Causing a bit of a stir.

[thealteredemu]

@Chopaholic  Do you have the club section page of cam available anywhere bud?

J

[Mort]

CMA members 'golden pages'.rar

[thealteredemu]

Thanks mort

J

[Levartemit]

Cheers Mort

[thealteredemu]

@Cavey

Hey, with the help of Mort, I was able to find that club machine that would pay the cash as soon as the cashpoint reached £150, depending on top prize settings I guess.

It was Ace Coin Play it Again Club.   I knew of one in our area and it was guaranteed.  My mate usually took it on depending on that cashpot level.

Might try it in mfme, it could be that this was chipped as it would put people off playing if they knew about that mechanic which locals definitely would have.

J

[Cavey]

19 hours ago, thealteredemu said:

@Cavey

Hey, with the help of Mort, I was able to find that club machine that would pay the cash as soon as the cashpoint reached £150, depending on top prize settings I guess.

It was Ace Coin Play it Again Club.   I knew of one in our area and it was guaranteed.  My mate usually took it on depending on that cashpot level.

Might try it in mfme, it could be that this was chipped as it would put people off playing if they knew about that mechanic which locals definitely would have.

J

Awesome J, cheers for the update!  

I remember Play It Again AWP (basically another ACE "reelband" affair that I didn't know the emptier for lol, and consequently always played like boring shite for me), but not the clubber variant.

Would be great to see it in MFME (especially in the form of one of your DXes... if you don't ask you don't get etc  ), do we have the resources do you know? 

Quite a few clubbers of that era were too easy to read like a book, even the old duffers would get wise to it in the end. Not seen many ACE clubbers either, mainly 'Crests and especially BFMs, the odd (rare) JPM or Maygay thrown in for good measure.

BFM always made belting clubbers from late 80s System 85s through to Scorp 1 and 2s, but rather losing the plot thereafter (which was at the end of my playing days anyway, just as £25 AWPs were appearing).

The last AWP I ever played was £25JP JPM Tomb Raider which gave me an unannounced IM first board (but was obviously an IM play-wise), which went for a flat £25 then dead, I pocketed twenty. Not a bad way to bow out I suppose.

[Chopaholic]

23 hours ago, thealteredemu said:

@Chopaholic  Do you have the club section page of cam available anywhere bud?

J

I've uploaded them before to various threads here at DIF over the years but I see @Mort has done the honours already  

One of these nice little circumstances where my digital hoarder instincts paid off many years later  

All kinds of stuff in there!

[Manana]

On 04/08/2025 at 17:28, slotsmagic said:

OK it maybe, but what I was saying is that people will keep finding ways to break things, and come up with creative shortcuts. In a video game it saves time, or sets a high score. In fruit machines it saves time, or gives a quick (or bloody long winded) profit.

Sometimes these are intentionally left in, sometimes people find things out, through dedication, perseverance, or sheer fluke that they are then able to recreate.

There will be absolutely loads of dodgy shenanigans, but there will also be legit examples where certain things just weren't accounted for, or the player making certain decisions hadn't been considered.

As said before some people made a lot of money from machine info. You personally said machine exploits helped pay for your University education. Others on here have frequently said how well they did in certain eras. I know some people who became very wealthy from machines. I'm not talking a few grand. I'm talking paying for a house or more.

For me, machine playing cost me a bloody fortune, and resulted in me dropping out of college and giving up on any prospect of University education. I didn't have any methods or similar to help me. My machine addiction turned me into a shell of a person. If they had actually skinted me before I stopped, make no mistake I wouldn't have planned on still being here. It wouldn't be the financial loss alone, but the inescapable self hatred that would have done it.

I should be fuming at the industry. I am. It contributed to my downfall. But it also seems hypocritical when people here are blaming manufacturers for the very advice which gave them the upper hand over myself and many others. Like you are trying to blame an industry insider who may have industry insight and interesting stories to share. Making him a scapegoat for all the shady bollocks that went in over the past 40/50 years of microprocessor controlled fruit machines.

