Publicans who are pleased to see you

tonkarentino · Post by **tonkarentino** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 7:43 pm

My sister and brother-in-law ran a Berni Inn (n.b. for the younger element on here Berni Inns preceded Beefeaters) on the Hagley Road in Brum circa autumn 1986. They had an original quizmaster machine. Quizmasters paid a maximum of £38.00 before they were empty. I stayed there for four days and due to the vast amounts of money going into them and the lack of anyone winning it was possible to take £38.00 per day out of it. Not bad when your stake was 20/25p per game. Remember too that those were the days before "All day opening".

In those days the machines only really had two defences:

The difficulty of the questions and

The speed of the timer.

Unfortunately the makers were undone because

a. they seemed incapable of understanding that people could create a skill level at which they could regularly attain the speed required and

b. a lot of games due to the lack of available memory only had very small difficult questions banks which could easily be learned. There was a game based on a T.V. show (Every Second Counts I think) where when it was "wound up" it took all it's questions from a difficult bank which contained only three hundred questions-easily learnable.
The speed aspect coupled with a relatively small question bank allowed people to make thousands on the early versions of "Give Us A Break". My brother in law gave up the pub trade and earned thousands from version 3 of that game alone. One night they were stopped by the police in a service station on the M5 and had to explain the presence of 1800 pound coins in the boot the result of two days playing.
In short the games couldn't defend themselves and the makers gave us another boost when they went to first a £12.00 JP and then £20.00 without any real improvement in the games defensive capabilities
The only other machine that I can remember which had an update that was easier to win on than the original was "Adders and Ladders". The original didn't have a continue feature after you'd got to the end and seemed reluctant to give you the three/four quid win preferring to send you up ladders and down snakes almost ad infinitum. The second version had the numbers of the next throws of the dice along the bottom of the screen and allowed you to get a prize of up to £10.00 by continuing very regularly. At the time we thought the original must have been in contravention of the SWP ethos.

Despite there being allegedly loads of professionals at the time it was amazing how I never seemed to run into any of them. I did meet a lad from Hull once who was absolutely red hot on "Inquisitor" and someone at Gatwick Airport who threatened to kill me if I didn't leave "his" machines alone.

The intro of the multi game unit was what started the demise. I played my first I.T. Box in Peterborough in the late 90's (maybe early noughties) and from day one believed that it would eventually be the death of quizzing

barnaby · Post by **barnaby** » Sat Nov 26, 2011 7:02 am

Hi there. We just removed our game warehouse machine. A few years ago we had 2 itboxes but takings have gone down to about a tenner a week after a 50/50 split. Apparently this is fairly average but it doesn't take a genius to realise that a table filled for a couple of hours on one night in the week will make us more money than a quiz machine . Unless you have unlimited free space- as some chain pubs do of course- then I can't see any good reason to have a quiz machine anymore.

ggdr · Post by **ggdr** » Wed Nov 30, 2011 12:10 pm

"I did meet a lad from Hull once who was absolutely red hot on "Inquisitor" and someone at Gatwick Airport who threatened to kill me if I didn't leave "his" machines alone."

That's very interesting Tonkarentino: I'd heard the Gatwick Airport story from somebody who knew the aggressor. Will check in with them for the details if you're interested.

cool · Post by **cool** » Thu Dec 01, 2011 10:25 am

The Gatwick airport guy is legendary.He came from London getting the train down there.I never came across him but a friend did.He allowed my friend to get involved with the Time Machine before asking him if he thought he was good enough to get the jackpot.He replied in the affirmative to be told you wont get a penny from it you cunt as Ive just emptied it.Nice bloke.

tonkarentino · Post by **tonkarentino** » Thu Dec 01, 2011 10:23 pm

cool wrote:The Gatwick airport guy is legendary.He came from London getting the train down there.I never came across him but a friend did.He allowed my friend to get involved with the Time Machine before asking him if he thought he was good enough to get the jackpot.He replied in the affirmative to be told you wont get a penny from it you cunt as Ive just emptied it.Nice bloke.

Yep! Sounds exactly like the chap I encountered!!

