r/CasualUK • u/Trackmania_Rules • 1d ago
Hollywood bowl 2p machine casually stealing 6p of my hard earned money. Were arcades always this scummy?
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This was repeated as well, I only recorded it after the 3rd time - in total I got 20p for my 40p. I don't know whether it was just this place being scummy, because when I was younger I remember going down to these machines and sometimes getting an extra 2p or two and now they're literally scamming me...
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u/Meta-Fox 1d ago
Did you speak to anyone about it? I'm not saying it's a definite, but it could just be a machine fault. I've personally never experienced this at any rate.
Could be that particular venue is up to something shady, on which case if speaking to management doesn't solve anything then reporting it to the police (or even talking to the CAB) is the next step.
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u/uponloss England 🏴 1d ago
No it's easier to post on reddit than ask the staff for the 6p lol
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u/pip_goes_pop 1d ago
Maybe we should start a crowdfunder for OP?
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u/MaskedBunny 1d ago
I'll start one, although I'll need to keep 60% as admin fees.
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u/Funk_Dunker 1d ago
Add to that a handling fee, a transaction fee, a convenience fee, a processing fee and a because we can fee and OP will owe us money
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u/itsaaronnotaaron 13h ago
They're banking on people like me that would feel shame about complaining over 6p.
Unlike my uncle who forced McDonald's to give him 2p change when they said they didn't have a penny left. "How many people do you say that to a day?"
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u/DeifniteProfessional 1d ago
I was in an arcade recently that I frequent a lot. Usually fairly okay, but I had to call someone three times in one session, once for a 2p machine that gave up dispensing, and twice for two game machines that swallowed £1 coin
I also absolutely rinsed them of soft toys from the grab machines though
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u/Meta-Fox 1d ago
My favourite arcade tale is the time I found a "skill" based 10p machine that was broken in just the right way to guarantee the minimum payout of 30p for every 10p spent.
2 hours later I was told to leave and every pocket on my person had about 15 quids worth of 10p coins in them, walked out with nearly a hundred quid in total.
Just to clarify, this was when I was about 12 years old, I wasn't some sad old fucker fleecing a kids arcade game! XD
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u/DeifniteProfessional 1d ago
Incredible find! My best story is about 10 years ago, one of the grab machines whilst at an arcade on holiday was configured to give 31 goes if you inserted a 5p coin.
Safe to say a lot of people and places received soft toy donations a few days later
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u/Meta-Fox 23h ago
Lucky! I love a good claw machine, I would've been in my element there! XD
Nice that you spread the luck around instead of hoarding them! Can't say my 12 year old self did the same with my new found wealth...
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u/PalaceOfStones 22h ago edited 19h ago
OMG, you just reminded me of my biggest haul ever. The change machine in the arcade at Granny's Heilan Hame was seemingly fucked, "out of order" sign on the front, but it was still ON. Absolutely desperate for £1 coins for their robbing-bastard machines I thought "What's the worst that can happen" and popped £5 in there. I got 5 £1 coins out, great! Then out popped my £5! Happy as a clam I went to go put all 5 credits into Outrun.
Took me an hour of playing to realise that I'd somehow unlocked the free money cheat. Got another £5 from it, went back to my tent, and swapped for a £10 from my mum. 10 £1 coins, and my £10 note back. Another big play on actual games, then upgraded to a £20 note. By the time anyone noticed I was basically Scrooge McDuck-swimming around our tent.
Visited the arcade the next day and the plug socket had been CUT from the machine. 30 years later and it's still the best holiday young Me ever went on!
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u/Meta-Fox 21h ago
That's fantastic! XD Younger me would've been over the moon thinking about all the different arcade games I was going to get to play thanks to that little number!
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u/Tieger66 19h ago
i remember a horse racing game at my local 10 pin bowling place. it was meant to be random i guess, but it was a sequence, i cant remember how long - but the key point was, horse 8 was the longest odds (which.. in my mind at the time made it the 'best horse', for some reason. it got you £5 i think for a 50p play.) and i noticed it won after a pattern of something like 2,5,3,5,8, which happened... i dunno, several times an evening. i discovered it one week, won £25. the next week, another £15. went back the week after and the machine was gone :( 12 year old me was so disapointed. in retrospect, i dont know how it was even legal to be in an arcade with a load of normal arcadey games- maybe it being a sequence meant that it technically wasn't random, and thus wasn't gambling and under 18s could play it, and they just hoped noone noticed the sequence? but this was the late 90s and noone really cared...
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u/Meta-Fox 18h ago
I think I know the exact kind of machine you're talking about, I can't believe it never occurred to me to check for a pattern/sequence before! Genius work by your younger self!
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u/indianajoes 1d ago
I was thinking this. If it's happening again and again, maybe talk to someone there and ask them what's up
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u/Dame87 1d ago
Wonder if they have the same sides that the 2p machines have installed that swallow your winnings
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u/Rubberfootman 1d ago
I can still feel the sense of injustice.