Quick conscience test - if you saw me balls deep into a machine you were clued up on, would you have :

a) Taken sympathy on my plight, charitably told me the method, and given me a chance to recover most of, if not all of my funds from the session.

Or b) Sat back, itching in anticipation of jumping on the machine as soon as that idiot fills it up. Stupid bastard doesn't realise you can trap that, it's got £140+ owing, just hurry up and lose your money so I can get it out.

 

 

Sorry, but I'm confident it's the latter. Probably down to addiction as I've seen in those with drink / drug dependency - good people who become total self-serving twats who would rob their own family.

So by all means give the industry a kicking, but at the same time you and plenty of others took advantage of the shenanigans yourself. Those who committed suicide e.t.c. - those ripping off the machines and leaving them for dead could also arguably be culpable in that. Laughing at the state machines could be left in when the next player is going to get eaten alive.

Or maybe exposing them to such bullshit helped them make the decision to quit.

We'll never know in either case unless the person leaves a note telling us.

 

This is such a great post. Its genuinely written far better than I could have done. When I started playing fruit machines it was harder to actually lose everything but with the increase in stakes it soon became easy to lose enough that it hurt. What actually stopped me enjoying playing the machines is the so called pro players who knew all the flaws/scams/bugs. Until it culminated in me giving one a good kicking after he had watched me lose and then emptied a machine once too often. 

Unfortunately for me I then moved onto roulette machines which was a disaster but eventually led to me never gambling again. 

There's a lot of hypocrisy on here, I've read the same people admit to using the bugs etc but then bitch and moan when they discover some they never knew and all of a sudden its all corrupt (unless its them making the money of course). 

Great post mate, the part about self hatred is something I'm glad I no longer have 

[Chopaholic]

8 hours ago, Manana said:

This is such a great post. Its genuinely written far better than I could have done. When I started playing fruit machines it was harder to actually lose everything but with the increase in stakes it soon became easy to lose enough that it hurt. What actually stopped me enjoying playing the machines is the so called pro players who knew all the flaws/scams/bugs. Until it culminated in me giving one a good kicking after he had watched me lose and then emptied a machine once too often. 

Unfortunately for me I then moved onto roulette machines which was a disaster but eventually led to me never gambling again. 

There's a lot of hypocrisy on here, I've read the same people admit to using the bugs etc but then bitch and moan when they discover some they never knew and all of a sudden its all corrupt (unless its them making the money of course). 

Great post mate, the part about self hatred is something I'm glad I no longer have 

I replied specifically to slotsmagic's post earlier in the thread (linked below).

As someone who spent a decade losing, and then a decade 'winning', I've seen it from both sides of the equation, and as I've repeatedly noted both here at DIF and in my videos, winning comes with its own costs too.

I am very much of the opinion that most 'players' are, like me, ex-addicts who managed to get a bit of a clue one way or another, and were so far down the rabbit hole of addiction by that point, that the exultation of winning overruled all other priorities.

 

[Projectgilda]

 

25 minutes ago, Chopaholic said:

I replied specifically to slotsmagic's post earlier in the thread (linked below).

As someone who spent a decade losing, and then a decade 'winning', I've seen it from both sides of the equation, and as I've repeatedly noted both here at DIF and in my videos, winning comes with its own costs too.

I am very much of the opinion that most 'players' are, like me, ex-addicts who managed to get a bit of a clue one way or another, and were so far down the rabbit hole of addiction by that point, that the exultation of winning overruled all other priorities.

 

 

Do you really believe that most players were addicts? I don't agree with that. This site has it's fair share of recovering/recovered addicts but I don't think that's a fair split. I think most players were in it for fun win or lose. It's like saying everyone in the bookies has a gambling problem. Some people, most I would say, like a flutter and enjoy the thrill of gambling responsibly. I bet on most things sport related, it makes the said event more interesting, but I stake only what I'm happy to lose. I think I'm in the majority not the minority.

