Paragon - Where did I stand?

Matt Vinyl · Post by **Matt Vinyl** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:50 am

Morning guys...

Well, was having a Thursday post-work beer around Bexley village, and decided to play one of these. I usually just go for a test of Bullseye and hope for some return, nothing overly exciting.

Well, I had no change, so inserted a £10 note. I spied the little yellow sticker stating that £2 committed to credits, collect or play remainder. All well and good. Well, I managed a £2 board off of Bully and the star prize was £6, went for that and nabbed it. Played a few games of DOND, but it was hovering around the 50k mark, so struggled to make any return there.

After that, I was left with £3 in the bank, and £8 in credits. Would it let me collect any of it? No. I quizzed the barman, who came over and pressed the bank readout, as if it could detect it was his finger on the screen as opposed to mine. No joy. Switched the machine off and on again. I know that's not advisable usually, but, well, he did it anyway. It rebooted and still left me in the same situation. He called up to the manager who bluntly said - play off the rest of your credits, that's the only way you can collect your winnings, I'm not giving it to you out of the till...!

So, slightly peeved, as was with chums and we wanted to move on. Anyway, we settled in for a session, and managed:

£6 off of DOND
£3 off of Skill Ball Bingo (!)
£1 off of PMP

So, had £16 in the bank when the credits had all diminished. Thankfully, that then did collect.

My main point was, the sticker clearly said I should have been able to collect my winnings and bank, but the manager 'insisted' that I had to play them out.

Luckily it was only an Ayrton. Had it been a twenty, I would have caused a ruckus! (Or probably just walked out, rather miffed!)

Anyone else had similar experiences?

On a related point, when he switched the machine off and on to see if that made a difference, the barman repeatedly tapped the bank and credit readouts for about 10 seconds. The readouts then disappeared, and in place of the bank appeared some rubbish, but on the credit side, it said:

Remaining Plays: 3360

??!!

Again, anyone any idea what that means? He certainly didn't 'mean' to get it to say that, but I wonder if it is of any meaningful use?

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 10:06 am

i've never had any problem with the payout on notes so that is odd.
the remaining credits is games which the publican buys from the operator.

pay £xx and your punters can play yyyy games.

terrible description, sorry.

grecian · Post by **grecian** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 10:31 am

I'm sure there was a suggestion on here a while back that some Paragons had altered such that a note's worth of credits had to be used in their entirety (I think because of note changer scamming) - so maybe the sticker on the machine was out of date.

I think the only really safe policy nowadays is not to use notes in SWPs, I'm afraid (or at most to pop a fiver in, if you can find one in good enough condition).

Anyway, good work in getting down to business efficiently despite the irritation and using the credits relatively productively.

Matt Vinyl · Post by **Matt Vinyl** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 10:41 am

Ah, that may have been what happened then. I will ensure said sticker is removed!

Istenem: Intersting, I didn't know that was how the 'business' of hosting games machines was carried out.

Grecian: Thank you, yes, to spawn a positive result from an annoying situation did indeed make it more pallatable. As far as Bully is going at the moment, I seem to be doing extremely well - usually £4+ up from most individual machine ventures.

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 3:21 pm

Matt Vinyl wrote:Paragon - Where did I stand?

My guess would be about one foot in front of the cabinet, depending on your height and the length of your arms...

cp999 · Post by **cp999** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 12:12 am

I've encountered a few Paragons which give 20 credits for £10, 10 credits for £5 etc. I guess you were playing one which was set up in that way, even if that's not the way the machine claimed to be configured - note that Paragons will only allow you to collect the bank when you have zero credit.

ob · Post by ob » Sat Apr 19, 2008 4:27 am

[quote="Matt Vinyl"]Ah, that may have been what happened then. I will ensure said sticker is removed!

Istenem: Intersting, I didn't know that was how the 'business' of hosting games machines was carried out.

Grecian: Thank you, yes, to spawn a positive result from an annoying situation did indeed make it more pallatable. As far as Bully is going at the moment, I seem to be doing extremely well - usually £4+ up from most individual machine ventures. ]

bully?!?!? what is not on 601 and 25's all the time lol, soon as you've took a star prize it will do this for ages... !!!

dmac · Post by **dmac** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 8:39 am

rocket · Post by **rocket** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 10:02 am

Lol, did exactly the same thing myself last weekend Matt. Same machine in one of my locals, and I know that up until a few weeks ago you could collect £8 in cash from a tenner because I've done it in the past. They've altered it, but again haven't removed the stickers. I was steaming, and apparently I'm not the first person to have been caught out. A nice little earner until everybody cottons on I would suspect.

Matt Vinyl · Post by **Matt Vinyl** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 10:50 pm

Ah, it seems to be the way that it hass been configured now then, as it did indeed say 20 credits, but I thought that when it was reduced by the amount of credits specified on the sticker, collection would have been available...

ob: True, but you must have seen some of the clientelle in Gravesend!! (lol) Once a week, at least 5 machines are worth a pop...

Nil: I'd say that you were almost spot on there...

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 5:47 pm

I won't start a new thread for this question, and this looks as good a place as any, anyway playing a paragon about 2 months back and managed £10 of a quiz game (i forget the name) went to collect my winnings and it just froze, told the divvy bird behind the bar who also tried to collect it but no use, she said its happened before, usually we turn it off and back on and it spits it out? when it came back on there was no sign of the bank, its only a poxy tenner but will there be a record of it when they come to check it? i've been in this place several times since, just to be told they are still looking into it.

Anyone had a similar situation, and can i expect to get paid???

grecian · Post by **grecian** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 6:14 pm

Extreme Eddie wrote:I won't start a new thread for this question, and this looks as good a place as any, anyway playing a paragon about 2 months back and managed £10 of a quiz game (i forget the name) went to collect my winnings and it just froze, told the divvy bird behind the bar who also tried to collect it but no use, she said its happened before, usually we turn it off and back on and it spits it out? when it came back on there was no sign of the bank, its only a poxy tenner but will there be a record of it when they come to check it? i've been in this place several times since, just to be told they are still looking into it.

Anyone had a similar situation, and can i expect to get paid???

This sounds a bit like the disappearing prize bug - basically, if you win cash and press to collect too soon after returning to the main menu, the game will reduce the bank to zero but without paying the cash. After it's happened the machine looks like normal. I'm not sure whether the machine would keep a record; my suspicion is that it would keep the same record as it if had paid the tenner, and it'd be your word against that of the manufacturer / distributor. After two months, I'd rate your chances of getting any cash back as somewhere between diddly squat and fanny fuck all (to put it crudely). The lesson is to wait a bit before collecting Paragon winnings.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 6:31 pm

I did go back a page very quickly, she (staff manager) told me i'll definatley get paid because she'd witnessed it, gave me a reciept as proof too.

I'm with you.... no chance of getting paid i reckon, bit of a bad fault on them this is though, don't you agree? why should the speed of which you press the buttons make it freeze :x

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 8:52 pm

i think you have to put things like this down in the lessons learned column. while a tenner is briefly a tangible sum, in a slotter's lifestyle it is a trifle; had that tenner been on a horse it would be forgotten already. but at the same time, i think we have every right to be slightly surly with publicans who plead diminished responsibility on the grounds of berkiness. at the end of the day it is a hardware glitch, unfo' Eddie, you can whistle for your tenner.

my standard line these days is: "if it comes out, see that it is put in the charity box" (with far too much emphasis on the "if").

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 9:16 pm

Yeah, hardly gonna break the bank, might ice-cream the next gamestech machine i see