The only other place I've had anything similar was in a pub in Edinburgh called The Blue Jacket (I think) where the local dabbler chased me half way down the street after I'd just beaten him to a "ready" Double Top

cp999 · Post by **cp999** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 1:43 am

tonkarentino wrote:The only other place I've had anything similar was in a pub in Edinburgh called The Blue Jacket (I think) where the local dabbler chased me half way down the street after I'd just beaten him to a "ready" Double Top

Blue Blazer. Wonder who that was, must have been c. 1997.

tonkarentino · Post by **tonkarentino** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 8:16 am

JG wrote:The Gatwick airport guy was a total loon. He would become aggressive with casuals playing the machine as well and he was territorial with other silly things such as certain types of sandwhiches in the shop and he got edgy if too many people used a certain urinal in the gents near arrivals.
Anyway I was in there one day playing the £6 token Hot Rod that was showing exchanges and he comes in and starts chatting normally.
As it happened I'd had a pee in the seperate porcelain urinal, set aside from the stainless steel one. I'd also bought a chicken salad sandwhich from the Food Co. tucker shop.
He seemed normal at first, but then he started with these eratic muscular jerks and asking if I'd always eaten chicken sandwhiches. He seemed irate that I knew what I was doing on the fruit, even though he professed to not really playing fruits. AS the conversation progressed he was dropping silly little threats into his sentences. Things like "It's a good job you don't play quizzes like you play fruits otherwise your torso would be going around the baggage carousel and your head would be up my arse"

Being British and full of quiet reserve, I ignored these at first. Giving the loon a few shots at my dignity. However as I started on the second half of my chicken sandwhich he ripped it out my hands and flung it into an ash tray. Then he smeared it around the ash tray and shouted "THERE! YOU STUPID CUNT!!!!. THERE! DON'T COME TO THIS AIRPORT TO FUCK AROUND."
After some more vocalisations about how I knew his 'secret urinal' I squared up to him and said "I have the necessary physical strengths to render you unconscious and in severe pain. You have no control over my actions in this airport. But I do over yours. If you do not step away and I know you will, I will bite off your testacles and deposit them on the baggage carousel. Your head will stay where it is, in horrendous agony, wretched and stuck on your pathetic neck which is in perilous danger of being wrung"

He just simply apologised and said "Sorry, didn't mean to wind you up" and left sharpish with a smug grin on his face. Total wierdo. I was hungry though and I really would have bitten off his testacles, such was the vexacious nature of the man.

Genius!!

tonkarentino · Post by **tonkarentino** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 8:18 am

cp999 wrote:
tonkarentino wrote:The only other place I've had anything similar was in a pub in Edinburgh called The Blue Jacket (I think) where the local dabbler chased me half way down the street after I'd just beaten him to a "ready" Double Top
Blue Blazer. Wonder who that was, must have been c. 1997.

My chronology on machines and the timing of games isn't very good but I didn't think Treble Tops were around that late?

cp999 · Post by **cp999** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 10:54 am

tonkarentino wrote:
cp999 wrote:
tonkarentino wrote:The only other place I've had anything similar was in a pub in Edinburgh called The Blue Jacket (I think) where the local dabbler chased me half way down the street after I'd just beaten him to a "ready" Double Top
Blue Blazer. Wonder who that was, must have been c. 1997.
My chronology on machines and the timing of games isn't very good but I didn't think Treble Tops were around that late?

You're right in that they had been around for a while by then, but there was definitely a Treble Top there in 1997. I actually knew of a few up until 2001.

quizard · Post by **quizard** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 10:56 am

tonkarentino wrote:
cp999 wrote:
tonkarentino wrote:The only other place I've had anything similar was in a pub in Edinburgh called The Blue Jacket (I think) where the local dabbler chased me half way down the street after I'd just beaten him to a "ready" Double Top
Blue Blazer. Wonder who that was, must have been c. 1997.
My chronology on machines and the timing of games isn't very good but I didn't think Treble Tops were around that late?

There were still remnants around. People were into plugging them by that time though.

barnaby · Post by **barnaby** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 6:18 am

Most quiz machines are being removed cos no one plays them anymore. And they're quite boring.

What will you guys do when they are all gone? Fruits?

tonkarentino · Post by **tonkarentino** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 6:25 am

barnaby wrote:Most quiz machines are being removed cos no one plays them anymore. And they're quite boring.

What will you guys do when they are all gone? Fruits?

Perhaps the ones being removed in your locality are finding a new home in my area?

barnaby · Post by **barnaby** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 7:33 am

Could be but it wouldnt explain why quiz machine takings are down 50% in the last year or so. I know where my quiz machine went - to the snooker club (ie licensed arcade) nearby. If they take more than we were then fair enough but I doubt it.

quizard · Post by **quizard** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 11:34 am

barnaby wrote:Most quiz machines are being removed cos no one plays them anymore. And they're quite boring.

This just isn't true

gambogaz1 · Post by **gambogaz1** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 12:18 pm

barnaby wrote:Most quiz machines are being removed cos no one plays them anymore. And they're quite boring.

What will you guys do when they are all gone? Fruits?

Not sure where you go out drinking as round here it's quite rare to find a pub without a Quizzer in, but there's plenty of pubs now without a fruit machine in.