[Graham the goldfish]

28 minutes ago, Projectgilda said:

 

 

Do you really believe that most players were addicts? I don't agree with that. This site has it's fair share of recovering/recovered addicts but I don't think that's a fair split. I think most players were in it for fun win or lose. It's like saying everyone in the bookies has a gambling problem. Some people, most I would say, like a flutter and enjoy the thrill of gambling responsibly. I bet on most things sport related, it makes the said event more interesting, but I stake only what I'm happy to lose. I think I'm in the majority not the minority.

I think players in this context is people you played them to make money. Most of them were addicts at some point, yes.  Probably as a percentage of money spent on all forms of gambling i would guess 80%+ is from addicts, even if 80% of the participants overall are not addicts.

From my point, I think it is a legitimate business if, should you take away the addicts money, the business is still viable on the scale it is. I think that most awps of old would have stood that test. I think casinos might. I don't think bookies and AGC's today would. I think the amount of casual play is minimal.

[Mort]

I remember my uni days, a couple of us played the machines constantly when we had the cash, and then a run out to the local spa shop for some ready to eat chicken and £30 cashback multiple times (back then they had no checks against your bank balance, or, at least, that's the way I understood it, when I found out I was thousands over my overdraft limit!)

Anyway, another chap in our friendship group would only use a bit of the shrapnel from paying for his pint, he always did well generally, and most importantly would not continue regardless of winning or losing - he would just stick to that loose shrapnel which he could always afford to lose.

I wish I'd been more like him, but I don't think he had the addiction side of personality like the rest of us did. I've always been intense, like to understand everything etc. and get very invested in topics which interest me. It's all fired by an addictive personality.

I'd say at uni, where I played the machines the most, there were more normal players like him and us addicts in the minority.

There was a 'pro' player back then I recall, guy called Adrian/Adey/Addy, often used to find him playing in the quieter hours, the in-between times when the machines were on but the bar closed - 'hoovering' all our lost money out of the tubes no doubt.

Ridiculous situation when you look back on it with hindsight.

 

Edited August 24, 2025 by Mort

[Boulderdash]

On 22/08/2025 at 13:20, thealteredemu said:

@Cavey

Hey, with the help of Mort, I was able to find that club machine that would pay the cash as soon as the cashpoint reached £150, depending on top prize settings I guess.

It was Ace Coin Play it Again Club.   I knew of one in our area and it was guaranteed.  My mate usually took it on depending on that cashpot level.

Might try it in mfme, it could be that this was chipped as it would put people off playing if they knew about that mechanic which locals definitely would have.

J

Despite Ace AWPs being absolutely everywhere in the early 90s, I don't think I ever saw an Ace clubber. Be good to have a go on one to see how it plays.

Barcrest machines of the era would reliably pay their cashpot as a jackpot when the reserve was about three quarters of the main pot. The cashpot didn't seem to be linked to the current pot in any way but you couldn't force it out; it would just roll in when it felt like it and the rest of the game continued as normal with its fairly flat profile. 

Edited August 24, 2025 by Boulderdash

[Ze Frog]

2 hours ago, Boulderdash said:

Despite Ace AWPs being absolutely everywhere in the early 90s, I don't think I ever saw an Ace clubber. Be good to have a go on one to see how it plays.

Barcrest machines of the era would reliably pay their cashpot as a jackpot when the reserve was about three quarters of the main pot. The cashpot didn't seem to be linked to the current pot in any way but you couldn't force it out; it would just roll in when it felt like it and the rest of the game continued as normal with its fairly flat profile. 

Yeah, Barcrest clubber's are pretty tedious to play. I'm still trying to get a jackpot out of Club Vegas, but I'm couldn't imagine forcing one of these in the wild, after £50 say it just becomes completely boring. I have been collecting stuff as I go though, as have heard that these will never reach target percentage otherwise. How did player's know when to force these things I wonder, I mean you would have to have some kind of marker that told you when it was near, if for no other reason than the sheer amount of time needed to obtain the jackpot.

I know a lot of pro's here would focus solely on club machines, and I can understand that with ones with exploits, but forcing a Club Vegas, surely it was just better to play regular arcade jackpot amounts.

