without the player seeing. I would 'investigate' the occurrence, switch off the machine and pay the idiot in tokens, always giving a few 'extra' - man, I was their friend!

FUNNY STORIES!:

On one occasion, a lad had done his wages despite him knowing how unlikely he was to actually win in my arcade. Of course he wanted more money so sold me an expensive and heavy gold bracelet for £25 of tokens. This went in half an hour. Anyway, on the Sunday a very angry woman came in, asking about her son's gold bracelet. She was quite well-spoken, obviously from one of the better areas (unlike most of the twats who fed my machines who could just about screw a nut and bolt together, use a clocking-in machine at a factory and spell their names correctly.)
I almost felt guilty, and was going to sell it back when she informed me, "it was an 18th. birthday present from us, his parents, and I'll give you what you paid him plus £20." She then proceeded to count out £70 in tenners! The little prick must've been so embarrassed that he lied to her and told her he got £50 for it! Sad people, these losers. He even came back in on the Thursday and apologised for her visit!

A middle aged woman came in one day and requested that I ban her mother! Apparently she was one of the 'Monday Club' who'd do her pension in the bar-x type machines. She'd been round to her flat one day and found her with no electricity, only tins of soup and cat food in the cupboard. Her mother had told her (eventually) that she was losing £40 a visit on my machines but only really wanted the company of the other grannies. I told the woman I couldn't ban her for no reason and that she should get professional help for her mum. For 3 weeks she never came back, but then reappeared. A few months later she stopped visiting again, and never returned.
It transpired that she had died that winter, which wasn't very good for my takings; a good addict leaving or dying cost me up to £2,500 a year!

Lastly, I bought a nice bike from a lad off of the estate. Needless to say, an hour later it was mine, for free! He bought it back a week later for £10 extra. 3 weeks later another lad offered it to me. I said, " oh that must be Marks'"
He said, "no I bought it in the second hand shop opposite the Cromwell Cafe last week" The original seller must have been too embarrassed to sell it to me again, and flogged it there for his machine money!
Very soon, I'd sold it on to another loser at a good profit. The original owner came back with it about 2 weeks later, and told me he'd bought it off a bloke at the pub, after recognising it as his old one! Soon he pawned it to me again, and on it went!
I mean, this effing bike had earned me over £120 by the time I last sold it back to the player who'd sold me it for tokens at the time, and that was in transaction profit alone, without counting what they lost in my machines!
I loved that bike.

HOW IT ENDED:

Just before the lease was up for renewal, late 1987, I'd made over £130,000 from the dump, in profits and minimalising my contributions to the Exchequer. I was at home at the time, so wanted a house. Ekins estate agents had one I liked the look of, so went along.
I noticed this snotty troll I used to go to school with, and another geek who was obviously the 'financial adviser'. I said I wanted that house etc. Recognising me, and with an air of smugness and self-importance, he asked "if I had arranged a mortgage".
Producing my Passbooks and investment certificates, I firmly assured him that I wouldn't be needing one. After they went very quiet, I got the process going and purchased the detached house, in Hemingford (near St.Ives) with swimming pool et al.
Great timing; the property boom was just about to start.

Meanwhile, I was getting 'attitude' from the leasing agents. At first, a five- year renewal would cost 40% more. "No problem", I said. Then they kept making excuses about not renewing it. With only 2 months left, I sensed something was wrong - it was not going to be renewed to me, whatever I paid.
I was in a position whereby it would take years to get licence to open another similar premises, so I reluctantly sold my stock for £3,750 and quit.
I subsequently found out it had been turned into a Travel Agency, run by a girl with, co-incidentally, the same surname as one of the District Councillors!
Nevermind, I was living in a house rising in value by £10,000 a month. I took another job and lived happily there until recently.

WHY THIS STORY NOW??;

I've recently sold the house for £575,000 (see Hunts.Property Pages October 2001) - you'll recognise it by the pool and the the price. I'm moving to the South Coast into a similar-size house (no pool) in a lovely setting with 2 acres of land. As it's only £295,000 I've got money left to provide me with an adequate income to live off.
All this, just form clandestinely playing bent fruit machines, and then owning them!
I've not played one since!