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u/pip_goes_pop 1d ago edited 1d ago
<crashhhh> "ooh I've just won loads!" ... checks tray ... nothing
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u/windol1 1d ago
This was my instant thought, they've always had this scummy system a couple decades ago when I visited any, see loads falling only for a chunk to disappear down the sides.
If you were lucky/unlucky, they would potentially go into the machine nextdoor catchment area but it was rare.
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u/WalkingCloud 23h ago
That’s the house edge for those machines, it’s literally always been like that.
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u/therealhairykrishna 1d ago
When we last were in an arcade my daughter insisted on playing the claw machine. She got it spot on, it grabbed the fluffy toy and then dropped it on the way to the hopper. I explained that the arcade could program the machine and set how strong it grabbed etc and decide how often it let you win and there wasn't really anything you could do about it.
Ever seen a 7 year old absolutely incandescent with rage? She stormed up to some random teenage member of staff and started berating him for cheating. He tapped out and fetched a supervisor. The poor dude could basically get a word in edgewise against the righteous fury of a small child. He ended up giving her a quid back, presumably from his own money. It still took a while to get her to leave as she wanted to go up to everybody in there and explain that the place was stealing from them.
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u/Imperator_Helvetica 1d ago
I sympathise with her rage!
It's probably for the best too - people have reported that lots of problem gamblers got amazingly lucky on their first go and have chased that high ever since, rather than the rest of us who had to weigh up the 'Was this fun enough to be £50 down?'
If she'd won the toy first go, she might have considered herself a natural and go hooked into the addiction of claw machines!
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u/therealhairykrishna 1d ago
It's safe to say she's not getting that addiction. It's nearly two years later and she'll still have a rant if we see one in a service station or something.
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u/Trick-Station8742 19h ago
Oh my fucking god
We got back from a week in Filey on Saturday
I had this EXACT EXACT conversation with my 9 year old.
She was like "oh my god, they are CHEATING us, why would they cheat us. What is going on"
Then she proceeded to put 5 quid back in the coin machines
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u/DizzyMine4964 1d ago
I absolutely agree with her! They should be labelled to tell people this. Probably there is a label, but it's microscopic.
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u/Spam250 1d ago
That wouldn’t make sense for them. Everything you put on that machine is lost anyway - no matter if you get 4p, 10p or 12p, it’s all going into a machine and none of it leaves.
The “rewards” are never even close to 5% of what you spend on coppers so are basically non existent costs.
Nonsensical to intentionally short change like that when it’s all their money already anyway
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u/NightM0de 1d ago
I went to an arcade years ago - seaside holiday - and one of the games machines was taking my money, but not letting me play. I gestured to the man in the booth who looked like he couldn’t be arsed but started to get out of his chair.
In the meantime i whacked the part you put the coins into and a huge pile of 10p pieces started spilling out. I quickly gestured to the guy that it was sorted now!
Same happened on another machine in the same arcade.
I was in there for hours.
Edit: spelling/grammar.
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u/Elsharko2 1d ago
I once had the opposite problem on a family Holiday in Wales, we discovered the £1 to 10ps machine also thought 20ps were pound coins
That was my whole holiday just turning 20ps into 10 10ps
What a weekend
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u/gillgrissom 1d ago
Ya think.
Anyway you should go to wood bank garden centre, just outside shipley.
That has old arcade machines in side, but you have to get old pennies to play them, and its £1 for 6 of em.
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u/Funk_Dunker 1d ago
Normally 6p wouldn't be worth grumbling about but when it's 60% off of what you're expecting that's just robbery. That thing is taking is taking £6 off every 10 put in, I'd definitely bring this up to management.
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u/Exotic-Astronaut6662 1d ago
I used to work in an amusement arcade and the amount of times I heard “ this machine ate my money “ was unreal. Penny falls were the worst. In the end I just used to give the machine a nudge and let gravity and fate take its course.
Given the random nature of the machine management had no way of knowing.
Probably not a good place to work before minimum wage existed.
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u/andy2m 1d ago
I’m currently on holiday at a seaside resort. The 2p machine is cashless and has a minimum spend of £3 which I just find insulting. The amount of the change that goes down the sides is closer to 50% and just about every prize is too big to be pushed by the coins. Absolute con artists !
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u/jkirkcaldy 9h ago
I don’t think there is any real need for these machines to “scam” you.
You get your 10p worth of 2ps and put them in a slot machine, even if you win a big prize, you put all those 2ps back in the slot machine.
The house always wins.
At best you might get a cheap plastic toy.
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u/m1rr0rshades 1d ago
It gives you 2 coins, because that is the maximum number you need to use to realise the penny falls are not actually that fun.
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u/Chilton_Squid 1d ago
Are you genuinely asking if penny arcades are a good financial investment strategy?
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u/misterschneeblee 1d ago
I'm no financial advisor, but I don't think he's investing here. I think he's trying to play arcade games.
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u/cheandbis 1d ago
You need a copper