[Ze Frog]

14 hours ago, Manana said:

This is such a great post. Its genuinely written far better than I could have done. When I started playing fruit machines it was harder to actually lose everything but with the increase in stakes it soon became easy to lose enough that it hurt. What actually stopped me enjoying playing the machines is the so called pro players who knew all the flaws/scams/bugs. Until it culminated in me giving one a good kicking after he had watched me lose and then emptied a machine once too often. 

Unfortunately for me I then moved onto roulette machines which was a disaster but eventually led to me never gambling again. 

There's a lot of hypocrisy on here, I've read the same people admit to using the bugs etc but then bitch and moan when they discover some they never knew and all of a sudden its all corrupt (unless its them making the money of course). 

Great post mate, the part about self hatred is something I'm glad I no longer have 

I kind of get that viewpoint to a degree, but really are the pro players really the ones to blame? I knew very little in methods, so am far and away from a pro player, but even the things I did know that gave me an edge, I still think it's completely wrong and bent, and thought as much even at the time as it was clear for every snippet of information gained, somebody out there was always knowing far more. The problem is, if there's an exploit, people will use it if they can, that's just human nature, but I would guess a lot of people felt uncomfortable with the fact even if it was making them big money. This becomes especially prevalent if you have been in the position of getting completely battered by machines before gaining the knowledge. Like in Degsy's videos, there are some points where you can tell he is actually remorseful and was so at the time, as everyone who didn't know was living the hell he did before gaining such knowledge.

The industry and it's regulators are the real problem, fruit machines could be fair and not completely bent and broken, and all at a time when coding was far more of a dark art. It's clear that the industry got lazy and complacent, no doubt due to greed at the corporate level. When you think how many machines there were everywhere, it's clear companies went bust and coding and design suffered because the bulk of the money from the machines was sent to the top to be siphoned off rather than allowing a team with enough members and skill to create these things after a point. Instead as per Projectgilda saying, time constraints and more and more unreasonable demands on shrinking and less interested team members lead to a complete death spiral for the fruit machine, and in turn left the door open to ever shoddier code and design that allowed things to get completely out of hand. By the £70 era it was pretty clear that all the love and creativity had long since died.

Edited August 24, 2025 by Ze Frog

[Hamsun]

14 hours ago, Manana said:

Until it culminated in me giving one a good kicking after he had watched me lose and then emptied a machine once too often. 

Was that a metaphorical kicking or a literal one?  

In my worst times as a clueless player of AWPs I would punch and kick machines but I would never physically attack another person. If I saw someone empty a machine I would watch and ask them how they did it. Sometimes they would tell me to FO, other times they would let slip valuable info. 

 

 

[Hamsun]

5 hours ago, Graham the goldfish said:

I think players in this context is people you played them to make money. Most of them were addicts at some point, yes. 

This is something I have always believed.

Who else but a former addict would have the motivation to spend their days travelling around grimy pubs, seedy arcaded and smoke filled betting shops seeking out machines they could manipulate and/or empty?

i suppoe it's possibel that some drifted into it without ever having played and lost on a fruit machine in their life but I think that is very unlikely.

[Boulderdash]

4 hours ago, Ze Frog said:

Yeah, Barcrest clubber's are pretty tedious to play. I'm still trying to get a jackpot out of Club Vegas, but I'm couldn't imagine forcing one of these in the wild, after £50 say it just becomes completely boring. I have been collecting stuff as I go though, as have heard that these will never reach target percentage otherwise. How did player's know when to force these things I wonder, I mean you would have to have some kind of marker that told you when it was near, if for no other reason than the sheer amount of time needed to obtain the jackpot.

I know a lot of pro's here would focus solely on club machines, and I can understand that with ones with exploits, but forcing a Club Vegas, surely it was just better to play regular arcade jackpot amounts.

You simply cannot force a Barcrest clubber from the late 80s/early 90s pontoon/celebration era. It will always block you one or two steps below the cashpot. 

What you can do, however, is gamble out a big win. I used to try and start from triple bars and 3x,3x, 2x etc, but if you're lucky you could do 12x from a lower win. Golf clubs were usually the best for this as the members weren't very brave! 

