Fruit Machine Chat

Anyone know of any?

apparently there's one at Gatwick but I've never been able to find it

I'm not sure about now but I definitely played on a Gamesbox (Millionaire, Hangman etc.) last time I flew from Gatwick for skiing. It was outside a small arcade of fruit machines etc. in the main shopping area of Departures i.e. before you go through Passport Control.

I have also spotted a few in various parts of Heathrow. In fact the weirdest machine sighting I've had for ages was at Heathrow about 18 months ago when I saw an old-style Snakes and Ladders game right next to the flight gates. This was the one that showed you all the upcoming dice moves and I can remember playing it back in about 1990! God knows what it was still doing at Heathrow but sadly I didn't have time to reacquaint myself with the old thing as my flight was boarding.

The trouble is that unless you visit airports regularly, particularly somewhere massive like Heathrow, it's hard to pin down where the machines are likely to be and in any case they are often placed after Passport Control so you can't just make a casual visit to play them. What that does mean of course is that any you do find in such locations may be quite a bit fuller and more ready to pay than machines in busy pubs. I've always assumed the same would apply to any machines on the cross channel ferries but haven't been on one of those for a few years so couldn't say for certain that there are going to be any.

There was definitely one at Gatwick, I forget which terminal, but it was in the lounge after you put your bag in the X-Ray machine. Also at Stansted there was an Itbox in the arcade place, and I think a Paragon in the adjacent Irish bar, but I can't be sure because it was shut when I was there,

There is an itbox in Stanstead in a Wetherspoons pub. Nearly paid for my joliday

Nostalgia alert!!
1.Adders and Ladders in Heathrow, if someone could confirm that i'm there-that was my first ever know all the answers machine
2.I think there are 2 itboxes at stanstead once you've gone through departures and there's at least one monopoly at one of the departure gates.
This, however, is somewhat down from when stanstead was at it's apogee with an astonishing 18 machines about 10 years ago.I used to fly down from glasgow and then fly back which was pretty decadent/show-offy and come to think of it somewhat enviromentally unfriendly!But they used to be everywhere!
The first time i was there i spent so long playing the machines that i had to run for my flight and as i was running for the train in the departure bit i kept seeing more and more machines all over the place!Had to run past an old trivial pursuit(70 bucks guaranteed) and some really old weird stuff like suit pursuit i think.
This was the same story for 2/3 years but they slowly disappeared.
3.I think there's still at least one monopoly in international departures at glasgow airport(an 11 sadly)but again confirmation would be nice.
Ah the good old days where just going to the airport early enough virtually paid for your holiday!!

There's one in the Arrivals Lounge at Gatwick, near the doors. Easy money!!

foxy wrote:Nostalgia alert!! 1.Adders and Ladders in Heathrow, if someone could confirm that i'm there-that was my first ever know all the answers machine

I'd be surprised if it was still there - it was about 18 months ago when I saw it - and besides it was located right by the BA departure gates so you'd need to at least be on a flight somewhere to be able to check it out. It was certainly a surreal moment seeing it though, just a shame I was in too much of a hurry to have a game or two for old times' sake!

foxy wrote:3.I think there's still at least one monopoly in international departures at glasgow airport(an 11 sadly)but again confirmation would be nice.

Do you mean the standalone Monopoly where the way to win was to go back 3 spaces onto Mayfair? I haven't seen that one in a LONG time. What does the '11' signify? - is that a version number?

It was the number of moves the mystery cards made when they were shuffling.

If they moved 10 times, then it would happily give the move back 3 spaces for the £10... if it moved 11 times, it wouldn't.

Heathrow used to have several SWPs in the public areas of the terminals in the late 90s. Has anyone been there recently?

Do you mean the standalone Monopoly where the way to win was to go back 3 spaces onto Mayfair? I haven't seen that one in a LONG time. What does the '11' signify? - is that a version number?

All Monopolies were originally 10 movers. These had a weakness in the gameplay that meant they could be cleaned out given enough patience.

A modifcation was introduced on to many of the existing machines after they had been around a good while to prevent this. The quick way of identifying the tweaked version was that the cards moved 11 rather than 10 times.

quizard wrote:Heathrow used to have several SWPs in the public areas of the terminals in the late 90s. Has anyone been there recently?

muggins here went down there over the weekend, i don't know what it is like airside but in the public areas this is what i found. i can report that terminal three had one itbox (turned off), terminals one and two had no machines and terminal four had one old itbox which had a buggered screen.

so not much cop.

the area is a hinterland so i went to nearest town (hayes) to lick my wounds.
similarly poor choice of SWPs i only found two itboxes in the spoons and a place called george orwell. easy pickings in these as you'd expect but a complete waste of time.

Travelled out thru' Gatwick Fri 11th. (Nightmare!!)

There's an old "Underground" in the Sports Bar upstairs in the South Terminal.

Blimey! Is that still there? I played that at least two years ago on a skiing trip. Amazing isn't it how these odd specimens still lurk long after all others of their species have been removed, and this prompts two related questions which I'll post in a new thread...

just a quick update for glasgow airport as i actually managed to go on holiday.
there's a gamecube thing featuring my good friend dr fox which has either been switched off or not taking money the last 4 times i've been there :x ( i know everyone must have thought this but do these people never check the machines or do they just assume no-one has played the thing for a whole month!).
anyway sad to report that international departures features one monopoly 11 and that's it.at least it seemed to work but wasn't for paying.i'm surprised and disappointed there wasn't a lot more-captive audience and lack of pros due to having to buy plane ticket rather than coke.