MikeP Posted March 6, 2022 Report Share Posted March 6, 2022 (edited) Hey folks! It is a long time ago now, but when I did play fruit machines in anger, motorway services were part of the thing, big time. Who else has experiences in these places, there must be some of you? When I found out about the Ace lines emptier, admittedly shortly before they were all re-chipped!, there were no less than 11 such games in Keele services on the M6 (including north and southbound). They were all nearly empty, by the way - no easy money for me there. But over the years I played fruit machines a lot in the motorway services, and did quite well in the Barcrest force era, and the JPM sklll area in the early 2000s. Regular at Chievely and Membury on the M4 in those days. Any good stories about playing fruit machines in the services?? I have a good one but I’ll hold it back for now! Which service stations were good or bad for you? Edited March 6, 2022 by MikeP 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wearecity Posted March 7, 2022 Report Share Posted March 7, 2022 My experience of service station fruit machines, are losing on 70% average payout machines. But they do bring back lots of memories of days out and holidays with my mate. I'm not a driver, so don't really know the name and positions myself, but my mate used to map them out where we would stop. I can hear him saying, we'll stop at Keele and Chievelys, that you mentioned, on our trips to Blackpool, Manchester, Alton Towers etc to and from London. I'm pretty sure it's down south, but Clacketts (sp???), was one he mentioned a few times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishsta Posted March 7, 2022 Report Share Posted March 7, 2022 Everybody always talked about South Mimms (I think). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boulderdash Posted March 7, 2022 Report Share Posted March 7, 2022 14 hours ago, MikeP said: When I found out about the Ace lines emptier, admittedly shortly before they were all re-chipped!, there were no less than 11 such games in Keele services on the M6 (including north and southbound). They were all nearly empty, by the way - no easy money for me there. Yeah that was me, sorry. I was a student at Keele from 89-93 and made a small fortune at the services. They used to have pinball games in there too, and some like Super Mario Bros didn't seem to be clever enough to raise the replay score, so once we got good at it we could spend all day on it for £1, constantly getting free games. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodsy Posted March 7, 2022 Report Share Posted March 7, 2022 we used to drive there to sleep in car parks to save on a b n b, we'd do the machines worth doing and turn off everything else in the hopes that by morning they'd be ready to go again!! hahah and i'd empty anything unlocked of course 1 living the dream Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
logopolis Posted March 7, 2022 Report Share Posted March 7, 2022 4 hours ago, woodsy said: we used to drive there to sleep in car parks to save on a b n b, we'd do the machines worth doing and turn off everything else in the hopes that by morning they'd be ready to go again!! hahah and i'd empty anything unlocked of course Yep, that was a tactic back then to disable the crap machine so that the good machine next door would get all the casual play! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeP Posted March 7, 2022 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2022 12 hours ago, wearecity said: My experience of service station fruit machines, are losing on 70% average payout machines. But they do bring back lots of memories of days out and holidays with my mate. I'm not a driver, so don't really know the name and positions myself, but my mate used to map them out where we would stop. I can hear him saying, we'll stop at Keele and Chievelys, that you mentioned, on our trips to Blackpool, Manchester, Alton Towers etc to and from London. I'm pretty sure it's down south, but Clacketts (sp???), was one he mentioned a few times. Clackett Lane - south M25, probably. 9 hours ago, Boulderdash said: Yeah that was me, sorry. I was a student at Keele from 89-93 and made a small fortune at the services. They used to have pinball games in there too, and some like Super Mario Bros didn't seem to be clever enough to raise the replay score, so once we got good at it we could spend all day on it for £1, constantly getting free games. Forgiven! Pinballs tended to have fixed replay scores back then, I have one from the era (High Speed - sadly no longer works) and that had fixed replay scores. Re the fruits back then, the general advice was to avoid the M6 - I travelled on it often to visit my folks, and I often didn’t heed that advice! M4 and M5 had far fewer pro players, I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeP Posted March 8, 2022 Author Report Share Posted March 8, 2022 My most memorable day from touring the services to play fruit machines was from - it must have been 1993 I think. Ace lines was over by then, but Pay Rise spot the ball was in play, and I seemed to have got wind of this one early. So off down the M5, and to Taunton Deane, no less, had a Pay Rise and I took about £70 cash and £20 tokens out of it. I wandered over the bridge to see what was on offer Northbound, nothing, came back, and the arcade area was closed, engineers doing something to it, so I headed off down to Exeter to see if there was anything playable there. There wasn’t. So I headed back north and stopped again at Taunton Deane, I crossed the bridge and only found the engineers had totally filled Pay Rise up again - you could see through the reels the coin and token tubes in them days - so I emptied it again! Nice! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serene02 Posted March 9, 2022 Report Share Posted March 9, 2022 I played the services a lot with a gambling bud of mine. Often my mate would pick me up from work at 4.30pm, we’d often end up back home by 3am or later, then I’d be back at work for 8am. Really burnt that candle at both ends!! Probably started playing services seriously from around 1993/4. My most memorable memory is of having to squeeze my arm round the back of the pluggable JPM machines as they were all chained to the wall! Seaside resorts were our main target, many fond memories of week long gambling road trips!! The 90’s was the golden age of fruit machines, for me at least. J 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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