[Ze Frog]

13 minutes ago, Boulderdash said:

You simply cannot force a Barcrest clubber from the late 80s/early 90s pontoon/celebration era. It will always block you one or two steps below the cashpot. 

What you can do, however, is gamble out a big win. I used to try and start from triple bars and 3x,3x, 2x etc, but if you're lucky you could do 12x from a lower win. Golf clubs were usually the best for this as the members weren't very brave! 

Oh right, that would certainly explain a lot. I'm wondering how Club Vegas will ever reach percentage, it's about £1400 in and at 34% currently, cash pot is around seventy something I think.

I'll try climbing the gamble more next time I play it.

[Ze Frog]

4 hours ago, Hamsun said:

This is something I have always believed.

Who else but a former addict would have the motivation to spend their days travelling around grimy pubs, seedy arcaded and smoke filled betting shops seeking out machines they could manipulate and/or empty?

i suppoe it's possibel that some drifted into it without ever having played and lost on a fruit machine in their life but I think that is very unlikely.

It's also the pro players that still have the need to gamble now as well, so even if they started via skipping addiction to begin with, the majority certainly ended up with the addiction. I'd guess a lot of people who made a lot of money have given or are giving all of that back to the industry these days. If anything, maybe the addiction is even worse after being on the winning end for so long.

[Boulderdash]

57 minutes ago, Ze Frog said:

Oh right, that would certainly explain a lot. I'm wondering how Club Vegas will ever reach percentage, it's about £1400 in and at 34% currently, cash pot is around seventy something I think.

I'll try climbing the gamble more next time I play it.

You just have to collect wins when offered really. On the games I mentioned, just let George play it and it'll run about 2% below RTP until it chucks in the cashpot to get it to target. 

You can get it ahead of RTP with a big gamble, but it'll then stop letting you on the trail and when it does you won't get very high up. 

If you're that much behind, just keep collecting decent wins and it'll soon get back to target probably without paying anything over £40.

Dull.

[Hamsun]

1 hour ago, Ze Frog said:

maybe the addiction is even worse after being on the winning end for so long

For sure.

If a 'pro' player goes on doing the rounds without getting new info on a regular basis they will likely end up in a worse place than when they started. I think a lot of players saw the writing on the wall at the end of the £25 JP era and the rise of FOBTs (along with the internet making knowledge more widely available). I gave up about then and  never felt any desire to carry on. It was a relief, if anything.

[dondplayer]

51 minutes ago, Hamsun said:

For sure.

I think a lot of players saw the writing on the wall at the end of the £25 JP era

You are joking the £70 era was MASSIVE - there were so many machines with something on them and some empties thrown in. Died down when £100 era arrived and many players did give up but there's still bits and bobs.

[Ze Frog]

31 minutes ago, dondplayer said:

You are joking the £70 era was MASSIVE - there were so many machines with something on them and some empties thrown in. Died down when £100 era arrived and many players did give up but there's still bits and bobs.

Interesting, the still bits and bobs bit. I had a feeling there must still be something on things these days. When the information is of no use anymore it would surely be interesting to hear about it. I know a lot of people think digital stuff now is a more fixed and exploit free, but I always found that difficult to believe. At least the very latest stuff seems to be kept closely guarded, I guess because of things likely being fewer and far between, and also because £70 era was just too loose really, I know pro's made a killing, but there were a lot more people gaining the information from what I've heard.

[Chopaholic]

The main thing in the £70 era was Barcrest's consistent and fucking up of the £35>£70 upgrades, I think it'd be easier to find ones they didn't fuck up, rather than ones they did.

Loads of DONDs had stuff on them too, although we never had huge numbers of those over here.

Also the Electrocoin hi-techs, which were the last gasp of actual skill features on AWPs, although this made them as dire as you'd expect if someone had done them before you got to them. I could never do the reel skill, but I could do the steppers which was half the battle won.

Also of course you had Betcoms for the duration.

Reds were good on a force.

Some people will speak fondly of the £70 era but the machines themselves were absolutely dire, it's only because there was so much on them that it's considered a 'good' era.

Try playing an Alien 'normally' and see how long you last before falling asleep.