MY VIEWS ON FRUIT-MACHINES ETC.;

People can't win from machines overall, unless they have very special knowledge. I've seen players with ability and NO discipline lose thousands, and players with little ability but a BIT of discipline only lose a few pounds. Believe me, the odds are stacked against players like no other form of gaming.
I could only win by whacking up the %ages after hours - what chance did the saddicts have? There were a few emptyable machines around, but only twice did they ever get 'done', and the players never came back!

I've looked around the Web, and truly you'll only make money by owning the f***ers, not playing them! I see that there are 3 sites selling info. and yes, you can win with info., but it's wasted without discipline!
I saw a site by a 'Kinger' which is a f*****g laugh! Without saying it, he's just like any other amusement owner - his core income is supplied by uncontrolled and indisciplined saddicts; without them, he'd fold, just like I would have.
Him and his ilk probably just rely on the equipment to do the job (mainly) rather than their own cunning like I did.
The end result is just the same though - people walk in with money, and leave without it, thoroughly ripped-off!

A drug-pusher needs addicts for income, just the same as an arcade-owner. It's just another case of the stronger exploiting the weakest.
Think what it's really about!! I am set up for life, just because people put their lives into a wooden box portraying basic computer programmes in the form of mechanical reels and flashing lights.
I ask you, surely it's more fun to be addicted to speed, sex or booze, and probably a lot cheaper!

Those who made me rich would probably cry if they saw my house, cars and lifestyle. They would hate their own stupidity for giving it all to me, on a plate so to speak. I'm sorry, but they are pitiful creatures with desolate lives who have difficulty in finding partners, careers, success or any kind of personal fulfilment.
I shouldn't mock the idiots that made me rich. I hope they've got lives now and other company aside from fruit machines. I would genuinely feel sad if they were still pissing their futures down a coin-mech.
Especially as it won't be mine

People who say they play 'socially' are extremely misguided. You still lose like the saddicts, but are too embarrassed to become them! There is only one distinction; those who play and those who do not.
Remember, no owner or manufacturer WANTS you to win. They merely want you to THINK that you can win. If you think you can, then you perpetuate the great fruit machine scam being run in U.K. 2002.

FINAL WORD:

Thank-you to all those that have poured their possessions, labour and money into my machines; I hope you've quit now.
If you haven't, do so NOW because you're just creating more smug gits like me with your debt, unfulfillment, boredom ,misery and soulless existences..

I'll raise my teacup to you all when my next investment statement arrives in the morning post.
I wouldn't be here without you.

Regards,

Simon.

[RB]

this is from the gaming boards new addendum for the smart card deregulation of fruit machines payout...

5.1 Controls for Section 34 Machines of the Fruit Machine Type

1. Any sequence of wins must not exceed that to be expected from a random machine of a similar payout profile and running at the same payout percentage.

2. Prior to the commencement of any game the outcome of that game must not be predictable to the player.

3. Any features that can be used to modify the outcome of the present game by reference to the previous game will not be available at greater than 50% chance (with the exception of a live jackpot). When not dependent on the outcome of the previous game or games there is no restriction on the availability within the current game.

4. If a feature is described as "skill", it shall be true skill.

5. The target percentage payout (which must not be less than the agreed 70% minimum) shall be achieved within any 10,000 games.

I left most of the shite out but the last point (5) was interesting...lol

On a 25p per game machine £2,500 at 70% payout every 10000 games

At which point in the 10000 games does it decide to pay the 70% ?

RB

[Scmooster]

Oh Simon? From Cambridgeshire? I remember that tosser, he died of cancer about 18 months ago.

[RB]

but in reality it is a spoof site ......



RB

[PJ]

“she had died that winter, which wasn't very good for my takings; a good addict leaving or dying cost me up to £2,500 a year!”


What a heartless c***! I wish he'd died face down in his bloody swimming pool, shot with a crossbow by one of his own 'saddicts' who'd tracked him down...